Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Don Rosa , the author of Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions

Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions (in the original: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck ) is a comic by the comic author and illustrator Don Rosa . The extensive life story of the fictional billionaire Dagobert Duck from 1867 to 1947 is described in twelve main chapters on 212 pages . The plot is largely based on hints and clues about Scrooge McDuck's life in the stories of Carl Barks , who invented the character.

The work, which was created between 1991 and 1994, is considered Don Rosa's magnum opus and was awarded the Eisner Award in 1995.

action

Early childhood

The action begins the day before Scrooge's tenth birthday in Scotland in 1877 . There Dagobert grew up in an impoverished Scottish aristocratic family consisting of father Dietbert, his brother Jakob, mother Dankrade, Dagobert and his two younger sisters Mathilda and Dortel. The family has long since left their ancestral home, the Duckenburgh , in favor of a residence in Glasgow .

On his tenth birthday, the boy receives a shoe shine box from his father , with which he earns his first ten. In the following time he made more money selling peat blocks for heating. Meanwhile, he succeeds in driving the Whiskervilles, a rival clan, from the McDuck family home. When he has earned enough, he follows his uncle Diethelm to America at the age of 13. He spends the crossing as a cabin boy on a cattle truck.

Adventure in America

With Diethelm, Dagobert travels the Mississippi in search of a sunken steamer named Drennan Whyte and makes the acquaintance of the tank crackers (the fathers and grandfather of today's tank crackers) who work on behalf of the crook Peristaltus Pork, a rival of Diethelm. In this story, the Beagle Boys also get her name, as Scrooge after the theft of an armored cabinet as tanks safecracker called. The two ducks meet Dankwart Düsentrieb, Daniel Düsentrieb's grandfather, who then hires as a machinist on their steamer.

After his uncle retired and devoted himself entirely to writing penny notebooks, Dagobert took over the steamer. This does not help him financially, which is why he tries as a cowboy in the vastness of Montana . He gained a lot of experience and met the future US President Theodore Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands , who gave him important advice. When the cowboys' days came to an end, his employer Murdo McKenzie was forced to fire him. In his subsequent search for silver, he comes across a copper vein , which turns out to be a gold mine due to the introduction of electricity and the associated demand. An old mining law brought him into possession of an entire copper mine that had previously belonged to Kuno Klever, the father of his future rival Klaas Klever . He supported him because he liked the young copper digger and considered himself "rich enough".

Short-term homecoming

Dagobert is returning to Scotland for the first time in five years. Since his family could not pay the property tax for the castle, it is now to be seized and sold to the Whiskervilles. To prevent this, Dagobert sells his copper mine for $ 10,000. With this he pays the taxes so that the castle remains in the family's possession. During a duel with Argus Whiskerville, however, Dagobert is struck by lightning, falls into the moat and is passed out. In the afterlife, however, the “Council of the Ducks” decides to give him another chance to fulfill the destiny laid out for him in the “Book of the Ducks” and sends him back to earth.

More trips

In the Transvaal , Dagobert went in search of gold and diamonds , but was unable to amass a large fortune. Instead, he meets his future rival Mac Moneysac and is outwitted by him, but can take revenge a little later.

Shortly afterwards he travels to America again to dig for gold near Windy City . Here, too, he fails to get rich. However, he sends his family enough money so that they can live in the Duckenburgh again.

When he is looking for his luck in the gold rush in Australia , he meets an Aborigine in the outback and helps him fight a robber. He does not take advantage of the opportunity to steal the saved valuable opal from the Aborigine himself. A short time later, he succeeds in reading the dream paths , ancient prophecies painted on cave walls. Dagobert is predicted there that he will be successful in the north, on the Yukon.

Gold prospecting on the Klondike

He arrives at the Yukon River just in time for the gold rush in Alaska and Canada. He reaches Dawson via Skagway and the Chilkoot Pass . Nearby, on a tributary of the Klondike in White Agony Creek, he's staking out a claim . Here he makes a name for himself as a stingy and curmudgeon, finds the “ostrich nugget ”, a large gold nugget , and finally earns his first million. He also gets to know the bar singer Nelly , known as the “Star of the North”. She is the first one he has feelings for. At the same time, he has to deal with many claim robbers and fraudsters. At this time he also received news of his mother's death.

