"Christmas Down the Centuries"

It sounds unbelievable when I say it like this, but it's true: in the history of this blog, I have written about a grand total of one Brazilian story (this weirdo).  What can I say?  They just aren't published overseas with much frequency; truly, the undiscovered country of the Disney comics world.  I mean, for those of us outside Brazil.  I realize that that was an Amero/Eurocentric thing to say.  But it's still interesting to me!  There has to be so much that we could discover if we were able to delve into that world!  Case in point: today's story, which I have labored to translate into English for you all (this story did see a single French publication, its one appearance not in Portuguese).  I may not have written about a lot of stories this Christmas, but I have good news: I've decided that one translation counts the same as ten commentaries.  What could "count" possibly mean in this context?  It is a mystery!  But it really Goes to Show.  Show what?  Well, you'll know soon enough.  I must credit Elaine for bringing it to my attention.  You would not be reading this otherwise.

The story starts in a same ol' same ol' sort of way.  You wouldn't think it was going to be anything special, and indeed, you might think it seems kind of subpar.  Scrooge's motivations here are kind of murky and out-of-character.  When did he become obsessed with the idea that he should get more presents?  Sure, he wants OTHER people to leave him alone with their demands, but does it work in reverse?  Well, no doubt there ARE other examples of it.

Anyway: time machine.  Another thing that you might find ominous.  Nothing wrong in theory with that sort of thing, but it often lets novelty do the heavy lifting, in lieu of quality story-telling.

Now you start to see what is notable about this story.  For all the hundreds of Christmasy Disney comics out there, they've always been pretty darned militant about keeping religion out of it--to the extent that this tiny marginal picture of a Wise Man and Star in "Christmas for Shacktown" is kind of notable:

There's also this bit from Barks' "Silent Night," if you want to count it:

...I mean, it DOES mention the Holy Family, although granted, calling that "religious" would be pushing it a bit.  Also, it was unpublished for years, albeit for other and better reasons.  And hey, not a comic, but from an early Christmas Parade:

Kind of odd that Western would be cool with this, but super-not-so with it in their actual comics.  I'd like to know the editorial thinking.

But WHY AM I CATALOGUING ALL THIS STUFF?!?  It seems like a huge waste of everyone's time!  Well, my point stands: you do not normally see the kind of overt religious content in Disney comics that we do in today's story.  Well, I say that, but actually, my data is lacking: is it just this story in particular, or is this stuff commonplace--or at least not-ultra-rarecase--among Brazilian stories in particular?  I could believe it either way.  Really, it's possible that the most baffling thing here is how this ever got published in France.  And as we'll see, it goes much deeper than these panels.

Before we go on, though, I'd like it noted that "It's 64 AD, after the time of Jesus Christ!" is from the French text; it's not my improvisation.  The story seems to be making the popular mistake of thinking that "AD" is short for "After Death," which is weird, since that doesn't seem to work in a non-Anglophone context.  Still, I left it there 'cause it's kind of amusing to see.

Any of you in the audience who are Roman history buffs have probably successfully sussed out why this takes place in the year 64 specifically.  Foreshadowing!

But is this a good story qua story?  Or is just novelty?  Well...it has its moments; I'm willing to grant it that.  But it also has weird narrative cul de sacs like this banana thing (well...not "cul de sac," since it technically does lead to the next plot point, but still).  Also, Scrooge speaks Latin?  Why?  We know he's a crazy polyglot, but that seems to all be based on places where he's done business or gone treasure hunting (and didn't Rosa kind of miss a trick in not devoting at least a panel or two in the Life & Times to him learning a new language?).  Why Latin?  Because of past time-travel escapades?  Seems like a dubious justification.

The guards' dialogue in the upper left panel was just profanity symbols (which, I just now learn, are called "grawlix." How delightful), so I decided it would be fun to have them swearing in Latin.  So I looked up Latin profanity, but a lot of the results were a bit too spicy for Disney comics.  So I went with THIS, which means, allegedly, "may you be assassinated by conspirators in the mall."  That's pretty fun.

The story keeps mentioning the "Porta San Sebastiano."  It's not just a one-time thing.  Do words mean things?  Can you discern "Saint Sebastian," who didn't live 'til hundreds of years after this?  Seems like a needless self-own, but you do what you have to do, I suppose.  

