Walt Disney liens - The Shipper's Manifesto: Disney Comics/DuckTales (Scrooge/Magica) 

Spoilers: A lot of general ones for the comics and cartoons, but the source material\'s old, so it shouldn\'t be a concern! ;)

You may find it odd that I chose to start this manifesto with Donald Duck, but without him, nothing that is mentioned in this essay would have ever existed. Donald Duck debuted in the Walt Disney Silly Symphony short “The Wise Little Hen” in 1934, and very soon eclipsed the more docile Mickey and Goofy in popularity. This rise in popularity eventually led to extensive appearances in comic strips and comic books, where his world was fleshed out as it had never been (nor ever would be) in the cartoons.

Enter Carl Barks, a storyman at the Disney studios who provided half the artwork for Donald Duck’s first major treasure-hunting comic appearance, “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold”, in 1942. Soon he was working full-time in Donald Duck comics, cranking out stories until his retirement in 1967. I sometimes think of him as being a paid fanfic writer and fanartist, because he wasn’t tied to the restraints of animation and was free to draw and write wherever his imagination took him. Under Barks, Donald became a fully fleshed-out character in a fully fleshed-out world. And when fleshing out this world, Barks expanded Donald’s family, leading to some new characters who would in time become just as popular, if not more so, than the Duck himself.

Of course, Barks’s most well-known addition to Donald’s family is…

Donald’s uncle, Scrooge McDuck, the richest man in the world, started much like Donald as only a bit player but soon became so popular that he got his own comic book title, in many stories almost scaling Donald down to a tagalong. He first appeared in Carl Barks’s 1947 story “Christmas on Bear Mountain”, and since then has become a fully realized character in his own right. His history, however, is in the comics sometimes unclear and conflicting… and it is substantially different in the 1987 TV series DuckTales. Let’s take a look at Scrooge’s life story as initiated by Barks and pieced together by Don Rosa in his twelve-part story, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. (coughreaditcough)

The Scrooge of the comics was born in 1867 in Glasgow, Scotland, to the poor but noble McDuck family. While the family still had claims to their ancestral castle at Dismal Downs, the locals in the area repeatedly chased and scared them off the property, leaving the McDucks to struggle to get by in Glasgow. At this time, Scrooge lived with his parents, Fergus and Downy McDuck; his uncle, Jake McDuck; and his two younger sisters, Matilda and Hortense McDuck. (Hot-tempered Hortense would later become the mother of Donald and Della Duck, while Matilda is believed to have married Ludwig Von Drake.)

Since Scrooge was the “last of the clan McDuck”, Fergus wanted to teach the boy to make something of himself and redeem the family name. To do this, he sent the ten-year-old out on his first job, shining shoes… and arranged it so that his first customer paid him with a worthless (in Scotland) American dime. Young Scrooge took this as a sign that “life is filled with tough jobs, and there’ll always be sharpies to cheat me!” He vowed to become “tougher than the toughies, and smarter than the smarties”. At the age of thirteen, he left Scotland to seek his fortune in America, getting a job with his uncle Angus “Pothole” McDuck on a riverboat.

This is not an overnight get-rich-quick story. In fact, if I told the whole thing, we’d be here all day and never get to the actual ship of the ship manifesto. So I’ll point you once again to Don Rosa’s LATOSMcD again if you want to know the various ways Scrooge tried to strike it rich. He finally succeeded, with flying colors, in the Klondike in 1897 when he struck gold. By 1899 he had made his first million, went into various businesses, and by 1902 was a billionaire. He continued to make money at phenomenal rates, and became ruthless and tight-fisted in the process, alienating his two sisters and eventually driving them away from him in the year 1930. He was to have no contact with his family until the year 1947, when he sent his nephew Donald and his grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie (Della’s sons) to his cabin on Bear Mountain for a cheap thrill to scare them out of their wits… but Donald proved to be braver than he thought! (Or did he?)

