"Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold"

There's an extent to which this is little more than a moderately interesting trivia question, really: Yes! It IS notable as the first long-form Donald Duck comic story created in the US!  Not, as Geoffrey Blum's article in DD 250 claims, the first one period--but hey, who the heck in the US knew anything about Federico Pedrocchi in 1986?  I feel like even people in Italy barely do today. Anyway, you can say, with obvious justification, that those prehistoric comics, though fascinating, were kind of an evolutionary dead end.

And yes! It IS the first duck story Carl Barks worked on, although let's not get too excited: sure, he drew about half of it, with Jack Hannah doing the rest. But it's not like it has That Carl Barks Touch: they were just making the storyboards for an abandoned cartoon into comic panels, with no embellishment. And given that you can't tell which are by Barks and which Hannah without checking (well, if YOU can, you've a more sensitive eye than me), it's hard to think that Barks' contribution is exactly vital. Still! He did do it! It IS, in some sense, where it all started! And you can say, at least: well, it was his work here that caused the editors to entrust him with more creative work. So you can't understate its importance in that regard.

Still, you will note that these are extrinsic factors. There are enough of them that anyone wanting to write about this story can do so without really getting into what the thing itself is actually like--and they do.  So let's actually think about the story, albeit in a flippant and whimsical way.

The opening panel gives the game away. I once had a Victorian literature class where I swear the professor spent an entire session trying to get us to explain what the point was of reading Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," given that the title already tells us what's going to happen. I don't think we ever reached a satisfying conclusion, but if you're teaching a class in comics, feel free to try that out with this story here.

The atmosphere of the story is pretty good, actually. Obviously highly Treasure-Island-inflected, as indeed are all pirate stories, but reasonably fun.

As you'd expect from what was originally meant to be a cartoon, we get a lot of these wordless panels, and a lot of these kinda limp gags that also look very Taliaferro-esque.

These scans come from DD 250, published early in Gladstone's run. I read it, when I read it, in the Gladstone Giant Comic Album--which, to my eyes, has much more attractive coloring than this. But I can't find scans of that one online, and I'm not going to mutilate my physical copy to scan it, so you get THIS. I mean, it's okay. Not too bad.

Anyway, there are some rather striking images, like this one. Dig the long shadows. And also note that this page was drawn by Hannah. If Barks hadn't been involved in this...it would've been about the same.

Scientifically accurate! Capsaicin doesn't affect birds the way it does mammals, which is why it's sometimes used in birdseed: repel the squirrels but not the birds. Of course, you might argue that, as a bird himself, Donald should've been aware of that, but given the different levels of anthropomorphism between the ducks and Yellow Beak, it would affect them in away it wouldn't him. I'm sure you can find later Barks stories of Donald eating something hot and freaking out.

 THE VILLAIN! It's kind of funny, maybe, that Barks never really incorporated Pete into the duckiverse ("Frozen Gold" notwithstanding). I suppose he was just too ingrained as Mickey [Mouse] villain.

I thought when I first read this, you know, it's not that different from Barks, albeit with less nuance. And it is and it isn't: it lacks sophistication, and it's hard to imagine HDL, at least, being this strictly mercenary in Barks.

The pepper that didn't bark. Or something. It really is odd, though: storytelling 101 would dictate that this should be a callback to Donald attempting to poison Yellow Beak with pepper. But then...it's not. It just feels prematurely cut off, like a joke without a punchline.

Must be said: Pete eating slumgullion is most alarming-looking. Also, if somebody spelled SLUM in a Scrabble game, you could get yourself a bingo by expanding it to SLUMGULLION. That would rule.

I don't know why you'd be THAT freaked out just because you hear a third-hand story about a ghost. Do you think Yellow Beak knows that other famous parrot, Joe, from Singapore? Of course, Yellow Beak is more anthropomorphized than Joe is. These things get surprisingly complex!

I am SO dubious about this map to a specific place in their establishment. That's really all I have to say about that.