After exploiting his claim, he will become a billionaire through investments within the next five years .

Return to Scotland and move to Duckburg

When Dagobert returned to Scotland, he had changed a lot: he is no longer the aspiring young Dagobert, but a tough businessman and is not very well received by the residents. His efforts to be recognized by the Scots as one of their own are also in vain. He decides to return to America with his sisters and to settle a piece of land, Fort Duckburg, which he bought from Emanuel Erpel, the grandson of the city's founder, Emil Erpel . Dagobert's father dies - unnoticed by Dagobert - on the day of his departure.

In Duckburg, Dagobert meets the Duck family, whose son Degenhard marries Dagobert's sister Dortel ( Donald Duck later emerged from this connection ). In order to protect his then eight barrels of gold, he builds the huge money store in place of the old Duckburg Fort. Then, after 22 years now, he meets the tank crackers again who want to rob him again. He is also attacked by the American army because President Roosevelt, through a misunderstanding, believes that a Scottish billionaire would set up a military base in the city. However, this can be cleared up, also because the two know each other, and the tank crackers are put to flight together.

Path to the richest man in the world

After seven more years, during which Dagobert is getting closer and closer to his goal of becoming the richest man in the world, he takes his sisters, who have since taken care of the administration of his funds in Duckburg, on his travels. After Dagobert burns down the village of an African tribe that does not want to sell them their land for half a thaler , his sisters leave him disappointed and return to Duckburg. Dagobert regrets and originally wants to follow his sisters, but due to some worthwhile deals on the way that he does not want to miss, the project is forgotten.

As he continued to achieve successes, he only returned to Duckburg in 1930 after 23 years. Dagobert is now only concerned with increasing his fortune and is not interested in his relatives, who were looking forward to seeing them again. Dagobert has managed to become the richest man in the world, but pisses off his family. For this he gets kicked in the buttocks when he first met young Donald .

Encounter with Donald and Tick, Trick and Track

The last chapter takes place 17 years later in 1947. Dagobert has been living bitter and withdrawn in his villa for years. What became of his former fortune is unknown; he dissolved his empire five years earlier because no one seemed worthy of his inheritance.

On Christmas Day of that year, Dagobert feels lonely and lets his (now adult) nephew Donald and his nephew Tick, Trick and Track come. Because Donald considers the stories from Scrooge's life to be invented, Scrooge shows him what is really stored in his old office building: a large storage room with all the money he has earned himself. Every coin is associated with memories of its life. After the tank crackers raid the money store, Dagobert can defeat them together with Donald and his nephew. In his relatives, Dagobert sees the family he never had and realizes that he has wasted his last years. He is motivated to act again and experience new adventures.

chapter

Main chapter

No. Original title German title Time of action
01. The Last of the Clan McDuck The last of the Ducks clan 1877-1880
02. The Master of the Mississippi The Lord of the Mississippi 1880-1882
03. The Buckaroo of the Badlands The hero of the Badlands 1882
04th Raider of the Copper Hill The Copper King /
The Copper King of Montana 		1884/1885
05. The New Laird of Castle McDuck The savior of the Duckenburgh 1885
06th The Terror of the Transvaal The horror of the Transvaal 1887-1889
07th Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never The hunter of the sacred opal 1893-1896
08th. King of the Klondike The Hermit on White Agony Creek 1896/1897
09. The Billionaire of Dismal Downs The billionaire in the high moor 1898-1902
10. The Invader of Fort Duckburg The ruler of Duckburg /
The Conqueror of Fort Duckburg 		1902
11. The Empire Builder from Calisota The businessman without a conscience /
The unscrupulous businessman from Duckburg 		1909-1930
12. The Richest Duck in the World The Hermit of Villa Duck Christmas 1947

Additional chapter

Don Rosa later wrote more stories that tell episodes from the life story of Dagobert Duck. The story The secret of the lucky ten originated before his life, his billions .