DuckTales is actually, in many ways, similar to his comic story, but there are still some things that don’t match up… namely, the dates. The TV show seems to be set in a contemporary setting, judging by the technology shown (color TVs, computer and video games, CDs, etc). If the dating from the comics was left intact, this would put Scrooge at 120 years old, which I find… a little hard to believe, let’s say. In this “universe”, Scrooge was more likely born in the 1900’s or 1910’s. And even though there is an episode that chronicles Scrooge’s early life (“Once Upon a Dime”), and the writers obviously read Carl Barks’s old stories (Don Rosa’s twelve-part epic was yet to be written), there are still some oddities. Scrooge still makes his first dime by shining a ditchdigger’s shoes, but it is in a barbershop where this happens, and Scrooge’s father seems to have had nothing to do with it. He does go to America to join his uncle, but here his uncle is called Uncle Catfish (“Because that’s what he smelled like”, present-day Scrooge recalls). He finds gold in the Klondike, but ends up losing it all and makes his permanent fortune in oil and diamonds instead. His sisters are nowhere to be seen (although we can assume at least one sibling exists—you have to have a sibling to have nephews!). He also spends most of the episode in a kilt. ;)

Regardless of the discrepancies, though, both versions of his early story show much about his character. He’s a tightwad, he’s extremely hard-working and extremely smart despite little formal education, and he’ll do anything to save money. He also genuinely cares for and loves his family, and does his best to instill his values in them. This is more evident in the TV show than the comics, but it’s there in the comics too. He can certainly be unpleasant to be around at times, but it’s always his family who shakes him out of it and reminds him that his true fortune isn’t his money. (I know that was corny, but it’s Disney I’m talking about!)

A cranky, active old rich guy on the outside… still a cranky, active old rich guy on the inside, but with a heart of gold and a firm set of beliefs and values. This is Scrooge McDuck, ranked number one on the Forbes Fictional Fifteen list of wealthiest characters in the world. Not too shabby for a relative of down-on-his-luck Donald, I’d say.

So now. You’ve created an extremely rich character. This is a perfect opportunity to create some villains who want to take that money away! And there was no villain more sneaky, unpredictable, and dangerous than Carl Barks’s creation…

Magica’s first appearance was in the 1961 comic “The Midas Touch”, and at first it was hardly a villainous one. She visited Scrooge in his office and expressed an interest in obtaining coins from him, because she believed that coins touched by rich men possessed special powers, and if she melted enough of them in Vesuvius, she would create an amulet that would make her become extremely rich and powerful too. Scrooge laughed at the idea, but when Magica was willing to pay him a dollar for one of his dimes, he wasn’t about to let such a profit just walk away. Unfortunately, it was only until after she left that Scrooge realized that he accidentally gave her not just any dime, but his old Number One.

He managed to catch up to her right before she boarded her plane and asked her to exchange the dime he gave her for another one he had. Magica at first complied, but when she learned Scrooge wanted the first one back because it was the first coin he’d ever earned, she realized that that dime alone would have amazing powers far greater than just any of his coins, so she threw a foof bomb at him and ran off with it. And so the chase was on.

There’s a couple of interesting things to note here. Firstly, Magica’s original intent wasn’t at all villainous—perhaps a little shady, but she was buying coins, not stealing them. And she was perfectly accommodating when Scrooge asked to trade dimes. It was only until she realized just what dime she had that she decided she wanted that particular one. Also, again take note of the fact that Magica did in fact buy Scrooge’s Number One Dime from him. Does this mean that all these years, she’s simply been trying to take back what is rightfully hers? Just a little food for thought. ;)

Barks used Magica in only a handful of other comics. Her appearances were limited because Barks had found that in creating a strong, menacing villain, creating plots centered around her and her one-track mission was a difficult chore. However, by this time, other comic writers had picked up the character, insuring Magica’s permanent place in Scrooge McDuck canon, along with her eventual inclusion in DuckTales.

