General Duck comics thread

Yeah, I've never heard him called Barks either.

Optimism is a duty.

I wonder if there's a connection between the names of the triplets and "Phooey" being one of Donald's catchphrases. I mean out of universe - i.e. the characters' creator, Disney writer Ted Osborne, choosing these names because they sounded like "phooey". I know that at least Frank Angones, creator of DuckTales (2017), said that in his version of the story, the triplets are named so in-universe because when they hatched, a series of accidents made Donald go into a raging fit, exclaiming "Phooey, phooey, phooey!", which the nurse misheard as "Huey, Dewey, Louie".

They were given their names by Disney gag-man Dana Coty, who took them from then-contemporary politicians Huey Long and Thomas Dewey, and from Louis Schmitt, who was a Disney animator in the 30's and 40's.

The nephews were the idea of Al Taliaferro, the artist on the Donald Duck comic strip at the time, which was written by Ted Osborne. The sequence where the boys are introduced in the comic strip is reminiscent of the introduction of Happy Hooligan's three nephews in the Happy Hooligan comic strip. Believe it or not, Mickey's nephews Morty and Ferdie predate Donald's nephews (they first appeared in 1932, whereas Donald's nephews first appeared in '37).

Yeah, Phooey far predates this show, so I don't see how Argones could have come up with it.

As for why, I think it's just a coincidence, because it just so happens to rhyme with the triplets' names.

Also, I find that explanation a stretch, because Donald can pronounce their names much clearer than that would imply.

Edited by Redmess on Jun 2nd 2021 at 10:58:31 AM

Optimism is a duty.

Also, huey dewey and louie are all short for different things (Hubert, Louis, and Dewford/Deuteronomy), so the Donald explanation wouldnt make sense.

Interesting trivia. I assumed that Ted Osborne, writer of the first story with the nephews, came up with the names, but apparently not.

I never implied that Angones came up with the name "Phooey"; he only came up with the silly story of how Donald named his nephews (which never made it into any canonical material and should probably be taken with a pinch of salt anyway).

Yeah, the story doesn't make much sense (though I think it's funny). By the way, Louie's formal name is generally assumed to be Louis, but in the 2017 show, it's actually Llewellyn.

Edited by Snicka on Jun 3rd 2021 at 2:37:27 PM

I've found a comic where Gyro can apparently talk to Lil' Helper telepathically. That's a new one.

Optimism is a duty.

Man, Barks wrote some strange and dark stories around the Junior Woodchucks - with Scrooge starring as the ruthless villain.

In "Whale of a Good Deed", a tidal wave floods Duckburg, which is rather grim, especially with the Woodchucks doing a search and rescue for survivors. But that is really just an excuse to beach a whale, which Scrooge wants to kill and turn into whale oil, and the Woodchucks trying to stop him. They eventually do, making the knot around the rope Scrooge is towing it with slippery so it will pull loose... with whale oil. That's a rather ironic solution. And Scrooge doesn't really get much of a comeuppance either. He's just peeved that he lost his whale.

Oh, and they name the whale Muddy Dick. Uh... language?

And in "Let Sleeping Bones Lie", the Woodchucks discover a giant fossil skeleton, only for Scrooge to want to bulldoze the thing for a highway (the bones are way too huge to move). Once he finds out about the bones after his first attempt to blow up the hill (don't ask how he missed the giant skeleton on top of it...), he wants to grind the bones into groundsel for his highway. He does realize the value eventually, though, and buys the land, turning the skeleton into a burger joint.

And then the Woodchucks dog poisons him with herbs that give him visions of the dinosaur coming alive and trying to eat him. Yes, really.

Man, evil Scrooge sure is a world away from the Ducktales version.

Optimism is a duty.

I expect you mean to be funny, but "Dick" is not inherently a "naughty" word. For one, "Muddy Dick" is an obvious reference to Moby Dick, and for another, at the time the story was written it was just a name, a diminutive of "Richard" (still it's most common usage in England, I believe).

I expect I may be spoiling your joke, but you never know what people do and don't know on the Internet.

Edited by Robbery on Dec 8th 2021 at 12:30:47 PM

Yes, I am well aware it refers to Moby Dick. I suppose as a non-native speaker I have slightly different connotations with the word.

Optimism is a duty.

I wonder if the yankees saw Super Duck, or Fantonald as he is known in Norway, they would believe he was an OC.

