In the halcyon days of Usenet, our own Greg Morrow used to have a standing offer (and for all I know, the offer is still open). The offer was this: Read Don Rosa's "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. If you don't like it, you can spit on me."
Well, I'm a decade late to the original party, but back in June, Gemstone published a Life and Times collection. I've just picked it up and read it. Now that I have done so, I have a response to Greg's offer:
Greg, you and I have never met face to face. But if and when we do, I will ...
... keep my spittle in my mouth where it belongs. Life and Times is a spectacular comic.
For those who aren't familiar, here's the run-down: Uncle Scrooge was created by cartoonist Carl Barks in 1947. Unlike his nephew Donald, Scrooge was a comic book character first and only later made the leap to animation (Huey, Dewey, and Louie made their debuts in the Donald Duck newspaper strip). Over the next few decades, Scrooge evolved from a supporting character in Donald's stories to a main character in his own right, particularly under the pen of his creator, writer/artist Barks. Barks is revered by Scrooge fans (including Life and Times creator Don Rosa), the way Silver Age Marvel fans revere Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
So what Don Rosa does in Life and Times is comb over all those Barks stories for various references to Scrooge's history to create a timeline of Scrooge's life. If Barks mentioned Scrooge looking for gold in the Transvaal, Rosa incorporates that into his timeline. The result is a comprehensive biography of the Richest Duck in the World. Rosa then breaks that into twelve chapters, each of which addresses a different point in the life of Scrooge. The result is a spectacular adventure story.
The reasons this works so well are many. First, there's Rosa's research. As I mentioned, he meticulously researched Carl Barks' original Scrooge stories to create the framework for his story. But he also researched the real world. As a result, when he sends Scrooge to the Dakota Badlands, Rosa is actually drawing the Dakota Badlands, and when Scrooge mines for gold in the Yukon, he's using real gold-mining techniques. The result is a story that feels solid.
Second, there's Rosa's draftsmanship. Rosa employs a clean line in the style of Barks-- every panel looks full, but not cluttered; every line looks like it's there for a reason. Rosa draws the world exactly the way it looks, assuming the world were full of cartoon ducks and dogs.
Third, the story -- and I don't mean to sell it short by putting it third. This is a phenomenal story, hands down. I can't praise it enough. Rosa has given us twelve different adventures of Scrooge McDuck, each of which stands proudly on its own and all of which, taken together, tell a cohesive story about one duck's life. It's fun, it's exciting, it's dramatic, it's thoughtful. It's a lesson in how to tell an adventure story.
Finally, this collection also gives us Rosa's recollections on the stories. In notes interspersed between the chapters, Rosa talks about the original Barks stories, his own research, changes that the stories went through during the editing process, and the other influences (such as movies) that he incorporated into his stories. What strikes me most about these notes is Rosa's humility -- throughout, he seems genuinely honored to be working on Scrooge McDuck stories. Lots of creators profess to love the characters on which they work, but with Rosa, it really comes through, both in the stories themselves and in the text pieces.
So my recommendation is that you find yourself a copy of Life and Times. At $17 for a 256 page story, it's a bargain at twice the price. Buy it, read it, love it. I guarantee you won't want to spit on Greg.
Finally, as long as we're on the subject of Uncle Scrooge, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Disney is releasing a DVD of its Duck Tales cartoon November 8. It's unclear how many episodes will be on the 3-disc set -- there were 100 episodes altogether, but we'll probably only see a quarter of those on this set. It's been years since I've seen these, but I remember the first 65-episode season being a bunch of great tales in the vein of the Barks comics on which they were based (the second, 35-episode season shifted focus away from Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie in favor of a caveduck transported to the future and a hapless Iron Man knock-off and was not very good).
Posted by Jason Fliegel at August 20, 2005 11:55 PM