Like Scrooge, Magica’s character is somewhat hard to pin down because of the vast and often conflicting canon that dozens of comic book writers have given her, added to the fact that each individual writer sees Magica in a different way. The writers I am most familiar with, Barks and Rosa, both usually present Magica as not a witch so much as a sorceress—an ordinary woman with no magical powers per se, but with the knowledge of how to use enchanted objects and technology to her advantage. Each artist also draws her differently, leaving her age quite ambiguous. Honestly, you could make a case for her being as young as in her twenties or as old as in her fifties and I’d go along with you either way. In some stories she also has a family almost as extensive as Donald’s, while in others she seems to be quite alone.

DuckTales is yet another matter. This version of Magica seems to definitely lean more towards the “witch” side than the “sorceress” side, and also seems a bit older than she does in her comic appearances—but again, her exact age is still hard to pin down. And again, although being one of the major villains on the show, she does not have as many appearances on the show as Flintheart Glomgold, or especially the Beagle Boys. Her only family shown is her brother, Poe, who is trapped in the form of a (non-anthromorphic) raven. Her voice, provided by voice veteran June Foray, is not so much Italian accented as it is more eastern European, although Magica still makes reference to Mt. Vesuvius, showing that she at least still lives in Italy, even though she was not necessarily born there in this version.

Magica’s defining trait is her fanatical obsession with the dime, an obsession made even more fanatical when you consider her origin story—it’s implied that she still could have been very rich even without the Number One. This fanaticism is what leads to her villainy—she’ll go to extreme measures to get it, with thievery only the beginning. What was she like before she centered her entire existence around one specific ten-cent coin? Like so much else about her history, we can really only speculate. As it stands now, though, she exists as a threat to Scrooge, and nothing more.

The examples that I draw from for this section are, for the most part, not going to be your typical romantic fare because, as much as I love this pairing… well, it’s a strange one, based more on speculation than any “evidence” per se. While Magica may have been created as sexier than the average witch, sexiness has little to no effect on Scrooge; as Geoffrey Blum notes in his essay “The Meaning of Magica”, “batting (her eyes) at Scrooge would be pointless unless she were a thousand-dollar bill”.

But this shipping doesn’t just come out of nowhere either—and nor does it spring up solely from my love of hero/villain pairings. There are a lot of interesting parallels between Scrooge and Magica, a lot of interesting ways in which they interact, and a lot of interesting ways in which they really are dependent on each other.

For starters, we’re going to have to go back with Magica’s obsession with Scrooge’s dime again. Because I mean, seriously, when you think about it… it’s kind of pathetic. Magica has devoted her entire life to chasing one old man down for a measly ten cents. She’s either just that crazed by the thought of power, that certain that Scrooge’s dime and ONLY Scrooge’s dime can make her wealthy, or… that obsessed with Scrooge’s dime, and possibly Scrooge himself.

The dime does, in a very real way, represent Scrooge, and both Scrooge and Magica know this. The actual properties of the dime are unclear and vary from source to source—for example, both Barks and Rosa subscribed to the idea that the dime was not a lucky charm but simply a sentimental trinket kept by Scrooge that represented his wealth and work ethic. DuckTales more emphasizes the “lucky dime” route, but even in the episode “Dime Enough for Luck” in which the dime’s lucky powers are played up to its fullest, Scrooge still scoffs at the idea, claiming, “It was blood, sweat, and tears that earned me my cash.” Clearly, in either case, the dime is only what Magica makes it… and only what Scrooge makes it.

You see, Scrooge is the one who made the dime important. Instead of spending his first paycheck, as it were, he kept it as a reminder to be tough, to be smart, to earn his fortune square—and that he did. Thus the dime embodies Scrooge’s credo in life, becoming kind of small, pocket-sized statement of his achievements. This is what Magica is after, not just a cold piece of metal. Magica wants the dime because of what Scrooge made it.

Let’s check out two Don Rosa comic strips that showcase this. The first, “Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies”, not only shows Magica’s belief that Scrooge gives the dime its powers and not the other way around, but also a very interesting way in which Scrooge is in Magica’s debt for earning the dime in the first place.