  • 0 The secret of the lucky tens / the hunt for tens between the ages (Of Ducks, Dimes and Destinies)
    This story is often referred to as chapter or volume 0 of the series. The plot tells that Dagobert actually got his first coin from the witch Gundel Gaukeley , who tried to steal his tenner with the help of a time travel. It is further explained that the coin was originally intended by his father as his first reward. It was supposed to be a foreign coin (worthless in Scotland) to show young Scrooge how easy it is to be betrayed and to arouse his ambition to become a businessman.
  • 3B Adventure on Java / Der Cowboy-Käpt'n der Cutty Sark (The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark)
    Dagobert travels on the Cutty Sark as a cowboy to Java to deliver the bulls for a traditional bull race. He got caught in a dispute between two sultans and witnessed the outbreak of the Danan on Krakatau . According to the draftsman, the captain of the Cutty Sark is only partially modeled on the captain Ahab from     Moby-Dick played by Gregory Peck .
  • 6B The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff
    The story tells of the time when Dagobert was looking for gold in Windy City. There he meets Geronimo , Buffalo Bill , Annie Oakley and PT Barnum . Together they compete against the Dalton brothers in a typical western comic .
  • 8B The Prisoner of White Agony Creek
    After Nelly tries to steal Scrooge's ostrich inn, he kidnaps her on his claim. He wants to show her how hard the gold diggers have to work for their wages. On behalf of Scrooge's rival     Shandy Schofel , Wyatt Earp , Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean try to free Nelly. Dagobert can fight them back and also thwart the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy's attempt to kidnap Nelly and steal the nugget. Nelly realizes that Scrooge’s life is tough. After spending another day together, Dagobert wants to pay her for the effort, but she refuses. The story is based on four pages of the story Back to the Klondike (1952) by Carl Barks, which tell of this incident. However, these pages were removed and published much later.
  • 8C Conspiracy of the crooks / Hearts of the Yukon
    During Scrooge's time on the Klondike, there is a winter famine in Dawson. When Colonel Sir Samuel Benfield Steele and the regimental clerk Jack London come to the city to restore order, Scrooge is held responsible for the crimes by the city's crooks. However, when none of them dares to file a complaint, Nelly charges Dagobert with her kidnapping in the hope of being confronted with him. With the help of Emanuel Erpel, Dagobert can only get rid of the allegations when he (apparently) saves Nelly from a fire that also kills her     saloon . She then sends him a letter in which she reveals her feelings to him, but Dagobert throws it away unopened.
  • 10B The jaguar god of Culebra (The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut)
    Dagobert travels with his sisters to Panama in 1906 to find a fabulous mine of the Guaymí Indians. At that time, the Panama Canal was being built in the region by the Americans, with President Roosevelt also present. Dagobert concludes a contract with him that he will receive the mountain with the mine as soon as the gold is mined. They now want to dig for gold together and in secret, since General Esteban of Panama is planning a coup and the “Roosevelt Duck Treaty” would be an occasion for him. When Dagobert and Roosevelt find an old treasure in the mountain, an attempted coup takes place, but is foiled. Dagobert sells the then buried treasure to Roosevelt for the first teddy bear , as his sisters can determine the price due to Dagobert's faint.

Bonus stories

The following stories do not belong to the actual series, but relate to them and are frequently co-published.

  • The last sled after Dawson
    Dagobert receives the message that a marker that he used to mark a dog sled that had fallen into a crevasse in his youth is about to fall into a river. In Dawson he meets Nelly and Schoffel, who assumes that there are gold and other valuables on the sled and tries to chase him off Dagobert. In the end, it turns out that there are only worthless items of clothing and gold digging equipment on the sled. Dagobert just wanted to give Nelly the chocolates he had bought at the time. A flashback shows how Dagobert Duck buys the Glatzenkogel from Emil Erpel.
  • Lebensträume
    The Beagle Boys penetrate through a machine in Scrooge's dreams to come to the safe combination. They are surprised to find that Dagobert does not dream of gold and treasures, but of the adventures of his youth. A chase follows through the various stages of his past.

