Keskustelujen arkisto

Jonathan Gray provided the English translation and dialogue for the "Shellfish Motives" story. On page 20, County Conscience publisher Gideon McDuck is giving orders by telephone to four of his employees. Lois, Clark and Jimmy are the names of characters in the Superman comics: Lois Lane, Clark (Superman) Kent and Jimmy Olsen. The name of Jonah is likely a tribute to J. Jonah Jameson, former publisher of the Daily Bugle in the Spider-Man comics. Now I'm wondering which names were used in the original Italian printing and did they have any significance.

^Did you include Tintin in there, too, or am I creating a false memory?

Here is a brief history lesson. Yes, it relates to the Donald Duck comic. Bear with me. In 1910, the United States Bureau of Navigation began regulating the call letters of shipboard radio transmitters. Ships in the Pacific Ocean had to use call letters beginning with K and ships in the Atlantic Ocean had to use call letters beginning with W. In 1920, the first AM radio stations began broadcasting. Beginning in 1923, radio stations west of the Mississippi River had to start with K and radio stations east of the Mississippi River had to start with W. (A few stations that had gone on the air in the early 1920s, including KDKA in Pittsburgh and WBAP in Fort Worth, do not follow this rule.)
Now...in Jonathan Gray's translation of the "Wrecks, Lies & Videotape" story, Duckburg has a television station called WDUK. Don Rosa has placed Duckburg in the duck world in a location that corresponds to the northern California town of Eureka in our world. Duckburg's tv station should be KDUK. In versions of this story published in other countries, what call letters are used? I would like to know. By the way, there is a KDUK radio station in Florence, Oregon, and a WDUK radio station in Havana, Illinois, but there is no television station with those call letters.
The "Wrecks, Lies & Videotape" title was adapted from the title of a 1989 American movie, Sex, Lies & Videotape.

Quote from user: WBI dont mind using new gadgets and doodads in a story as long as A) it doesnt read like "LOOK AT HOW HIP AND NEW AND MODERN AND FRESH WE ARE SEE SEE SEE ISNT THIS NEAT WE'RE RELEVANT" and B) the item being used makes sense when being used in the story and doesnt overshadow the plot itself. These types of duck and mouse stories tend to be utterly unbearable on principle.

At the same time, its nice to break the mold once in a while and not limit ones storytelling ideas completely due to adherence to an unspoken rule.

I prefer duck and mouse stories being periodic to the classic era, personally. They just read better IMO -- but at the same time you have to be careful of dating yourself if you do up the era just a bit (Gladstone's weird beatnik period for example) and making your story crass and juvenile for the sake of modernism.
Gladstone as a beatnik just didn't feel right to me, either. It seemed out of character. Daisy's "Mod" makeover in "The Beauty Business" that spilled over into "Hall of the Mermaid Queen" and "The Not-So-Ancient Mariner" (that also featured Beatnik Gladstone) was also pretty weird. Of course, if you want to see EVERYONE in Duckburg out of character and pointlessly "modernized", check out Quack Pack. That series made DuckTales look like it was written by Barks purists by comparison...