The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

Can someone explain why this is so great? I've never read Disney comics before, but I've heard people say that Life and Times is the pinnacle of Western comics.

Funny, adventurous, strong continuity, and it rewarding seeing how Scrooge develops and changes over time

It's an immensely inventive historical adventure filled with a wealth of sight gags, brilliant set pieces and a story of a poor boy who becomes the richest person on earth at the expense of nearly everything that really matters to him. It is a fantastic comic on those merits alone, but it's also a Herculean effort of some of the most dedicated and honestly autistic welding of every single possible scrap of continuity that could be gleamed from twenty years of funny animal book stories into a mostly cohesive and sensible whole.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it the pinnacle of Western comics, but most people hold in high esteem, not just for the reasons I listed, but for it being their introduction to the world that Barks made, and which Rosa pays devout homage too. For the wealth of brilliant Duck comics it opened up to me it will always hold a special place in my heart

These duck comics are the capeshit here and in most European countries. People who consider them the pinnacle of western comics are essentially Capefags.

Good artwork, good writing, good nostalgia.

>the pinnacle of Western comics.
Cerebus tho.

Unca Skwooge> Batcuck punching Joker #59932

Honestly outclasses most capeshit in just pure fun and adventure, surprisingly emotional journey, and Don Rosa's genius

I read it in the last storytime and couldn`t stop until the very end. Made me interested in more duck comics.
>Can someone explain why this is so great?
Because is a good story about a poor boy who archive his dream but with a great cost. Simple yet effective.

>These duck comics are the capeshit here and in most European countries. People who consider them the pinnacle of western comics are essentially Capefags.

you take that back

Never, Euronigger

They were shooting for them to be like this but it is a Citizen Cane like Story. At one point near the end he becomes a terrible asshole but you never stop understanding why he is like that and caring for him.
Its a story of adventure, depth, misfortune, revenge, bitterness, and redemption.

it's a work of love and passion.

Can you buy the complete set of these comics at a bookstore or online?

I never read the comics, but I wanted too before the Ducktales reboot comes out.

,yes, but not for cheap

>Can you buy the complete set of these comics at a bookstore or online?
yes but it's currently out of print so it's kinda expensive

I always wondered what the fuck they had to do with Donald Duck and Disney. It seems like it just took a bit character and went nuts with decades of character and a century of lore.

Seems like it would be easier just to read it.

>I always wondered what the fuck they had to do with Donald Duck and Disney.
what do you mean?

Life and Times is collected in volumes 4 & 5 of the Fantagraphic's Don Rosa Library.

Not really a bit character as far as the comics are concerned. A lot of Uncle Scrooge's history was already established by his creator Carl Barks. Life and Times was wrapping that into an entire narrative.

It seems only tangentially related to cartoons. It's this entire spin-off universe based entirely around a single character. Does it ever mention the other Disney characters? It seems really bizarre to someone who didn't grow up with it.

>Volume 1 on Ebay is about $85

How many volumes are there?

I hate that it's not just called "Life an Times" part 1 and 2. I get the chronological order thing, but the random extra stories and the misleading title had me thinking it was still out of print.

Another point, and this gets overlooked a lot today, but Scrooge is the Ur Action hero. If you've watched an action movie in the last thirty-five years, Scrooge did it first, and inspired the people who did it, at least, indirectly.

Read it and you'll understand.

>>Can you buy the complete set of these comics at a bookstore or online?
>yes but it's currently out of print so it's kinda expensive

The original twelve chapters are all in print right now as part of Fantagraphics' Don Rosa Library Vols 4 and 5.

This guy's got it.

It's just lore dumping fan service, basically. The art is also ugly.

Stick to the original Barks comics. Those are the stories that influenced everything you like.

This. Indiana Jones is like 50% old pulp serials, and 30% Uncle Scrooge comics (the boulder trap from Raiders of the Lost Ark is taken directly from an old Barks comic).