In this story, Magica de Spell has time-traveling candles, which during the hour they burn will transport her back to any time and place in history. Having been bested by an old, world-wise Scrooge more times than she can count, she decides to travel back to when Scrooge first earned the dime, taking it away from him before he even earned it. After some pages of shenanigans, she finally manages pay two shillings for it from the ditchdigger who was, until now, assumed to have paid Scrooge with it. But the ditchdigger in fact doesn’t put any money into the hands of passed-out-from-exhaustion Scrooge. Magica at first has a good laugh over this, stating that Scrooge will just have to wait to earn his first day’s pay another time…

And so, as her time-candle burns out, Magica manages to place the dime in Scrooge’s hands before being whisked back to the present. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: Magica de Spell is the one who first gave Scrooge McDuck his Number One Dime. :D

In another Rosa story, “A Little Something Special”, Scrooge is in for the fight for his life when his three major enemies (Magica, Flintheart Glomgold, and the Beagle Boys) all team up to defeat Scrooge when they realize that their desires don’t conflict (the Beagle Boys want his money, Magica just wants one small coin of his money, and Glomgold just wants to see Scrooge fall flat on his face and lose everything). Their plan works, and soon the Beagle Boys have their money, Magica has her dime, Flinty has his revenge, and Scrooge is kidnapped. The Beagle Boys, under the leadership of their grandfather Blackheart, plan to blow up Duckburg while they leave with the cash, and while they prepare for this, they leave Magica to watch Scrooge to make sure he doesn’t get away.

Scrooge, however, is a crafty old bird. While discreetly using the old telephone wires to tap out an SOS message in Morse code, he laments to Magica how “sorry he feels” for her, because now he’s a penniless failure. When he says this, Magica realizes that by helping the Beagle Boys and Glomgold, she’s negated the powers of the dime, because it can only work for her if it’s from the wealthiest man in the world… and Scrooge is no longer the wealthiest man in the world. But Scrooge is willing to help her...

The end of the comic (with Scrooge coming out the winner, of course) shows this scene:

I mention this story not only to re-emphasize the fact that Magica believes that the dime is worthless without Scrooge, but also to show that the two are not above helping the other—perhaps only when it’s in their best interests, but they

These alliances are shown quite often in the TV show as well. One of the most notable is in the episode “Magica’s Shadow War”, in which Magica gives her shadow life to steal the dime unnoticed. However, the shadow decides to take power for itself, locks Magica in a closet, and goes off to terrorize Scrooge on its own. Magica’s brother Poe gets, of all people, Scrooge to help her, since he realizes that they are both enemies of the shadow. Magica is willing to join forces with Scrooge right away—as long as she gets the dime, which she says she needs to make her spell to trap the shadow work. Scrooge at first will have none of that, but when he tries and fails to capture the shadow (in fact, all he does is help the original shadow create an army of shadows), he finally willingly (albeit reluctantly) lets Magica have the dime for a short while. Working together, they are able to bring the shadows under control. And even though Magica is far from willing to hand the dime back afterwards, Scrooge does get it back.

Scrooge and Magica also have to work together at the very end of the episode “Duck to the Future”. In this episode, Magica sends Scrooge forty years into the future, where he finds that during his forty-year absence she has taken his dime and taken over Duckburg, making prices skyrocket and citizens jailed for minor offenses. (The name of her industry is “Magica McDuck Enterprises”. Strange that she kept Scrooge’s name there, don’t you think? It’s almost as if she married into the company. ;)) Near the end of the episode Scrooge has his dime back and is trying to get back to the present by using Magica’s sands of time, and Magica is obviously trying to stop him, getting the dime back in the process. The hourglass that contains the sands is broken in half, and each of them has their own amount of sands with which they both try to use, but each time they accidentally place themselves in dangerous places.

(It’s rather odd that both Scrooge and Magica do include the other when using the sands of time to escape from these dangerous places, because it would be easy for either one of them to leave by themselves and leave the other to be probably killed. Just something to think about.)

