"The Rabbit's Foot"

Happy Easter!  Is this a seasonally-appropriate story?  Well...rabbit's foot...rabbits...might be a bit of a stretch, but let's go with it.  I must say, going off on a tangent as I do, Stardew Valley is one of my all-time favorite videogames, but it's definitely pretty weird that when you get some rabbits for your coop, they periodically drop rabbit's feet.  Thinking too hard about the mechanics of that will do nobody any good.  So let us proceed.

Really, I feel like this story doesn't get enough recognition.  You might ask, how are we judging amount of recognition something is getting?  I don't know.  I guess in a kind of truthy way; it just feels right to me.  People know about "Pirate Gold" as Barks' first duck story, and "Victory Garden" as his first ten-pager, but how about his first original story?  You could easily argue that that's more of a big deal, but who speaks of it?  I do!  Here and now!  Sing Goddess the wrath of the duckies!

And for his first story, it's kind of gratifying how it presages his later work.  Right out of the gate, we get this thing where Donald reads a book, takes it to heart, and becomes angry and defensive when HDL challenge it.  Sure, it lacks that Barks characterization (you'd be unlikely to see HDL look so pissed off), but still--cool.

Though I dunno, man--you really think that fortune-cookie stuff is profound wisdom?  "No man can sell it, and no man can buy it--in bed."

Is letting your kids do random dangerous things to prove their luck good parenting?  I can't remember.  Gotta check my Dr. Spock.  The nature of their familial relations is pretty loose in these early things.

Yup, this is the kind of thing you will find here.  Do you think the Park Safety Counsel appreciates people tromping around on their condemned bridges?

Of course, you talk about "luck" and you're obviously going to think Gladstone, and this sequence in particular is exactly the way his luck tends to work.

Gorillas' teeth actually do kind of look like that, though why the colorist chose to make the bottom fangs yellow is anyone's guess.  Is this some sort of pirate gorilla with gold teeth?  Donald definitely has the right idea here.  It's how any responsible parent would act--though as we'll see, his reasons may be a little different.

You may recall Donald hightailing it and leaving his nephews to their fate in "Christmas on Bear Mountain."  That wasn't great, but it's a bit more forgivable in so early a story.

See?  We've got a lucky rabbit's foot!  How exactly does he expect the gorilla to react, anyway?

...well, it seems to have worked out, at any rate.  Yeah, I think this is the story's weak point: the gorilla sees their rabbit's foot and just...decides to get them peanuts?  For some reason?  It seems that Barks couldn't come up with a good reason for the foot to save them, so he just went with this arbitrariness.  

Whoa: Donald's expression in the second panel there looks very much like the "sly" expression that Van Horn uses.  Can't say it's my favorite thing ever, but it's interesting to see.

Somewhat unclear "rules" for how luck works: check!

ROAR!  I dunno, man.  I really don't think it should be drooling unless it's rabid.  "Wait a minute! I've got a rabbit's foot!"  His indignant protest is funny.  Or so I think.

This level of savagery on Donald's part isn't super-attractive, and of course would be substantially toned down as time went on.  But ooh!  Check out that random picture on the wall of a bearded duck!  "Strange art in the Duck residence" is another common Barksian trope.  Boom!

Well-deserved, well-deserved.  Does he really need a full-body cast (I'm just assuming) because a clock fell on his head?  Apparently.  Really, though, why shouldn't he want a rabbit's foot?  He's seen evidence that it works, as long as it's not stolen.

Well, that's about that.  There may not be that much to say about this, but hell, probably more than any of Barks' previous duck-work.

Now let's look at a few Taliaferro strips from WDC 32, where this was originally printed.  There's not THAT much that's interesting; we saw few last time, including that unfortunate "Nipped in the Bud" one.  But:

Man, Taliaferro was just inscrutable sometimes.  So...he insists on bringing his...tires...into the theatre (note British spelling)?  I don't get it.  Is it some kind of war thing that would have made sense to readers at the time, or am I just thick?  Someone please explain.

Here we see him apparently threatening to behead a rooster if it tries any funny business.  I mean, okay, he put axe heads on the other side of his rake and hoe.  I guess I get it, kind of, but I'm still trying to picture the rooster-slaughter that he's implicitly threatening.  Weird stuff.

...why did you think the kids had a real, working gas pump?  I feel like this one is on you.