>The art is also ugly.
(You)

Sorry, I've never been a fan of Rosa's work. It's well made on a technical level, but it lacks the organic personality and flow of Barks and other Disney artist's works. It's too stiff looking and resembles artwork done by a really well-trained draftsman and not that of a cartoonist. It comes off looking amateurish.

It's probably not at the pinnacle but I think it belongs in any serious discussion of what is. In other words, it's good enough that I can unequivocally recommend you read the damn thing.

Why are you still here?

Duck comics are mainstream though, more folks read those than capeshit for sure.

>but it's currently out of print

Everything is always out of print. It's how the US comic market works.

Rosa had to fudge some things; for instance a punchline in one Barks story which involved Scrooge pining for his Yukon gold rush days was that he was never a miner but a merchant fleecing the miners. In reality it is the merchants who made most of the money, after all.

I GUESS he fits that in when Scrooge becomes a banker in the gold rush town after striking it rich and takes 50% of miner's takes for bankrolling them, but it's not really the same. He was running a general store in the Barks story.

It is well written, well drawn, tells a story, has plenty of humour (both in storytelling and in visual gags), shows a lot of emotion, has a good continuity and plenty of character growth, even features a lot of real life characters. It tells a complete story. And it is the lovechild of a huge fan, not a random writer/artist who got assigned this month to make a story for a paycheck.

Really it has no bad points, other than the books being expensive as fuck due to lack of reprints.

>the books being expensive as fuck due to lack of reprints.
The main 12 stories are reproduced in volumes 4 and 5 of the "Don Rosa Library" books from Fantagraphics.

Uncle Scrooge started off as a spinoff to the Donald Duck comic and became successful enough to dethrone it. Most of Life and Times takes place before Donald was born but most other Scrooge comics have Donald and/or his nephews in them.

Two volumes plus a companion volume with side stories. Just do what that other user said and get volumes 4 and 5 of Fantagraphic's Don Rosa Library. It's the same content.

I like how it starts out as an uplifting tale of gumption, personal growth, and Scrooge refusing to let adversity get him down, but although he starts out seeking money for the sake of his family and heritage there's some undefinable point where he goes too far and fails every chance to go back and ends up losing everything except his money.

Vol. 4+5 don't have the stories that were collected in the companion, actually, because the Rosa Library is done chronologically and both before and after the 12-part Life and Times stories Rosa did other stories about Scrooges past; that's what was in the companion volume.

Chapter 0 is at the beginning of volume 4 and I'm sure the rest of the mid-chapters will be in later volumes. You don't need them to follow what's happening. That's why they're side stories.

But they're still for manchildren.

>the pinnacle of Western comics.
That's bullshit, but it's got godly artwork and it tells the story of a life wasted yet well spent.

>It's too stiff looking and resembles artwork done by a really well-trained draftsman and not that of a cartoonist. It comes off looking amateurish.

And to be fair to him Rosa has frequently owned up to these criticisms. He's his own most vocal critic, as both an artist and a writer.

Rosa was an architect, not a cartoonist.

So are all comic books, cartoons, popcorn flick movies, sports, video games, and probably every single thing you're interested in. Kind of an empty criticism.

I just finished a digital copy of Life & Times and this is my plan. I ordered DRL v1 while about halfway through Life & Times volume one. As someone who'd never read a Disney comic prior, I loved it and look forward to more.

Are you Don Rosa

This is what he always insisted, and he literally is a draftsman, he used draftsmanship tools for every single panel and couldn't draw freehand at all. That's why he always took half a year to finish a 20 page comic.

I guess 25% of the population of my country is manchildren then, since that's how much the duck comics used to sell every week.

Kids and manchildren read superhero comics, not realistic slice of life stories about ducks.

>realistic slice of life stories
The duck comics in your country must be pretty different from Barks' or Rosa's work, then. There's a lot of fanciful adventure stuff in those.

European duck comics are indeed very different from Rosa and Barks, most of them are just about Donald going about his daily life getting into mundane, relatable situations. Rosa is still the most popular author by far though, but much of the reason for that is that his stories stick out as different from the norm.

