"Boat Buster"

Pan Miluś wanted me to write about Rockerduck's debut, so here we are. He also referred to the story--accidentally or on purpose, I'm not sure, it amuses me either way--as "Boat Bastard." That certainly has more force than the so-called "real" title.

Well...here he is (incidentally, this story is from 1961--arguably Barks' low point--and you can kind of tell from how oddly squashed Donald looks in the splash panel). To tell the truth, though, I don't actually have much to say about him as he appears here. I mean, for all that Glomgold wasn't any more "villainous" than Scrooge in his debut, at least he has an evil-sounding name. Rockerduck is, literally, just A Guy. He and Scrooge bluster at each other, but there is absolutely no possible textual justification here for seeing Rockerduck as "worse" than Scrooge in any way.  In fact, if anything, Scrooge comes off worse, given that he engages in what seems to me to be pretty blatant cheating. If others hadn't run with the character and this was his only appearance, I'm quite sure that, to the extent that we remembered him at all, we wouldn't remember him as a bad guy. The only reason to assume such is if we assume that Scrooge is automatically the "good guy" and that anyone opposed to him, therefore, must be bad. But the both of them come off more as Chaotic Neutral Guys here.

See, here's something that underlines a difference between 1952 and 1961 Barks. Because this looks for all the world like detached, deadpan sarcasm, of the sort that you saw from Donald in "Only a Poor Old Man." Dumb billionaires with their dumb billionaire problems, acting like children--

--only Donald's excitement that he gets to participate in this foolishness tends to undermine that conclusion. I feel like the way this story tries to be about a McDuck rivalry and also about a typically-bumbling Donald is a bit awkward; not necessarily executed super-well.

...yup, a lot of stuff of Donald screwing up in a typical way. It's okay, I guess, but it's not executed with any great panache, and this truly might have felt like old hat by the time it was written.

Still, I like this. "What happened now--and why?" could be Donald's catchphrase.

Oh, and I also like Donald's doomed battle with this determined crane. That "WHACK" looks so definitive. The crane does not care about your common ancestry, Donald; you are NOT passing here.

But here's the part where I say WHOA. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. So...Scrooge appears to have moved the goalposts for this competition significantly. Two things: first, if this is what he's done, and if we take it as given that ANY of the boats but Rockerduck's winning counts as a "win" for him (and if that's the case, as I said before, this seems like very straightforward cheating) then why is he so concerned about Donald in the first place? But second--and more importantly, I'd say--this completely changes what would need to happen in the competition. If Rockerduck's boat comes in right the middle of the pack, the contest would prove nothing: his fuel beats Scrooge's half the time, and loses to it half the time. A total wash. More than half the boats would have to beat him for Scrooge to really win. There seems to be the assumption that only ONE would be enough, but that's obviously not so. And also--as long as we're really nitpicking here--in that case, why would he want Donald in the race at all, if the assumption is that he's a huge screw-up? That just gives Rockerduck that much more chance to win. THIS IS NOT VERY WELL THOUGHT-OUT, is all I'm saying.

I do have to give Donald credit here, though: he shows some pretty serious determination, co-opting a mattress for his boating needs. No matter what happens--and we all know what happens--he definitely earns the win here.

(Okay, so the idea that any of this slapstick goofiness says anything whatsoever about the gasoline seems, uh, questionable. Whatever!)

Dammit, Scrooge, you didn't "know" he'd lose, and he DIDN'T "lose," and words appear to be becoming completely unmoored from objects. Donald counts as having "lost" even when he won, his sticktoitiveness counts for nothing, there was nothing he could possibly have done to come out with a positive outcome, ARGH! Yup, 1961. I dunno. I suppose there's nothing hugely wrong with this story for what it is, but if it didn't, entirely by accident, introduce a new character, we sure wouldn't be thinking about it too much. Not that we do anyway. WHATEVER.