Somewhere between the classic "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold" (Dell Four Color #9, 1942) and the relatively well-known Italian sequel, "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold Again" (American English version in Donald Duck #366, 2011), there was this 1957 Brazilian oddity that seemed something of a hybrid of each!
As dialogued by our great friend Achille Talon, it becomes a more spirited read than I could ever imagine it was in its original form - and so we present it here!
Click to find yet another treasure!
Enjoy, and whatever you do... Don't go up in a pile of white hot duck dust!
Thanks for the nod to UNCLE SCROOGE (IDW) # 7, Achille!
And, if a waterlogged parrot shows up at your door - pretend you're not at home!
12 comments:
OK, I just want to say that this post is very nicely coordinated with GeoX's reviews of the two Yellow Beak stories on his blog! Also, Achille Talon's dialogue was what made reading this worthwhile, aside from the sheer historical curiosity factor.
Elaine:
The coordination was part serendipity and part my own lateness in posting it!
And, yes… apart from the curiosity factor and Achille’s dialogue – and that we all love Yellow Beak so darned much – I can’t think of any other reason for reading it. But I tend to feel that way about most Brazilian material – certainly all of it I’ve been exposed to! Super Chief O’Hara? Egad!
Oh, I've liked some Brazilian stories: O Preço das Suíças by Ivan Saidenberg with Scrooge's tale of the Klondike days--Goldie appears!, or O Anel de Stonehenge by Arthur Faria, Jr. where Donald tangles with Magica's ancestor at Stonehenge. And Faria's Bruxa Ecolójika (nice pun on Magica's name in Portuguese!) where Magica takes on Rockerduck, who is deforesting the land around her cabin. I appreciate the way Saidenberg built on the Barks stories; he has one story which directly calls back to the Phantom of Notre Duck.
You're a bit harsh on the Brazilian material, there, I think, Joe! There is a lot of it out there. Being exposed only to Super Chief O'Hara is not unlike thinking all American Disney comics are similar to 1970's Vic Lockman "Captain Hook and Madam Mim team up to rob Scrooge's Giant Money Vault"-type yarns! There are a lot of more sedate, and perfectly charming, Duck and Mouse stories to choose from.
This sounds like a perfect opportunity for Fantagraphics to offer a hardcover reprint collection that compiles all 3 tales in one volume.
Why think small, ‘Rehab?
Why not one massive collection called “Donald Duck: The Yellow Beak Chronicles – Adventures in Finding Pirate Gold”!
It could be an historical volume of how this one story – that wasn’t even intended for comic books – transmogrified over the years… with perspective-providing text that I would (AHEM!) be glad to contribute to!
It could contain: “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold”, “Donald Duck and the Pirates” (the abbreviated remake from the Cheerios Giveaway comic), “The Treasure of Yellow Beak” (in its Achille Talon version), “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold Again” (my version, of course), and the Dell Seven Dwarfs and Peter Pan versions!
I’m certain the Woody Woodpecker version would not be included… BUT, to compensate for that, they could also run Mickey Mouse “The Clipper Ship Caper” (MICKEY MOUSE # 77, 1961) which, while NOT a remake of “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold”, nevertheless contains discreet elements of that classic story – down to Pete dressed as a poor old lady! No parrot, though!
…I’d buy it!
Elaine and Achille:
Please note that my criticism of the… unique… style of Brazilian Disney comics is limited to “… all of it I’ve been exposed to!”
And all of that makes the most “Out-There-Italian-Stuff” read like Carl Fallberg and Paul Murry! What I’ve seen is decidedly not to my taste… in story, art, and formatting! But again it’s just “what I’ve seen”!
Nothing is all bad (despite how we may view certain current American comics that shall remain nameless), and I can’t imagine that the country responsible for… for… for… “so many wonderful beach pictures”, couldn’t produce a reasonable amount of good material.
But, there are certain things that just stick with me (…and once “stuck” cannot become “unstuck”) like “Bird Bothered Hero”, “Legendary Super Pickax”… and “Super Chief O’Hara”!
And, quite ironically, I tend to make them bigger and more memorable than they have any right to be!
Though I’ll take Vic Lockman’s type of "Captain Hook and Madam Mim team up to rob Scrooge's Giant Money Vault" over “Super Chief O’Hara” any day! …Because at least Ol’ Vic kept them in character!
I should also add that Vic Lockman was responsible for so many bizarre team-up stories because, for WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST, he was asked to get as many different characters into the book as possible. Teaming-up Moby Duck, Dumbo, and Tinker Bell would probably have not “come naturally”… even for him!
Hm… a Complete Pirate Gold Library? Something to think about for 2022 and the 80th anniversary of the original, mayhaps! (And as concerns Woody, Splinter & Knothead Search for Pirate Treasure — who's to say that with this kind of timeframe, Disney won't have bought Universal wholesale by then, eh?)
Bookmarking this to read soon, thanks!
Why, I can even SEE the BOOKMARK in your Icon, Abe!
Looking forward to your thoughts, when they come. Never any hurry ‘round here!
Achille:
You write: “(And as concerns Woody, Splinter & Knothead Search for Pirate Treasure — who's to say that with this kind of timeframe, Disney won't have bought Universal wholesale by then, eh?)”
I think 2022 is a little soon for the consumption of Universal… even for “Jabba-Disney the Hutt” (…Yeah, I know that was well beneath my usually high creative standards, but it’s been a long day!)
Now, I won’t live to see it… but YOU might, and Averi probably will… but there WILL one day be just ONE “Great and Powerful Oz-like” source of entertainment product for us to consume – or more likely be force-fed to us – and we will either have to like it, or lump it!
The moment Disney took possession of the ABC television network, I knew this would happen, and the surviving media giants have yet to prove me wrong. As each one succumbs to the massive debt incurred by rapacious acquisition (…as AT&T / Time Warner appears to be doing now, endangering the continued existence of DC Comics as inconsequential collateral damage), they will undoubtedly consume one another until only one remains!
I used to think it would come down to Disney and (pre-AT&T) Time Warner – and would look something like the illustrations in THIS POST (both of them – more like the first one, but the second one is applicable too), but I’m less certain about the long-term viability of the latter than the former in this struggle for supremacy… especially when the occasional (unfounded) rumors come my way about AT&T selling-off DC Comics to Disney, or just letting it atrophy altogether.
…Not that I’d miss today’s DC very much, but the very idea of DC and Marvel under the same corporate umbrella is just as unthinkable as a US president refusing to commit to a “peaceful transition of power” to his opponent, should he lose an election… Oh, no wait!
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