Interesting!  A Christian!  This is the closest you're likely to get to a Disney comics Quo Vadis, so enjoy it while you can!

As you can see, the story plays it cagey as to whether our heroes consider themselves Christians, though by the end of the story, it'll be hard to see how they could not.  Then again, if Rosa is to be believed, they should also be devotees of Finnish paganism, so take that for what it's worth and not a penny more.

Guy calls them Christians, but I think that's just his assumption.

Does he mean ten in the morning?  You kind of have to assume.  "Not even ten at night" seems like it would never be considered too early.  And yet, the fire in question happened at night, so...huh?

The art here is basically fine, serviceable, but GOOD LORD does this guy look weird in this panel.  Like some sort of lamprey-man.

Hey, did you know you can read about the history of firefighting and learn facts?  I know it's a bit dickish of me to pretend that Saidenberg had access to wikipedia while writing this, but what the hey.  Actually, the French text just says "firefighters;" I thought "fire department" made it sound a bit more anachronistic and therefore funnier.  I mean, not hilarious, obviously.  But you work with what you have.

Anyway, time to get a little heady here.  So right, the story is set in 64 CE (ha ha! Take THAT, Christmas!), which is indeed when the Great Fire of Rome took place.  This is Christmas, and it took place during the summer, but that's not really a problem because the date for the holiday hadn't been established as December at this point (the question of what TIME this is supposed to be is a bit vexed, but let's leave that aside as unimportant).  But, as we shall see in the other time-traveling sequences in this story, the time machine seems to be designed to take people JUST to Christmases.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it just takes you to the past at the same time of year as the present.  They're using it on December 25, so December 25 is where it takes them.  But wait, you see the problem if this is taking place in the summer.  It seems like the machine has to have some sort of, I don't know, holiday-detecting device...thing.  I mean, I don't know, maybe that's something Gyro would jive with.  But it also seems to mean that it can't take you back any further than this--when there was no such holiday or even the makings of a holiday.  Or maybe it also recognizes Mithras.  Who knows.  That's enough of this nonsense.

I must concede that this panel is rather poignant: this guy, almost certainly not going to come to a good end, wishing our heroes the best.  Not the kind of thing you expect to see in Disney comics.

Okay, and here's Nero, 'cause if you're gonna set a story in this milieu, ya GOTTA have some fiddling while Rome burns.  I'm kind of disappointed that he isn't a bird, though.  Let it be noted that his song was just generic "la la la" stuff in the original, so you're not losing anything with the rickroll.  Now, look at that "if the fire spreads here" dude.  As you will be aware, that last part is a paraphrase of Nero's alleged last words.  Given how awkwardly they're shoehorned in there, you'd probably be inclined to think that they're my addition to the story, but in this case, you are wrong: someone other than me shoehorned them in, so I kept them.  His expression absolutely does not match the sentiment.  Is he being sarcastic?  Huh?

Also, that woman on the right: is she supposed to be Poppaea?  I mean, apart from his mother Agrippina (who was dead by this point), there's no other woman closely associated with Nero.  And yet, as far as I know she never conspired against him, so who knows.  It would be a bit weird if it were just a random person saying that, though.

Right, we missed operawatch last entry, so here's a double: Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Handel's Agrippina are both baroque classics, so check 'em out.  The fanfiction approach that baroque librettists take with historical material is always a trip.

And now, this.  The Portuguese title of this story is "A Very Different Christmas;" the French edition dubbed it "Christmas Down the Centuries," which I like so I used.  But it has to be said, "centuries" seems to be an exaggeration; not counting the present-day parts, this whole thing takes place over a total of seventy years (also the French version removes a page and a quarter; I would kill to know what was cut out, even though it would probably turn out to be pretty trivial and then I'd feel guilty that I'd killed just to see it).

Nod also to "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which...I mean, I guess if it helped people it's good, but still kind of gross.  I personally prefer "Do They Know It's Halloween?"  Is that a real thing, or did I just make it up?  You will never know!  Unless you spend .1 seconds doing a web search, but really, who has that kind of time?

And you might think that "What you say!!" is a typo, but only if you are unaware of all internet traditions.  Look, I don't CARE if I'm the only one; I still find that funny.

I thought it might be conceptually interesting to have the ducks talk about the Germans in the terms generally reserved for non-white people.  Not that this is very far away from the original; I just punched it up a bit.

