Have you ever wondered about the Scrooge McDuck origin story?
About how he became the character we know and love today?
Let me fill you in a little!
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I’m writing this while standing in a line to meet the writer and artist of my all-time favorite comic book series “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck“.
His name is Keno Don Hugo Rosa, but is known simply as Don Rosa. Despite sounding like a hardened mafia-boss, he is actually a very nice Kentucky gentleman.
A lot of his work featuring the Duck family bases on work done by Carl Barks, who created Scrooge to begin with in 1947. Barks and Rosa created most of the “lore” surrounding Duckburg’s characters between them.
During Don Rosa’s career he created a timeline for Scrooges life, from his birth in 1867 to his death in 1967. (Also of note; Donald Duck is 27 in the first story they share. Feeling old now, I never imagined I would ever be the same age as Donald when I was reading these stories as a kid.)
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a “coming to America”-story, a “rags to riches”-story, an action/adventure comedy, a western, a period drama, and so much more! It even has a (voodoo) zombie! That the story has not yet been adapted as a feature-length animated Disney movie is beyond me.
And the art is amazing! Don Rosa has claimed that he does not think the artwork itself is good, only that the details are entertaining. I say; why not both? You could just skim the pages to look at the art, and still have a great time.
There may not be a film-version yet, but if we are lucky we could be getting something pretty close soon. This year Disney XD rebooted DuckTales (Woo-oo!). The rebooted version is a good mix of the original show, the comics, the game, and a bunch of other Duck-stuff. So here’s hoping for some young-Scrooge episodes!
If the comic I’m currently working on is even 10% as good as the work of Don Rosa, I will be more than happy. I will try my best to make it so.
They just cut of the line where people won’t get in before he stops signing. It’s about fifty people in front of me. I’m going home.
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I hope you have enjoyed this little article about the Scrooge McDuck origin story.
If it sounded even remotely interesting to you, seek it for yourself.
I’m sure you’d love it!
I LOVED Scrooge when I was a kid. Donald was okay, Mickey was boring . . . but Scrooge . . . I read every comic I could get my hands on.
I was exactly the same 🙂