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The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck - Episode 9

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UNCLE $CROOGE #293 -- "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck -- TheBillionaire of Dismal Downs" (1898-1902)

[Cover 293] COVER: If that oval portrait was moved over, the originalcover art had a figure (Sir Quackly) peering out of the castle

window.

That machine/computer lettering on the banner looks totally wrong to me. Ishould have lettered that myself, despite how awful my lettering is. Afterall, that banner was supposed to look hand-made and crude, and I could havemanaged that with one hand! (Well, I seldom use both hands to draw,anyhow.) I had also intended that Gladstone put some writing on the back ofScottie's paper... something like "$crooge - 2, villagers - 0".

*D.U.C.K. SPOILER*: It's hard to see due to the dark green coloring, butexamine the middle horizontal tartan stripe on Scottie's cap.

CHAPTER IX: -- 15 pages:

My original title for this episode was "The Pariah of Dismal Downs", but Idon't recall why I changed it. Perhaps Byron again thought it was anegative reference?

It's easy to pick on Disney for how they seem to demand that the AmericanDisney comic books remain so insipid, even while the Disney animatedfeatures are allowed to grow. Not that these are specs worth "growing"into, but recent Disney feature-cartoons have featured heroes callingpeople "horse's rear ends" or used farting as another main character'smajor personality trait. But I hafta hand it to somebody at Disney thatthey allowed this chapter (and chapter XI) to see print, almost unchanged.Not that there was anything in this story that was shocking by any normalstandards, but the death of a character, much less a main character, wassomething never before seen in an American Disney issue. I knew from thestart that the storyline would have to involve the death of $crooge'sparents -- and I think I handled the death of his father fairly tastefullyby using the final scene in THE GHOST AND MRS.MUIR as my inspiration. Icould hear that glorious Bernard Herrmann score playing in my head as Idrew those final panels.

The rest of this episode is more of a gag story than an adventure tale, asI show the problems the billionaire $crooge has in trying to fit back intothe Scotch culture after traveling the world for so many years. Not veryexciting... but there's a few cute gags; in fact, I still chuckle at myselfwhen I read over the sequence where $crooge is trying to have a serioustalk to his father, but he's getting rattled because his sisters areteasing him about the lock of hair they find in his lock-me-tight.

But as for the Barksian facts that this episode is built on... thenewspaper headlines in the splash panel which refer to the discovery of theGoose Egg Nugget, the brawl in the Blackjack Ballroom and the abduction ofGlittering Goldie all come from "Back to the Klondike" in UNCLE $CROOGE /FOUR COLOR #456. Actually, these are references to the pages deleted fromthat old Dell issue, which we Barks fans have had copies of for years, butwhich have only recently been printed in actual comic books.

 

Next is the sequence copied right out of Barks' "North of the Yukon" (UNCLE$CROOGE #59) where $crooge is paying Soapy Slick back for the loan that got$crooge started as a Yukon sourdough. Actually, that old story caused mesome continuity problems since it showed Soapy in Goldboom, Alaska, ratherthan in the Canadian Yukon or Skagway where such a loan would have takenplace. Chapter VIII showed how I tried to wiggle around that problem byhaving the loan originate in Skagway, Soapy move to Dawson, then getdeported down-river to Alaska. But there was still one Barksian fact I hadto ignore -- the original story said that $crooge obtained the loan in 1898which would have been too late to have allowed him to take part in the goldrush -- all the gold land was claimed by then. In my version, the loan ismade in '96... not really much of a change.

I use a few more "recreated" panels -- the scene where $crooge is beingrazzed by Dawsonites is from "Only a Poor Old Man" in UNCLE $CROOGE #1 /FOUR COLOR #386, and the scene where $crooge is being told he's worth amillion dollars is from, if I may be so bold, my own "Last Sled to Dawson"in Gladstone's UNCLE $CROOGE ADVENTURES #5.

The scene of $crooge burying a cache of nuggets is told of in Barks' "Backto the Klondike".

That $crooge went from being a sourdough to owning a bank in the Yukon isfrom "The King of the Golden River" in UNCLE $CROOGE #22: "I ran a bank inthe Klondike for 3 years". In my "Last Sled to Dawson" I'd decided thatbank was in Whitehorse and the years were 1899-1902. The idea that $croogeran many other businesses in the Canadian frontier during these years issuggested by "The Loony Lunar Gold Rush" in UNCLE $CROOGE #49, as well as$crooge's well-known claim that he made his first billion in the Yukon.

Perhaps the most notable scene in this chapter is $crooge's purchase of thefamiliar old frock we've seen him wearing for decades. Barks told of thisin "The Golden Fleecing" (UNCLE $CROOGE #12): "This old broadcloth that Ibought at a rummage sale in Scotland in 1902". That reference is also how Iknew that $crooge needed to be returning home during that year. Looks likehe already had his spats. He has his specks in his pocket, bought in 1885.And his top hat and cane come along in chapter XI.

Those barrels containing $crooge's first billion dollars were first seen inBarks' untitled 10-pager in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #130... one ofmy favorites! In that same story, however, was another impossible date --$crooge claims that the barrels have been in the bottom of the Bin for "70years". This is a problem that I deal with in my text for chapter X.

I've already mentioned that Sir Quackly comes from "The Old Castle'sSecret" in DONALD DUCK / FOUR COLOR #189, but that same story gave us$crooge's groundskeeper, Scottie McTerrier. Actually, I guess this isScottie's first appearance, as the "Scottie" in Barks' story was animposter.

The Whiskervilles came from "The Hound of the Whiskervilles" in UNCLE$CROOGE #29, but even though I used the McDuck tartan in episode I as wellas here, I neglected to mention it also was shown in that story.

There are a few references to some of my own past tales. The deed to$crooge's Killmotor Hill land in Duckburg was first seen in my "Last Sledto Dawson" when $crooge bought it from Cornelius Coot's grandson inWhitehorse in 1899. And in my "His Majesty McDuck" (UNCLE $CROOGEADVENTURES #14) I showed that $crooge keeps it packed away in an old safety

 

deposit box from his Whitehorse bank along with the Goose Egg Nugget and alock of somebody's glittering-gold hair. That's also when I showed thatpot-bellied stove left over from $crooge's Whitehorse bank.

* INSANE DETAILS TO NOTE:

There seems to be a date of "May 10, 1897" on that newspaper in the splashpanel. I guess I was trying to date the end of chapter VIII as well as theflashback in "Back to the Klondike". Hm.

The references to the town of "MacDuich" (Gaelic for "McDuck") are remnantsof those unused portions of the script for chapter I.

Page 5, panels 2: my script had $crooge saying "bloody peasant!" That,along with the dialogue in panel 3, comes from MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLYGRAIL (which you probably knew already).

That reminds me that the line in page 8, panel 3... "a prodigious throw"...is an in-joke to myself. It was what John Steed would always say to Mrs.Peel at the beginning of every episode of "The Avengers" when shedemonstrated her jiu-jitsu... or perhaps it was from the commercial promosfor the series. I was the only person who was supposed to know that. Nowthat's carrying in-jokes to an extreme!

Page 10, panel 3: my original dialogue was "We must adjourn momentarily tothe village pub for a wee dram to warm the blood"... not a "hot drink".(That's how they later get "too warm". Not from tea!)

Page 12, panel 1: I believe the Grimpin Mire is where Sherlock almost gotcroaked by that Hound.

* *D.U.C.K. SPOILER*: the splash-page dedication is in the scribbles oftype on the lower lines of the newspaper.

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+ Note: No changes were made to the original script, so noneare presented.

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