Eventually they wind up on the Hindenburg, and Magica, woe is her, is all out of her share of the sands of time. Scrooge threatens to leave her if she doesn’t give back the dime—and a lot of good the dime will do her when the zeppelin bursts into flames. Magica knows she has no other choice, so she gives him back the dime, throws her arms around him, and shouts, “Take me with you!”

Well… she probably did have a choice in whether or not to throw her arms around him, or what to say to him. But nice choice there, Magica. You didn’t sound desperate at all. ;)

These are all good examples and all, but they could equally be viewed simply as how Scrooge and Magica could be allies, and nothing more. Is there anything a little more…

Well, yes, there is… but you have to know where to find it.

Finding it, though, is the operative phrase. We really have nothing more to work on in DuckTales, except possibly the fact that Magica constantly refers to Scrooge as “darling”, although in that case we’re made to assume that Magica calls pretty much everybody “darling”. In Barks and Rosa comics, too, we are rarely given anything above slight innuendo. In the Barks comic “Ten-Cent Valentine”, the Valentine in question is from Magica to Scrooge, and Scrooge is completely love-struck when he realizes someone has sent him a Valentine, but his lovey-dovey gaze turns to horror when he realizes who it’s from, and that it’s a warning that she’s after his dime. In “Oddball Odyssey”, Magica strikes a sexy pose when encountering a somewhat hexed Scrooge (thanks to the perfume from her letter), but again, this is only to coax the dime from him.

But Barks and Rosa aren’t the only artists who have worked with Magica. According to the INDUCKS, Magica has appeared in 858 stories with Scrooge, only a handful of which were penned by either Barks or Rosa. Now, there is no possible way I could go in depth with all of these stories, even if they

did all exist with easy access online. But surely, with that number of stories, there has to be at least some where Magica uses the fact that she’s a rather attractive woman to her advantage. In fact, there are two that I know of.

I have seen mentioned before of a comic in which Magica uses a love potion on Scrooge to get him to hand the dime over to her, but she accidentally gets some on herself, too, causing the two to spend most of the comic flirting with each other. If anyone knows anything more about this comic and/or has a few scans, please let me know!

The other one whose existence I can verify is an Italian comic called “Magica and the Triumph of True Love”. I do not have a copy of it, and don’t understand Italian at any rate, but you can find out more about it here. As you can tell from reading that synopsis, Magica is perfectly willing to resort to romantic measures to get Scrooge’s dime. (And again, if anyone has any more information about this comic, or a translation, I would LOVE YOU FOREVER.)

So, in short, Scrooge and Magica have, at the very least, an interesting and multi-faceted relationship. Magica seems to almost depend on Scrooge for her livelihood, and Scrooge is often strangely in her debt as well. They both also share an almost fanatical love of money and power. And there are a few instances where they share, as the Wikipedia article on Magica puts it, a “mutual attraction”. But all these things do not a relationship make.

So what, then, can be said of any romantic relationship between the two of them?

The answer: Not a happy ending, I can tell you that much.

Magica’s dependence on Scrooge is the dependence of a means for her madness, to put it simply. She wants something of his, his wealth, and if we look at Scrooge as a symbol of wealth, she literally wants him. Should Magica realize this, consciously or not, I can’t see her accepting this insight gladly. It might even make her double her efforts against Scrooge to prove to herself otherwise—and yet, in doing this, only increase her obsession with him.

As for Scrooge, I can say with a good deal of confidence that he cannot handle romantic relationships. The website listed above lists a good deal of romantic interests he’s had over the years—and yet take note that he’s still single, always has been, and probably always will be. His relationship with “Glittering” Goldie O’Gilt perhaps exemplifies this the best, because the two of them are almost always at each other’s throats, with far more sexual tension than one would think Disney comics are capable of. Their relationship can be defined as canon, and it’s obvious that there is mutual affection between the two, but their relationship never moves forward. Even in DuckTales, where they are played more obviously as a romantic couple, they still never officially “hook up”, and Goldie is still perfectly alright with using her rifle to do the talking when Scrooge angers her. If Scrooge and Goldie were both a little less stubborn, they very well could have had a long, fulfilling relationship. But they aren’t, and they didn’t.

