Prequel Problems: The Duck Universe of Carl Barks and Don Rosa, Part 4

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @Makemakean here

 

[Makemakean]

Special thanks to @Gary Oswald and @Thande for their unlimited patience with me on delivering on this article.

 

[Thande]

Special thanks to @Gary Oswald and @Thande for their unlimited patience with me on delivering on this article.

The tale definitely grew in the telling.

 

[Alex Richards]

The tale definitely grew in the telling.

I certainly know that feeling.

 

[Makemakean]

The tale definitely grew in the telling.

I originally thought that I could handle this in two articles, but it turned out that it really wasn't as easy as just going, one article about Carl Barks, another article about Don Rosa. I felt that to those readers who are uninitiated with the whole genre, if I tried, it would just be unreadable.

The story I really want to tell in these articles is about how a set of stories that originally weren't intended to be part of a mythos or a universe following rules or anything turned into such a universe, and how it's actually quite a marvellous and beautiful story about how that happened.

Kind of like how the story of how J. R. R. Tolkien created Middle-Earth is almost as interesting a story as the one told in his work.

This is for the record one of the reasons why I have been insisting to Thande for several years now that when Look to the West is finished and over, that he writes a short compendium volume about what thoughts went through his head as he created various aspects, which parts of the story he had clear in his head before other parts, etc.

 

[Thande]

This is for the record one of the reasons why I have been insisting to Thande for several years now that when Look to the West is finished and over, that he writes a short compendium volume about what thoughts went through his head as he created various aspects, which parts of the story he had clear in his head before other parts, etc.

Bold assumption of you that I remember.

 

[Makemakean]

Bold assumption of you that I remember.

I've persuaded you to write far more impressive stuff than that in the past...

...and I can do it again!

 

[Charles EP M.]

one couldn’t help but to start asking questions as to exactly how old Scrooge McDuck was supposed to be if he had first become a millionaire during the 1890s. But, in fairness, such questions could always easily be dismissed with “It’s a cartoon for kids! You’re thinking too much about it, and you’re trying to ruin the fun!”

I like the 2017 Ducktales, a literal cartoon for kids, answering this with "he's supernaturally long-lived and may be immortal"