"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”

If you mean, would Americans think he was a separate character from Donald, then I doubt it. He looks exactly like what he is, Donald Duck as a super-hero; he's even got Donald's old-timey sailor's hat.

I was reading one of Barks' stories about Scrooge lecturing Donald and Gladstone about getting rich, and I wondered, what if Scrooge did convince Gladstone to become rich... and he just lucks into getting Scrooge's fortune somehow. What a story that would be. How do you beat luck like that?

Optimism is a duty.

Donald once challenged Gladstone about the power of his luck, daring him to wish for a million dollars. So Gladstone did, and a million bucks literally fell out of the sky into his hat—a tornado had hit Scrooge's money bin, scattering his fortune all over Duckburg. Everyone got rich and no one wanted to work anymore, so Scrooge got all his money back by being the only person in town willing to work and provide goods and services anymore, and by charging excessive prices.

Gladstone has been frequently shown to infuriate the other ducks, given that he can usually so easily succeed without trying. One of the nephews calls him a monster on one occasion.

x4 Fantonald? That's pretty good one. Here in Finland we call him Taikaviitta(Magic Cloak).

I assure you, I'm a completely trustworthy person.

It's kinda weird how the Junior Woodchucks are portrayed sometimes. They're supposed to be like the boy scouts, but all too often they seem rather more self-absorbed and self-serving.

Like in Barks' story, Boxed-In, where the club asks the boys to collect money for the royal purser - to buy the royal purser a medal. Ironically, the story is about how Daisy's girl club is running an event to get money out of men by having them buy box lunches, and a date with the prettiest girl with it (guess who it is), which it calls a sham that makes men antisocial.

Daisy is also really domineering and forceful here, by the way. I'm really not sure what Barks intended with these two characters. Daisy treats Donald pretty much like a slave, with the story even making a joke of that.

Optimism is a duty.

Barks often seemed to have a dim view of the opposite sex. Given his first two marriages, it's perhaps understandable.

True, but that doesn't come entirely from Barks, either. Daisy acts pretty much the same in older shorts.

It's rather ironic that this rather unflattering depiction of women in Daisy has become the romantic standard in the Duckiverse.

Optimism is a duty.

Just a heads up -

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Following some discussion about content leaks and spoilers over on the moderation policy thread, MacronNotes unearthed the forum spoiler rules (in a 2012 post). Not something I'd ever read before.

These are pretty much what you'd expect - don't post unmarked spoilers for very recent releases, don't post unmarked spoilers for off-topic stuff (people may not expect film spoilers on a Marvel Comics thread etc.) and identify the source of your tagged spoilers.

(I think we're all following them anyway?)

A comic-specific summary of these rules has just been posted in a new Comics "Spoiler Policy" thread here.

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I'm crossposting this to the most active Comics threads, so apologies if you see it more than once!

Traitor in the Ranks is something really interesting, coming from Barks. Donald has totally had it with the kids earning bucketfulls of medals, stuffing them everywhere in the house, and sets out to get them drummed out of the Woodchucks (which, considering he should be the one paying their memberships and being their parent anyway, you'd think should be simple enough...).

Meanwhile, the Woodchucks have this scheme of recruiting and training new members, with the threat of demotion and expulsion if they don't. The blustering troop leader certainly doesn't help. And then they almost get drummed out after saving Donald from a cave anyway, without so much as getting a chance to explain themselves.

This club doesn't seem very fun at all. At least not in this story.

Optimism is a duty.

So, incoming controversy - according to Don Rosa, Disney plan to pull a number of old comics featuring stereotypes from the shelves, and this includes the penultimate chapter of Life of Scrooge, where he scams the African tribe. Since that's such a pivotal part of the story, there are concerns that Life will now be virtually impossible to reprint, and accordingly become prohibitively expensive.

How does everyone feel about this? I very much understand how someone could find the story offensive even though Scrooge is portrayed as a villain (and the Barks story it's based on is even worse because the black characters have giant Minstrel Show lips), but I still can't help but feel uncomfortable with this move myself.

Well, of course it's offensive, but that's also kind of the point of that story: that Scrooge has his darkest hour there.

I think it's overzealous censorship. Kids should learn about this sort of thing and learn to place it in its proper context. Just keeping them in complete ignorance just creates the sort of people who believe racism doesn't exist any more.

Optimism is a duty.

Much better put than I could.

Personally, I'd say print it complete and slap a warning on it.

Exactly, that's usually the way to treat such material. Educate people about it, rather than censor it.

Optimism is a duty.