Conception

The first chapter is preceded by an introductory page in which you can see Dagobert bathing in his money. The question of how he earned this money and how his life went is in front of each volume in the individual publications in six volumes.

Each chapter of the main work deals with a station in Dagobert's life and takes place in one place; the journeys are only discussed at the beginning and at the end of the plot. The exception is the eleventh chapter, which tells of Scrooge's travels after he settled in Duckburg. It tells many small episodes and therefore contains most of the allusions to stories by Barks.

Each episode begins with a page from the family album, which contains images and items related to the chapter. The aim is to convey to the reader that it is a narrative of long-past events. At the beginning of the chapter The Hunter of the Holy Opal , the album page also refers to Dagobert's stay in Windy City, which is otherwise not mentioned in the main work. In the eleventh chapter you can see in the first picture how Mathilda puts down the family album. This is supposed to symbolize the loss of trust in her brother. In the last chapter, the family album was replaced with money, as money replaced everything in Scrooge's life at that point.

As always with Don Rosa, there is a small dedication DUCK in all chapters , and Mickey Mice in some . The dedication is an abbreviation for D edicated to U NCLE C arl from K eno , a dedication to Carl Barks; Keno is one of Don Rosa's first names.

The additional chapters are designed differently than the main chapters. Each additional chapter (with the exception of The Two Hearts of the Yukon ) is embedded in a frame sequence. In this frame sequence, which takes place in the present, Donald works in the vault of the money store and in the process exposes Scrooge's old chest with souvenirs. Tick, Trick and Track ask a question about a certain souvenir, whereupon Dagobert begins to tell or remembers the story in his mind.

Emergence

When Don Rosa was working on The Secret of the Fortune Ten in 1991 , the Danish Egmont publishing house commissioned him to bring order to Dagobert Duck's life. He was supposed to tell the story of how the last male descendant of the impoverished Scottish McDucks became the richest man in the world.

Originally, Don Rosa wanted to tell about the family history of the McDucks from AD 400 in the first chapter in order to be able to include the ancestors of Dagobert mentioned by Barks. He also wanted to give the family an important role in Scottish history. But this idea was rejected by its editor, Byron Erickson . Nevertheless, Rosa built many ancestors into the plot, primarily as ghosts. Dagoberts' two sisters, Dortel and Mathilda, have never appeared in a comic before. Don Rosa took it from Duck's family tree, which Barks had made for his own use in the 1950s. In chapter nine, the death of a character was explicitly depicted for the first time in a Disney story. Don Rosa had to present this to a Disney employee so that it could be printed.

For the American edition, individual images were changed in the chapter The Hero of the Badlands . The James gang were not allowed to point guns at others, so they were redrawn as pointing fingers or changed to point in the air.

After completing the main work with the twelve chapters, Don Rosa began to add further chapters that filled the gaps in the biography. The first of these was Conspiracy of the Crooks , since Rosa likes Scrooge's time on the Klondike best. The story was originally intended to have several parts and was intended for a centenary of the gold rush in the Yukon. Rosa later created other stories about Dagobert's life based on hints from Barks' stories that he had not yet dealt with in the main work. This is how The Avenger of Windy City was created . The story Adventure on Java, however, is not based on Barks' facts, but is a completely unique creation of Rosa.

Character Dagobert Ducks

Don Rosa changed the character of Dagobert Duck in his version compared to that of Carl Barks. Since he “couldn't bear to write stories about a guy who is eternally greedy”, Dagobert became a collector and adventurer with him, whose fortune is a memory of the experiences of his life, a trophy. Don Rosa has thus approximated Scrooge's character to his own. Don Rosa sees Scrooge's character as that of Indiana Jones , with whom he often compares him.

In addition, Don Rosa, like Barks, always treats Dagobert like a person.

Background of the stories

Using Barks' Stories

The comics by the illustrator Carl Barks , who invented Dagobert Duck in 1947, served as the basis for Dagobert's life story. Don Rosa searched her for clues about Scrooge's past. Even small marginal notes with Barks were worked into his life, his billions .