So I can’t honestly say that Scrooge could have a fulfilling relationship with Magica either. If he refused to get explicitly romantically involved with Goldie, he would definitely refuse Magica as well. However, I can definitely see Scrooge’s relationship with Magica possibly going down a similar path as his relationship with Goldie did. After all, Magica and Goldie have a lot on common. And the qualities of Goldie that Scrooge seems to be drawn too—determination, hard-headedness, a love of money, craftiness, the ability to give Scrooge a run for his money (figuratively and literally for both of them)—are shared by Magica. The possibility of Scrooge feeling an obvious affection for Magica is definitely there.

Scrooge/Magica as a couple is an odd one, and definitely not your standard fare. But I believe it offers many opportunities for philosophical storytelling, can be supported by their personalities and past interactions, and plus… it’s hot as only hero/villain pairings can be. ;) For these reasons, then, Scrooge/Magica is my Disney Ducks OTP, and I don’t think anything will ever change that!

The Disney Ducks/DuckTales fandom is a rather small one… and the Scrooge/Magica shippers in the fandom are a smaller number yet. But we do exist. ;)

Magica de Spell by extro (NSFW, but a very good example of Magica, um, using the fact that she’s a female to get Scrooge’s dime…) ;)

If you are unfamiliar with the works of Carl Barks and Don Rosa, you can find all of their comics online here. There’s a lot there, but they’re definitely all well worth a read!

The INDUCKS is also a good place to find information on Disney Comics.

Referenced in this essay is the essay “The Meaning of Magica” by Geoffrey Blum, which is an interesting look at Magica’s character and role in the Donald Duck universe.

My eternal gratitude goes out to Don Rosa (who I pray never reads this), Carl Barks (who is probably spinning in his grave right now), and all the Scrooge/Magica fans out there who have provided such awesome fan works. :D

Posted on Feb. 13th, 2009 at 07:59 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 35 comments | Share

I enjoy your ship and admire your scholarship! To me, this is why the internet was invented.

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 02:52 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 04:21 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

That was a very interesting manifesto, I\'ve always loved Magica :)

Hot-tempered Hortense would later become the mother of Donald and Della Duck

But I thought Donald was adopted? I vaguely remember a story where Elvira Coot and Scrooge findy baby Donald and decide to keep him. Maybe it was retconned? Or I remember wrong, and it never existed at all?

Anyway, I\'m Italian, and I\'m sure I\'ve at some point owned the comic with the “Magica and the Triumph of True Love” story you linked to. Unfortunately that comic is long lost, and as I read it 16 years ago (wow, has it been that long? I feel old ^^") I don\'t remember any details about it at all. Still, if you find some scans, I could translate for you when I have the time :)

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 03:24 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Hmm, I hadn\'t heard that theory before. The canon I\'m going off of is Don Rosa\'s, where he shows in part eleven of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck that Donald and Della are the children of Hortense and Quackmore (Elvira\'s son). I\'m sure other authors have different ideas, though. :)

That would be completely awesome awesome if you could--even just untranslated scans would be great, I could look at the pictures. :D

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 04:24 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

NP, if you find any scans just let me know (you can comment in my LJ anytime) and I\'ll see when I can translate them :)

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 04:34 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

From what I\'ve gathered, Italian Ducks tradition has Scrooge and Grandma Duck (Elvira) as siblings, so that could very well be Donald\'s history there. In America, the tradition, based on Barks and Rosa, is that Scrooge is Donald\'s mother\'s brother, while Grandma Duck is his father\'s mother, so not only are they not on the same sides of Donald\'s family, they\'re not even the same generation (although Scrooge is so much older than Hortense that he might very well be closer in age to Elvira than to Hortense).

