For anybody that's picked up the Daan Jippes collection that was just released, I have a few questions that have been bugging me for quite some time and I figured that somebody here might have some kind of vague idea.
I know that for the most part, the members of Troop A (H,D, & L's core group) have never really had names or been consistent with character count - kinda sorta like the Beagle Boys in concept but less abstarct. Personally I have always counted Daan Jippes redraws of the Barks' Junior Woodchucks stories as much official canon in the duck pantheon as if Barks had actually drawn them himself since A) Jippes went to great lengths to be as consistent to Barks' layouts as possible B) Barks wrote all scripts and B) virtually no changes are made to the scripts with the exception of improving drastically upon the original Gold Key versions.
Having said that, while Troop A's members are kind of inconsistent there are several "rules" that seem to apply even in Barks' own stories that used them over time:
A) There seem to be at least three of the fox/dog brothers in Troop A.
B) There will always be at least one pig kid in Troop A. In any story that calls for other troops involved they are usually pigs or generic dognosed kids to counterbalance the members of Troop A, explaining the more consistent numbers of dognose fox kids, but less consistent number of pig kids.
C) Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the "de facto leaders" of Troop A in terms of ranking.
D) General Snozzie is the official woodchuck hound, but in many cases of Barks scripts Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto seems to have substituted as a not-too-often-canon replacement when the dog makes errors with the nephews. (was this Dell meddling or actually in the Barks scripts?)
D) The Grand Mogul, overall leader of the troop, is usually a large stocky built duck outside of the earliest Barks stories and always has a different oddball rank in each story. Dognosed leaders of the Junior Woodchucks are usually much higher in rank.
Now - this is only what I have observed as "very basic rules" in the Jippes/Barks Woodchuck stories that I have seen since Gladstone II began printing them in the 90's. Do I have that correct? Any changes?
My next question however is a lot more simpler:
Have any of these characters ever been given names? Now I know that Barks never gave them any official names (or if he did I don't remember). In Ducktales, Launchpad replaced the Grand Mogul as leader but that's not canon and I seem to remember reading somewhere in Italy his real name was given as "Bernie" or "Bertie" or something like that. Is that right? Were names ever given to any of the other kids in HDL's troop?
I figure this ought to spur some interesting discussion.
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Author
Topic: Junior Woodchucks Queries and Rules
(4 messages)
WB
Junior Woodchucks Queries and Rules
Message 1 -
2008-08-25 at 20:48:08
Robb_K
Junior Woodchucks Queries and Rules
Message 2 -
2008-08-25 at 21:51:41
Quote from user: WBFor anybody that's picked up the Daan Jippes collection that was just released, I have a few questions that have been bugging me for quite some time and I figured that somebody here might have some kind of vague idea.
I know that for the most part, the members of Troop A (H,D, & L's core group) have never really had names or been consistent with character count - kinda sorta like the Beagle Boys in concept but less abstarct. Personally I have always counted Daan Jippes redraws of the Barks' Junior Woodchucks stories as much official canon in the duck pantheon as if Barks had actually drawn them himself since A) Jippes went to great lengths to be as consistent to Barks' layouts as possible B) Barks wrote all scripts and B) virtually no changes are made to the scripts with the exception of improving drastically upon the original Gold Key versions.
Having said that, while Troop A's members are kind of inconsistent there are several "rules" that seem to apply even in Barks' own stories that used them over time:
A) There seem to be at least three of the fox/dog brothers in Troop A.
B) There will always be at least one pig kid in Troop A. In any story that calls for other troops involved they are usually pigs or generic dognosed kids to counterbalance the members of Troop A, explaining the more consistent numbers of dognose fox kids, but less consistent number of pig kids.
C) Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the "de facto leaders" of Troop A in terms of ranking.
D) General Snozzie is the official woodchuck hound, but in many cases of Barks scripts Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto seems to have substituted as a not-too-often-canon replacement when the dog makes errors with the nephews. (was this Dell meddling or actually in the Barks scripts?)
D) The Grand Mogul, overall leader of the troop, is usually a large stocky built duck outside of the earliest Barks stories and always has a different oddball rank in each story. Dognosed leaders of the Junior Woodchucks are usually much higher in rank.
Now - this is only what I have observed as "very basic rules" in the Jippes/Barks Woodchuck stories that I have seen since Gladstone II began printing them in the 90's. Do I have that correct? Any changes?
My next question however is a lot more simpler:
Have any of these characters ever been given names? Now I know that Barks never gave them any official names (or if he did I don't remember). In Ducktales, Launchpad replaced the Grand Mogul as leader but that's not canon and I seem to remember reading somewhere in Italy his real name was given as "Bernie" or "Bertie" or something like that. Is that right? Were names ever given to any of the other kids in HDL's troop?
I figure this ought to spur some interesting discussion.
Barks told me (and I seem to remember him telling this in official interviews) tht he never intended Pluto to be used in unior Woodchuck stories, but that Western Publishing (his editor) told him to replace General Snozzie with Pluto.
Dognosed leaders were many times a similar rank to the Duck leaders. it was only one or two times that a fabulously highly ranked Jr. Woodchuck officer was in a story, and, yes, when they appeared, they were always dog-nosed.
No, Barks never gave names to troop A members. I can't speak for Ducktales.
I know that for the most part, the members of Troop A (H,D, & L's core group) have never really had names or been consistent with character count - kinda sorta like the Beagle Boys in concept but less abstarct. Personally I have always counted Daan Jippes redraws of the Barks' Junior Woodchucks stories as much official canon in the duck pantheon as if Barks had actually drawn them himself since A) Jippes went to great lengths to be as consistent to Barks' layouts as possible B) Barks wrote all scripts and B) virtually no changes are made to the scripts with the exception of improving drastically upon the original Gold Key versions.