When it's just Donald they have indeed a slice of life feel, but most often when the story feature both him and Scrooge they end up going on adventures, at least in the period when I was reading the duck comics

>movies are a respectable medium, only the popcorn flicks are for manchildren
>comics are a disreputable medium, every single one is for manchildren
Behold the manchild. You've spent so much time reading only cape comics and duck comics that you've forgotten the existence of everything else.

You shouldn't be assigning value to the medium itself. Form does not equate to content.

the best panel in comic books history

...

Eurocuck bump

Because a lot of people like it.
And the reason it's good, is because Rosa put a lot of heart into it, and soul. Also, it's pretty cool to observe the background characters doing some funny shit as a sort of easter egg

Also, Rosa really pushed the medium to its full extent. It's a feast for eyes, even if it features corporation characters

if it was only a homage, an introduction nobody would really like it THAT much. The reason that it's good is that people who actually don't really like comics do like this one. And that while Duck comics are usually made for little kids, this one is also enjoyed by adults.

It's the craft that makes this comic a pinnacle, and it's hard to describe, you just have to see it. But then again, Don Rosa's comics were so good that disney sells collections literally called Don Rosa: comic book master edition etc

>Also, Rosa really pushed the medium to its full extent. It's a feast for eyes, even if it features corporation characters
It's funny that back when he started, fans were ripping into him for adding too much "ugly, unnecessary detail" in every panel, proving that people will ALWAYS have a knee-jerk reaction to hate anything that is not different.

...

Yeah. I really recommend the story where Magica De Spell goes back in time (using the green time candle) to steal Scrooge's first earned cent.
Every page has the same layout and sequential storytelling, with the candle being on top, being shown slowly melting, until the timeout, when it's completely melted

cont. also thankfully, I was able to enjoy these comics as a kid without knowing what "fans" were thinking of Rosa. I learned in my life that it's better to enjoy the shit, without knowing what others think of it, because it's usually negative. This is also why I tend to bash threads like "what Sup Forums thinks of", because it's a bait, and because the threads turn out to be shitpost general

Rosa really took full advantage of Magica in general. The one where she fucks around with gravity and the sequel where she causes Scrooge and Donald selective amnesia are both hilarious and really imaginative.

It's sad that none of the Italian hacks have utilized her character properly, despite using her all the time.

The gravity one was one of the first I've read by him in some local reprint of Donald Duck stories.

Also, Rosa I liked the one where Donald had a really really supersight, where he could see some microscopic things. He did reference this power few times in other stories.

People asked Rosa why he didn't do "creator-owned" stories, and he gave a clever answer that he: loved the characters, but also it was easier to reach the wider audience with the characters everyone knew.

I want to have carnal knowledge of that creature...

Can someone please post the ship destruction scene if you have it?

>Don rosa thinks about frozen air molecules in time-stop scenarios.

A man after my own heart.

Fucker's obsessed with details.

Just check out his backgrounds.

he is basically right though. for example if you search German ebay or classifieds for "comics", of your first 100 results there are usually around 70 Donald Duck/Micky Maus or Lustiges Taschenbuch (funny tradepaperback, the most common collection of Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck comics in Germany) results.
They aren't bad, but there are a lot rehashed stories by now and when they try to incorporate new stuff (computers, cell phones, the internet, tablets etc) it feels kind simplified even cringeworthy at times.

His time stop story was the first time I ever thought of shit like that. It blew my mind.

Don Rosa and Carl Barks.

>Carl Barks
>not Carl Quacks
An impostor and a fraud.

>Disney comics
Oh, boy...

>fans were ripping into him for adding too much "ugly, unnecessary detail" in every panel,
That's why I don't like him too much.

His panels are TOO busy. It is, obviously, a matter of personal tastes.

>It's sad that none of the Italian hacks have utilized her character properly, despite using her all the time.
she actually has a few really good Italian stories

t. guy who reads DC's mundane rehashes

I should storytime it someday.

...

It gets storytimed like, every month. If anything it's the other Rosa stuff that should be storytimed more often. And some Barks.

Really? I only saw it storytimed once, last August.

bump