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 12:59 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

I was under the impression that Hortense was maybe only ten years younger than Scrooge, which doesn\'t seem like a HUGE age gap... a large one, yes, but not huge. Then again, my older brother is twelve years older than I am, so I might be a little biased there. ^^;

Yes, a very confusing canon indeed. I won\'t pretend that I know even half of it. :D

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 02:16 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Yeah, 10 years. Realistically probably more like 8 or 9, since she\'s walking already - but then, she doesn\'t speak her first (intelligible) word until he leaves Scotland when she\'s at

least 3. So yeah, she starts walking at birth and doesn\'t speak until she\'s 3. Huh. Maybe Rosa isn\'t around little kids that much.

I guess it\'s not that big an age difference (it\'s funny that you say you\'re biased, because my little bro\'s 10 years younger than me, and I consider him my widdle baby, which he probably is good and sick of), but...considering the time, Elvira could\'ve had Quackmore (he\'s the oldest, right?) at 20, and if Quackmore and Hortense are the same age, Scrooge would be 10 years older than Hortense and 10 years younger than Elvira.

The bigger you can make the age difference between Scrooge and Hortense the better, I think, although the timing\'s wonky no matter what. I mean, Hortense was something like 43 when she had the twins, which is kind of unlikely, especially in 1920. And now I will stop babbling about the respective ages. *g*

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 02:56 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Yeah, the ages kind of don\'t make much sense. We have to assume that Elvira was rather young when she had her kids, Hortense was almost impossibly old, and then Della was very young when she had HD&L. It can make your head spin.

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 03:55 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Yeah, no kidding. I grew up reading the adventures of my favourite superhero, Paperinik, Donald\'s alter hero. Then I read an English Wikipedia article about him, and apparently Paperinik isn\'t canon!? WTF, there is a bazillion stories about him, they are very well known in Italy, yet American readers don\'t even know he exists? And the very few who do know he exists say he isn\'t canon?

Then there is Scrooge\'s rival. I always though, obviously that\'s Rockerduck, duh. Everybody knows Rockerduck, he always appears in countless Scrooge\'s stories to oppose him and,

very rarely, to work together for a common goal. But no, I found out that he is an obscure character in America, Scrooge\'s rival there is a Flintheart Glomgold, who ironically is an obscure character here. I read Scrooge\'s stories all the time when I was a kid, and the very first time I heard even a mention of Flintheart Glomgold was in the Ducktales cartoon, he is virtually absent in Italian comics.

It\'s really surprising too see how the very same characters are so utterly different in different countries. Different interpretations, different canon, even different relationships.

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 11:15 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

It\'s true! We have no Paperinik, which is sad, because I\'d like to read of his shenanigans. And yeah, very little Rockerduck. I wonder why some characters catch on in some countries and not in others?

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 03:50 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

This isn\'t my particular Scrooge OTP, but it was a lot of fun to read! :D

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 05:26 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 08:08 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

I\'m a Scrooge/Goldie fan, but this was a great read. A couple of nitpicks though, shouldn\'t it be *the family castle AT Dismal Downs?* And this past year, Forbes bumped Scrooge down to No. 2. They cheated imo to do it, though. They claim "Uncle Sam" is the richest, with "Infinite" wealth, because of his "limitless wealth of resources and the ingenuity of the American people" or some such. *eyeroll*

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 07:12 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Whoops, yeah, I guess you\'re right there. And I didn\'t know that about Uncle Sam, although I agree, that was kind of cheating to put him on. I know one year they had Santa Claus as the wealthiest fictional character... come on! (Although with all those toys he makes, I guess he\'d have to be, huh?)

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 08:09 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

I made an events of 2008 page for work recently, and thought I\'d get to use Scrooge on there if I could claim he was wealthiest, looking it up is the only reason I know about Uncle Sam. (total flag-waving cheat!)

Santa\'s not rich! He employs slave labor and receives no compensation for products made! At best, he\'s a charity with questionable ethics!