So the question here is: given that the Ducks' restaurant is called "Bucket o' Blood," do you really think the ship being named "Black Mariah" is going to put them off? Or is the idea that Yellow Beak would recognize it from its name? But all that needs be done is change it and suddenly it'll be unrecognizable? I am skeptical. SKEPTICAL, I tell you!

One thing I like is that Red Eye, or possibly Oliver, is reading Little Women. You could say that's just part of the ruse, to seem as harmless as possible, but I prefer to believe he's just a fan of American literature, and he does not care about gender stereotypes. What do you think: is he an Amy, a Meg, or a Jo? Nobody wants to be a Beth, obviously.

Yellow Beak is a misogynist. Please make note of it. Though to be fair, I suppose every dude was back in the day, to one degree or another.

 Okay, this is a good gag. It makes me laugh.

Here's a good example of the wordless japery the story likes to pull. I actually think it's all right. It's obviously more cartoon than comic, but that sort of disjuncture can be interesting. Sometimes.

...though whether you think the payoff is worth it? Well, I'll admit buying crackers by the keg is kind of funny.

Here's the ship at night. The way I write these is by picking out images I want to talk about and then go through them one by one, and sometimes I come across one like this that I don't necessarily have anything to say about; I just picked it out because I liked it. And so it is.

Here's another hilarious joke. I know the text on the map is not so legible here, but the one you REALLY can't make out is "Black Hills" there in the upper midwest. Notice all they could come up with for Florida was "alligators." Doesn't Everglades seem like a gimme? Also, apparently they could think of LITERALLY nothing for New England. In any event, it's a fairly bizarre US tour.

Donald wants to be a "gentleman farmer." Well...why not? Is this something Barks-Donald would want? Sure, maybe, depending on the context, although it's possible that having grown up on a farm would've changed his attitudes towards the profession. He probably sees it as involving hard work, god forbid.

Right, so the ducks and Yellow Beak will have to walk the plank. This is the last we see of HDL before this plank-walking occurs. I'm just putting it here for, well, reasons that will quickly become apparent.

But first, man, Donald sure can be an asshole. Makes you think of that Taliaferro strip people like to post on the internet with Donald drowning Goofy.

Anyway, my only question is, how the hell did HDL get onto that raft? We last saw them charging belowdecks. The action in this story is inconsistent and I demand my money back!

Aaaaah! And also, AAAAAH! I always trip over this image, which is alarming. I guess it does let you see the evolutionary connection between dinosaurs and birds, at any rate, so that's something.

Here. It is pretty. Enjoy it.

First question: do you think Pete's ma will really appreciate receiving a box containing her son's mangled body parts? And second question: what if anything is the significance of her living in Pittsburgh? Is the joke really solely that Pete spells out his dialect phonetically? Seems weak to me.

You misspelled "browsing," dammit. Also, here's the SPOOOOKY GHOST. Whoo! Happy way-early Halloween! Too bad it's just Pete. As you knew.

I dig that "skeleton tree" really hard. Definitely spookier than the fake ghost. Also, the tattoo-as-treasure-map thing is appropriate.

But, uh...seriously? You're telling me that the treasure is marked by these two bones that are just kind of sitting there? Please note that the treasure chest is specifically dated 1669 (nice), so I guess it's a good thing that there were no storms or strong breezes or animals that might be interested in some tasty bones in all that time. Surely there was a better way to deal with this.

Anyway, the bad guys are defeated when HDL drop cocoanuts on their head end of story. Wowie.

It really is kind of notable how totally amoral our "heroes" have been this whole time. Petty power games for their own sake? Oh my. It's a good thing we don't see things like THAT these days.

Even the kids get into the act, forcing the adults to work on pain of death. How fun and lighthearted! Well, Things like this are probably why we ultimately needed Barks.

Anyway. Donald Duck has found pirate gold, so you cannot claim that you did not get what you were promised. I look forward to many stories about his zany doings as a gentleman farmer.