Oh, and also, I thought it would be, um,  conceptually interesting to include an NWA reference.  Inappropriate?  We can argue about that all day, but what's done is done.  Deal with it.

Seriously, though, sometimes you just have to do SOMETHING to add some zing to this dialogue.  It's the eternal question, innit?  "If the dialogue was good enough for the original-language audience, who are YOU to change it?"  To that, all I can say is [inarticulate mumbling].  But for the record, you didn't miss much as far as that footnote goes; the French text just glosses the meaning of "Valhalla," which seems extremely unnecessary.

Anyway, this section ends with our heroes getting chased away by wild boars.  It's a living!  But apparently I wasn't even interested enough in this section to cut more panels.  The reason this is supposedly Christmas-related is that it shows the people dancing around a fir tree.  That's it.

Anyway, please enjoy Duck Three Kings of Orient.  Now that's what I call change we can believe in.

Semi-off-topic, but that's really a great song.  And a source of hometown pride for me, too: the composer, John Henry Hopkins Jr., was a rector at a church in my very own hometown of Williamsport Goddamn Pennsylvania.  Put THAT in yer pipe and smoke it!  Is this a thing that everyone knows?  Maybe they do, but I still want to point it out: the verse about myrrh is goth as hell:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume,

Breathes a life of gathering gloom,

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

JEEZ, dude!  You must be fun at baby showers!

(I want to note that the kings here may not match up with their traditional gifts; I just went with the text, I wasn't going to futz around with rearranging names for something that zero people in the world care about.)

Also, I have no idea where this stuff about Melchior having contacted them before, or something, is supposed to be about.  I'm pretty sure that's completely made up.

Also, it's really not clear what exactly this means; there's no indication that Scrooge had brought any treasure with him.  He COULD have gotten it in the Rome sequence, but he didn't.  Also, why does he have a cloak for the guy?  And isn't he already wearing a cloak?  This is needless ambiguity after the fashion of many an Italian story, so at least they're copying from the best!  Or at least the most popular.

Anyway, Scrooge helps out with the Nativity.  Enjoy this sight, which you will not likely see again.  Would drawing a Duck Holy Family have been a bridge too far?  Maybe, but Nero was also drawn as a human, suggesting that it isn't necessarily ideological.

Oh, and while we're at it, why not recommend the relevant opera?  Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors may be the most-performed opera in the Anglophone world, given that it's short and in English and perfect for Christmas performances.  And really, it's quite charming.

And for the readers trying to follow along at home, I should explain that God fixed the ducks' time machine as thanks for helping with the Nativity.  There's a sentence you rarely find yourself needing.  I feel like some of your more censorious Christian sects might call this blasphemous, and while I absolutely disagree with their theology and politics, and will condemn them in no uncertain terms, I have to admit that in my quiet moments I don't think they one hundred percent don't have a point in this specific case.

Gawd, I didn't even include the panel where the boar came in the time machine with them.  It was such a brief thing; I did not think it was going to come up again.  But here we are!  And why do we think Grandma has any special expertise in taming wild hogs?  Just because she knows her way around farm animals?  This seems beyond dubious to me, I have to say.  I don't know why this weird narrative dead end was included in the story.  But, enjoy it in good health, I guess.

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Okay, so this is slightly tricky: in the French text, he's saying it's as good to give as to receive; that doesn't sound idiomatic in English, if it does in French, but I don't get the sense that the story's trying to subvert anything, and besides, this way makes more sense in relation to the previous panel, in which Donald declares that Scrooge doesn't need any gifts this year.

So that's why I did it like this, and even though it's hard for me to imagine this was the intent, I love it as a really dark character moment: having witnessed this numinous moment, all Scrooge is able to do in response is spout this banal cliche.  He can't interface with it on any deep or authentic level.  Shades of Dos Passos' USA.

Still, there's a tableau, so I'm a fan.  END.

So there you have it.  I ask again: is this a good story, or is it a kind of middling-at-best story where the actual quality is quite beside the point?  I don't know; I could go either way.  It's not a deathless masterpiece, but after spending so long working on translating it, I guess I've developed a certain affection for it.  Your mileage may vary.  But I'm glad I didn't wait 'til Christmas to post this; doing it a bit early kind of takes the pressure off and gives us more time to, maybe, appreciate it.  Something else sometime next week?  Maybe.