The chapters are based on one or more allusions or mentions from Barks' stories. The first chapter is based on The Ghost of the Duckenburgh and The Dog of the Whiskerwilles . Smaller details of the plot, such as Dagobert's sale of peat, are also taken from Barks' stories, here The Golden Waterfall . At the beginning of chapter nine he alludes to a scene from Barks' Back to the Klondike , which has not been published for a long time , in which Dagobert kidnaps Nelly. He later takes up this incident again in the additional chapter The Prisoners at White Agony Creek . He also takes pictures from Barks' North of the Yukon and Only a Poor Man . Chapter eleven contains most of the uses of Barks' facts, as the rise of Scrooge to become the richest man in the world, which took place in 30 years, is presented in many short episodes. The story of Dagobert's stay in Africa and his curse by a medicine man was given a special place. The incident arises from Barks' story Wudu-Hudu-Zauber or A Zombie Walks Through the City , in which Dagobert is portrayed as unscrupulous and criminal in his youth, which Rosa incorporated and explains into his biography.

The final chapter follows on from Barks' first story with Dagobert Duck, The Test of Courage . Scrooge's words about "the bear" allude to the events of this story. However, Don Rosa drew Dagobert in his modern appearance with whiskers and pince-nez instead of goatee and glasses, as in Barks' story. However, his clothing has been adapted to the one from The Test of Courage .

Historical figures and events

During his life story Don Rosa Scrooge leaves on many well-known contemporaries meet, so in the wild west of Murdo McKenzie , the former cattle baron of Montana, the Jesse James - gang and later US President Theodore Roosevelt . They were actually there at the time. Later on the Yukon he meets Wyatt Earp , who ran a second class saloon in Nome . In conspiracy of rogue occur Samuel Benfield Steele , the Mounty William Scarth , and Jack London , an author who wrote about the gold rush on.

Some stories are also based on real events, such as the dispute over the Anaconda copper mine in the chapter The Copper King , which actually existed. The discoverer of a small ore vein near the mine made a claim to it on the basis of an 1849 law. The law states that a vein belongs to the one at whose bottom it runs the least deep. That is what Don Rosa used as the basis for the plot in this chapter. On his departure for Scotland from New York you can see the Statue of Liberty being built in the background. Dagobert also appears in the following great prospecting adventures in the Transvaal and Kalgoorlie . During chapter eleven, for example, you can see him at the Russian tsar 's "Revolutionary Sale", where he buys Fabergé eggs .

Influences from movies

Don Rosa also used many films as a template. Sometimes he parodied film or western heroes. This is how the idea for the fifth chapter of the film Errtum im Jenseits with David Niven from 1946 came up. In the opening scene of the twelfth chapter he quotes the film Citizen Kane . But Don Rosa sees the similarities between Kane and Dagobert only superficially. When designing the scene depicting the death of Scrooge's father, he was inspired by the end of the film A Ghost on Free Feet .

publication

The stories were first published in Scandinavia from 1992 to 1994, from August 1992 in Anders And & Co in Denmark and from October in Donald Duck & Co in Norway. In France, the twelve opening episodes were published in Picsou Magazine from March 1994 to February 1996 and again from 2002 to 2003, after which all chapters were collected in one volume. As of April 1994, the stories appeared individually in the United States in Uncle Scrooge magazine , except for Chapter 8A. From July 1995 the series appeared in Zio Paperone in Italy and from November 1996 in Spain in Ole Disney magazine .

In 2003 the story came out in Brazil under the title 40 Anos from Revista Tio Patinhas .

The first German publication of the twelve main chapters took place from 1993 to 1995 in sequels in Mickey Mouse , followed by a reprint in six albums. After the main chapters appeared as Uncle Dagobert, the series was continued by Don Rosa , in which the other additional chapters also appeared, including The Secret of the Fortune Ten and Conspiracy of the Crooks as Volume 0 of the series.

Volumes 0 to 6 were also published in 1997 as a limited and numbered edition in a slipcase with a signed art print.