Posted on Feb. 14th, 2009 09:34 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 01:00 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 01:09 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

I was kind of ridiculously excited to see this manifesto on my flist. I wouldn\'t say I ship Scrooge/Magica precisely (my heart belongs to Scrooge/Goldie), but thanks to a tape of "Raiders of the Lost Harp" I had as a kid, wherein Magica turns herself into Helen of Troy in an attempt to seduce a magic harp away from Scrooge, I\'ve always seen sexual tension there. Very glad to know I\'m not alone!

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 01:11 am (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Yay! :D I actually ship Scrooge/Goldie too... not as much as Scrooge/Magica, obviously, but I can say with certainty that they\'re one of the few canon couples I really, really like. (Most canon couples tend to bore me, at least fandom-wise.)

I really should have mentioned that episode in here somewhere. And Scrooge\'s line, "Beautiful women don\'t need an appointment to see me" or something like that--dang is that duck a playah. ;)

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 02:24 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Posted on Feb. 15th, 2009 03:04 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." ~ Jane Austen,

Posted on Mar. 3rd, 2009 02:54 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Now this manifesto takes me back. It\'s been so long since I\'ve read any of the Disney comics. You\'ve done a great job, and I\'m so glad to know that there\'s a fandom out there.

Posted on Feb. 17th, 2009 09:37 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Thanks! :) It\'s a small fandom, but it\'s there!

Posted on Feb. 17th, 2009 09:52 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

It came along too early; I just look at these characters, and they\'re prime rabid fandom material.

Posted on Mar. 3rd, 2009 02:52 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Thank you for writing this! I enjoy this couple so much. They are unlike most other hero/villain pairings. You\'re right that it would never work out, but I still saw enough interesting interaction between these two to wonder why Magica doesn\'t get her own page on sullivanet.com\'s list of Scrooge\'s love interests.

Until you mentioned it, I never wondered about why they always took each other along in the time travel battle. Guess I was too busy lol-ing at her

reaching down his shirt. The things that escape you as a kid...

Best parts because they capture exactly what this ship is based on.:

And the qualities of Goldie that Scrooge seems to be drawn too—determination, hard-headedness, a love of money, craftiness, the ability to give Scrooge a run for his money (figuratively and literally for both of them)—are shared by Magica. The possibility of Scrooge feeling an obvious affection for Magica is definitely there.

BTW, anyone have any suggestions of what would be a good song for this pairing?

Posted on Mar. 2nd, 2009 06:25 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

When you watch the time-travel episode, it\'s probably best to not think much about it at all. I mean, they\'re supposedly forty years in the future, and yet Webby looks only maybe thirty years old at the most, and Magica hasn\'t aged a bit. O_o

I have a whole playlist on my iTunes of Scrooge/Magica songs. ^^; "Witchy Woman" by the Eagles and "Evil Woman" by ELO are the most fitting, I think. ;)

Posted on Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:10 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Posted on Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:20 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

It fits Goldie really well too, actually. ;)

Posted on Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:59 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Goldie, EVE, or any more of Disney\'s trigger-happy ladies ;)

Posted on Mar. 6th, 2009 02:20 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

Wow, great manifesto! I must say I never really considered shipping anyone in Disney comics, but you got my interest with this one. I think I remember that comic with the love potion shenanigans, but it\'s been too long since I read it for me to remember anything. I have clearer memories of the comics in which the same plot is used with Donald/Magica and Gladstone/Magica.

Posted on Mar. 26th, 2009 08:49 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Gladstone/Magica... you have no clue how much I ship them, too. XD Clearly I don\'t limit my shipping options to just one couple. ;p

Posted on Mar. 27th, 2009 08:53 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply

I wondered if you wrote anything for these two and now I found it. You sure do your research before writing.

Posted on Oct. 17th, 2011 10:26 pm (UTC) | Link | Thread | Reply

Yeah, when I make my case, I like to make it a strong one. :)

Posted on Oct. 18th, 2011 07:26 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread | Reply