Having said that, while Troop A's members are kind of inconsistent there are several "rules" that seem to apply even in Barks' own stories that used them over time:
A) There seem to be at least three of the fox/dog brothers in Troop A.
B) There will always be at least one pig kid in Troop A. In any story that calls for other troops involved they are usually pigs or generic dognosed kids to counterbalance the members of Troop A, explaining the more consistent numbers of dognose fox kids, but less consistent number of pig kids.
C) Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the "de facto leaders" of Troop A in terms of ranking.
D) General Snozzie is the official woodchuck hound, but in many cases of Barks scripts Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto seems to have substituted as a not-too-often-canon replacement when the dog makes errors with the nephews. (was this Dell meddling or actually in the Barks scripts?)
D) The Grand Mogul, overall leader of the troop, is usually a large stocky built duck outside of the earliest Barks stories and always has a different oddball rank in each story. Dognosed leaders of the Junior Woodchucks are usually much higher in rank.
Now - this is only what I have observed as "very basic rules" in the Jippes/Barks Woodchuck stories that I have seen since Gladstone II began printing them in the 90's. Do I have that correct? Any changes?
My next question however is a lot more simpler:
Have any of these characters ever been given names? Now I know that Barks never gave them any official names (or if he did I don't remember). In Ducktales, Launchpad replaced the Grand Mogul as leader but that's not canon and I seem to remember reading somewhere in Italy his real name was given as "Bernie" or "Bertie" or something like that. Is that right? Were names ever given to any of the other kids in HDL's troop?
I figure this ought to spur some interesting discussion.
Barks told me (and I seem to remember him telling this in official interviews) tht he never intended Pluto to be used in unior Woodchuck stories, but that Western Publishing (his editor) told him to replace General Snozzie with Pluto.
Dognosed leaders were many times a similar rank to the Duck leaders. it was only one or two times that a fabulously highly ranked Jr. Woodchuck officer was in a story, and, yes, when they appeared, they were always dog-nosed.
No, Barks never gave names to troop A members. I can't speak for Ducktales.
Zacharias Zorngiebel
Junior Woodchucks Queries and Rules
Message 3 -
2008-08-26 at 18:58:20
There is an Italian serial, which involves a heavily modernized Junior Woodchucks squad, whose members all have names and individual character traits and include a nephew of Gyro Gearloose. This serial makes use of environmental topics, but also features some more 'epic' stories involving aliens and such.
Here is a German website with pictures of all the new members: http://www.duckipedia.de/index.php/UFF
Here is a German website with pictures of all the new members: http://www.duckipedia.de/index.php/UFF
Ramapith
Junior Woodchucks Queries and Rules
Message 4 -
2008-08-27 at 00:57:34
Hey Dub!
I think it's sorta mouse-milking to try to pin rules on Carl Barks, but even if one wanted to, I don't perceive any rhyme or reason as to which higher ranking Woodchucks were ducks and which were dogfaces. My basic rule of thumb is that the later you get with Barks stories as a whole, the more duckfaced grownups you tend to see.
As for the foxfaced kids, I don't find three as often as you do. Sometimes I only see one, depending on the size of the troop in a given story?which itself seems to fluctuate.
Finally, as to names, W WDC 136-02 "Gladstone's Usual Very Good Year" has a pigfaced Woodchuck boy named Holsworthy Hog whose design is essentially the same as the kid we see in Woodchuck stories later on. This has led to that kid actually being called Holsworthy in a Gemstone comic or two. Whether that makes it canon, who knows? I recollect references to "General Tommy" and other generic kid-names at various points, too, though I couldn't reference any story in particular.
Re: the introduction of Pluto in the Woodchuck solo stories, Barks originally intended to use Snozzie at first; the editors changed this to Pluto before the first script was sent to an artist (the script has a handwritten note with an arrow, "Make this Pluto"); then Barks himself used Pluto in later scripts.
When Jippes first started redrawing Barks' Woodchucks for the Dutch publisher, he left Pluto as Pluto. When Jippes moved to Egmont, he used Snozzie in the remaining redraws.
A final note about General Snozzie: to the best of my knowledge, Barks only named him once, in his first appearance. In other Barks stories he's just referred to by his title, the Official Hound. Post-Barks stories have used the name more often.
I think it's sorta mouse-milking to try to pin rules on Carl Barks, but even if one wanted to, I don't perceive any rhyme or reason as to which higher ranking Woodchucks were ducks and which were dogfaces. My basic rule of thumb is that the later you get with Barks stories as a whole, the more duckfaced grownups you tend to see.
As for the foxfaced kids, I don't find three as often as you do. Sometimes I only see one, depending on the size of the troop in a given story?which itself seems to fluctuate.
Finally, as to names, W WDC 136-02 "Gladstone's Usual Very Good Year" has a pigfaced Woodchuck boy named Holsworthy Hog whose design is essentially the same as the kid we see in Woodchuck stories later on. This has led to that kid actually being called Holsworthy in a Gemstone comic or two. Whether that makes it canon, who knows? I recollect references to "General Tommy" and other generic kid-names at various points, too, though I couldn't reference any story in particular.
Re: the introduction of Pluto in the Woodchuck solo stories, Barks originally intended to use Snozzie at first; the editors changed this to Pluto before the first script was sent to an artist (the script has a handwritten note with an arrow, "Make this Pluto"); then Barks himself used Pluto in later scripts.
When Jippes first started redrawing Barks' Woodchucks for the Dutch publisher, he left Pluto as Pluto. When Jippes moved to Egmont, he used Snozzie in the remaining redraws.
A final note about General Snozzie: to the best of my knowledge, Barks only named him once, in his first appearance. In other Barks stories he's just referred to by his title, the Official Hound. Post-Barks stories have used the name more often.
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