Keskustelujen arkisto

A review of that WSJ article on a blog where the author brings out that already Barks's original text is of good quality:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/05/23/donald-duck-in-deutschland/

Quote:

Quote:But the difference in tone is worth noting. Post-war Germany was in the process of restoring its identity after Nazi ideology raised serious questions as to the legitimacy of the country?s cultural heritage. A funny book provided a means for Fuchs to highlight the value of German traditions free from worrisome evocations of the Nazi?s use of German culture to establish ethnic supremacy.

Barks wrote in a radically different context. America?s literary heritage was not morally suspect; to have used Donald Duck to legitimize Melville or Dickinson would have seemed pretentious, if not bizarre. Barks? visual and verbal rhetoric is instead far more pragmatic?Donald and his retinue are on a perpetual quest to succeed in a world full of baffling new tools and old ways.
By the way, the only reason why Fuchs became editor of "Micky Maus" when the magazine started was that the publishers wanted to have a "Dr." in the imprint as a shield against expected "junk" campaigns. Fuchs just slipped into the job. She never had anything to do with comic books and was quite skeptical that that would ever work in Germany. It was in fact her husband who realised that millions would read that and that exactly because of that it deserved a first-class translation. When Fuchs expressed in the sixties her doubts about "Asterix" working in Germany that was for the publishers just the signal that the Gaul would work. :D

In my view, Fuchs destroyed , and durably so, just as much as she helped to build. It is her fault that, in German, everybody lives in Entenhausen (Duckburgh, Paperopoli), even the inhabitants of Mouseton, or Topolinia! And since she situated Entenhausen in Quacktanien (quacken = to quak, like a duck), you have that supreme absurdity that Topolino imperatore della Calidornia (http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL++274-AP) becomes Der Kaiser von Quacktanien, and the map which features three cities only features one!

You must be right about Mouseton, but Topolinia goes back to the 1950s.

Cheers
D-D

Quote from user: Roger NorthYou're right Robb. Carl Barks was a great duck artist back when he was alive.
And a good thing, too! After he died, Barks didn't write or draw even one story worth mentioning!

Quote from user: Lars JensenQuote from user: Dia-DiaYou must be right about Mouseton, but Topolinia goes back to the 1950s.
Topolinia didn't appear in American comic books, though.
Yes, but Fuchs supervised the translation of the first Lustige Taschenbücher, where Topolinia already appeared. (The translations were usually made by a Mrs. Gudrun Penndorf, but the LTB 1 for instance, http://coa.inducks.org/issue.php?c=de/LTB%20%20%201 , was translated, from Italian into German, by Fuchs).

Quote from user: Gerd SyllwasschyErika Fuchs didn't speak Italian. She worked from a raw translation when she wrote the texts for LTB 1.
Yes, that's what I thought anyway, thank you. LTB 1 doesn't feature any Mouse stories, only Duck stories, by the way, but LTB 2 definitely has stories set in Topolinia - and that's where the Entenhausen mess starts!

Quote from user: Dutch Duckfan Down UnderWhy don't they just do it like in the Netherlands? They're just all living in Duckstad, only Donald lives in Duckburg-West and Mickey in Duckburg-North.
Maybe they don't because the LTB is 90% (or more) Italian Disney and the Italians have put Topolinia far, far away from Paperopoli (as you can see on the map of Calidornia on the first page of Topolino imperatore della Calidornia). The French just translate by Mickeyville and Donaldville.

Quote from user: timoroDidn't sort of Mouseton appeared already in Gottfredson's MM strips?
Depends on which strips you're looking at. In the mid-1930s, Donald Duck clearly lived in the same town as Mickey Mouse, so for all we know Mickey lived in Duckburg (even though Duckburg hadn't been invented yet, of course).

Quote from user: timoroComics created in Egmont, I believe, all characters live in same town, Duckburg.
Well, not all characters. But Mouse and Duck characters do, yes.