A new edition followed in 2003 with 456 pages in one volume, which also contains six additional chapters, detailed forewords by Don Rosa to each chapter and a three-page version of the last chapter. A limited signed edition (999 copies) of this volume was also published as a hardcover, which was already sold out due to well over 1000 pre-orders when it was published. In the meantime, copies of this signed edition are being traded for enormously high prices on Ebay and on exchange sites (up to € 180). There are also 99 so-called artist's copies with a K number. These were not intended for sale, but one or two copies have already found their way to Ebay, which has been sharply criticized by fans.

The second edition of this anthology, published in 2008 as a bound book, contains two additional chapters by Don Rosa in addition to the main chapters and the six additional chapters published in the first edition. In addition, new text accompanying the individual stories was written by Don Rosa and the layout was completely changed. The accompanying texts are no longer designed as a foreword but as an afterword. The book will now appear in its ninth edition in 2020.

reception

In 1995, Don Rosa received the Eisner Award for his work .

According to Stefan Sasse from roterdorn.de, the story is based on several pillars. This includes "the stringent story, which for the first time traces the development of the richest drake in the world and also knows how to surprise with exciting twists" and the numerous antagonists and historical figures that are introduced in the story. The humor that would appear in “grandiose word jokes” is also praised. The pictures would show a “tremendous level of detail that is completely unfamiliar for Duck stories” and there would be two or three gags in each picture.

Konrad Heidkamp von der Zeit speaks of “illuminating things about the pleasure and suffering of capitalism” and carefully commented adventures in which the legend becomes truth. According to highlightzone.de, Carl Barks and many fans were initially not enthusiastic about his life, his billions , especially since Don Rosa's style was more that of underground comics , but later at least Barks forgave him. The stories would show that "Rosa is hardly inferior to his great role model in terms of hard work and research".

According to comicfanpage.de, Don Rosa “lovingly takes care of his characters, lets them fall in love and some even die.” The latter in particular is shown with particular care. The "carefully prepared change from happy naive child to grouchy adult" gave Dagobert a "considerable emotional depth". The point of contention could be the drawings, which, due to Don Rosa's style, are a bit “dirtier” and more hatched than usual at Disney.

From DONALD was Don Rosa for Uncle Scrooge - His life, his billions made an honorary member. With the work, he had "demonstrated his exact knowledge of the stories of Carl Barks" and made "a great fictional research contribution with proven facts about the early life of Dagobert Duck".

In 2014 the Finnish musician Tuomas Holopainen set the work to music in collaboration with Don Rosa. The album The Life and Times of Scrooge was number one on the Finnish charts for nine weeks.

Web links

literature

  • Don Rosa: Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions. Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2003, 456 S, ISBN 3-7704-0389-4 . (Anthology)
  • Don Rosa: Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions. The biography of Don Rosa. Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7704-3245-5 . (Anthology)
  • Jan Follak: Dagobert Duck and the myth of the American dream. In: The Donaldist . 109 (November 1999), pp. 12-18.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Don Rosa's comments in “Uncle Dagobert, His Life, His Billions Part 0”. Egmont Ehapa Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-7704-0389-4 .
  2. ↑ Don Rosa's comment in “Uncle Dagobert, His Life, His Billions Part 0” on the crooks' conspiracy . Egmont Ehapa Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-7704-0389-4 .
  3. ↑ Don Rosa's commentary on The Avenger of Windy City in "Onkel Dagobert von Don Rosa", Volume 20. Egmont Ehapa Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-7704-0382-7 .
  4. ↑ Don Rosa's commentary on adventures on Java in "Onkel Dagobert von Don Rosa", Volume 23. Egmont Ehapa Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-7704-0385-1 .
  5. ↑ Jürgen Overkott: Don Rosa: I just want to entertain people - and not change their lives. In: Westfälische Rundschau . December 24, 2007, accessed January 18, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Disney's Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions , buecher.de ; Accessed March 26, 2020
  7. ↑ Review ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) by Stefan Sasse at roterdorn.de
  8. ^ Review by Konrad Heidkamp at Kultur-ZEIT from September 2004
  9. ↑ Review at highlightzone.de
  10. ↑ Review at comicfanpage.de
  11. ^ Announcement by DONALD on the appointment of Don Rosa as an honorary member
  12. ↑ Tuomas Holopainen on chartsurfer.de (accessed June 17, 2014).
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 12, 2007 .