--------------------------------------------------------------------------The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck - Episode 7 --------------------------------------------------------------------------UNCLE $CROOGE #291: "The Life and Times of $crooge

McDuck -- The Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never" (1893-1896) [Cover 291] COVER: Not much to say here, except I thought this was a nice scene -- humor, action and danger all in one shot. The problem here was the oval portrait insert. I do those portraits separately so that Gladstone can be able to insert them higher or lower, as the cover art and the logo dictate. So I don't draw them inside those oval frames -- those are added by Gladstone. But notice $crooge's upraised finger -- what's he doing? Looks like he gesturing "whoop-de-doo" or "big deal". Actually he was spinning a boomerang on that finger, but it was in conflict with the edge of the frame, so they deleted it. Another problem in my not drawing the portrait directly on the cover in this same instance was that I therefore didn't notice that $crooge has the same expression on his kisser in both spots, which makes it look odd. And besides that, in the portrait his eye-pupil is too dang big! Gah! * *D.U.C.K. SPOILER*: the dedication is in the camel's knobby knees. I always hide the letters without any other lines in between, except when I hide one letter in each of four matching locations, such as these knees or, perhaps, petals on a flower. --------------------------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER VII -- 15 pages: Well, boy, my Barksian references in this chapter start right off in the splash panel. I slipped some old photographs into Matilda's album that allude to a missing chapter in $crooge's life -- his years in Pizen Bluff, Arizona, as a gold prospector, told of in the untitled Barks tale in the back of UNCLE $CROOGE #26. I will very soon be adding this missing story to the "L & T of $McD", but it seemed like it would be too similar a western setting to chapters III & IV, so I skipped it at the time of doing the original series. Also in the splash panel I mention the Dalton Boys. In the very first issue of UNCLE $CROOGE (FOUR COLOR #386), $crooge simply states that he once "outfoxed the Daltons". So, they'll be the bad guys in the missing Pizen Bluff chapter. The rest of this chapter dealing with $crooge's days in the Australian Gold Rush is based on one li l comment made in Barks' "Loony Lunar Gold Rush" in UNCLE $CROOGE #49: "I zoomed to the Kalgoorlie diggings of Australia in the pouch of a leaping Kangaroo!" When I was a kid I figured that "Kalgoorlie" was just a gag funnybook name... but true to form, Barks didn't insult the readers, young or old, with made-up nonsense. Kalgoorlie was indeed the site of one of the late 19th Century gold rushes, as my research told me... which also dictated which years to place the story in $crooge's timeline. Also, while doing research for this tale from Down Under, I realized that the Aborigine people had a greater sense of their history than virtually any other culture. I thought that a native wise man would be another perfect mentor for young $crooge, to teach him his famous respect for the treasures (intellectual or monetary) to be found in the search for the

past. It's this sense of authentic history that is one of the most salient aspects of Barks' great adventure sagas -- perhaps that's the one thing that makes me, like many others, find $crooge to be more interesting a character than Donald, who seems to live only in the present. It's amazing to note that just here in my hometown of Louisville, just in the relatively few people I've ever met, I've found three people who became professional archaeologists simply because of their love of the Barks/$crooge adventure stories they grew up with. (I wonder what today's American comic book hobbyists will try to become when they grow up? Professional grim vigilantes?) I recall how interesting it was to do this particular episode, finding all the Australian slang and the flora and weirdo fauna to pepper the background with. Readers surely don't realize all the research that goes into these stories, since a great percentage of it is never even used. I might waste a day or two following a lead, calling libraries and searching out books, reading, making notes, then deciding I'm on a wild goose chase and abandoning all the info. I recall making long distance calls to a college professor somewhere who was an expert in Aborigine culture, and getting all the correct names and legends for the Dreamtime. At one point, I think I asked him if this name or that name was the best for this mythological figure, and he said I shouldn't worry since I'd already got it down to a point where only a half-dozen people in America would know the difference anyway! But I pressed him... one of those people would probably be an archaeologist who still read Uncle $crooge comics! Yes, I kinda liked this chapter, but I wince at some of the art. My art changes very quickly to my eyes, since I'd only really been a practicing cartoonist for about 6 years at the time I did this tale. And the art in this story seems to me now to be a period when I was drawing all the Duck's heads and butts too small. I still fight that tendency nowadays, and am constantly enlarging those two ends of their anatomy to fit their beaks and legs. But... it's too late to do that on these old stories. (moan.) * INSANE DETAILS TO NOTE: Again, because they didn't get the proper coloring notes from Egmont, I see that Gladstone colored the giant opal orange and yellow (!?) instead of pink and light blue. But the rest of the coloring here is as beautiful as ever! * MOUSE SPOTTER GUIDE: Mickey is in the 20,000 year old paintings in panel 5 on page 6. * *D.U.C.K. SPOILER*: the splash-page dedication is in the feather on the didjeridoo. --------------------------------------------------------------------------[Pencil Page] [Black and White Art] [Next Episode][Home]