"The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill"

 I was just casting about for a random Barks ten-pager to do and, oh look, I stumbled upon a pivotal story.  So, well, let's do it.  Why not?

Of course, the big thing about this story--and we see it right out of the gate--is: the Money Bin.  This story appeared just a little while before "Only a Poor Old Man," and though I certainly don't KNOW the chronology here, it certainly feels as though Barks knew he was going to be starting a new line for which he was working some things out in advance.  One notable thing about "Poor Old Man" is that we don't really get a good look at the outside of the Bin, so this is important in that regard--though it didn't tend to look quite so much like a giant safe in later stories as it does here.

Hard to deny that it is, indeed, easy to see.  But boy, that "he moved twenty blocks of houses"--there's some conveniently vague phrasing for "he evicted countless families from their homes, which he then demolished, to build his dumb bin!"  Man, why am I getting so punchy here?  Well, but that is quite an odd line.  I mean, I suppose it's just there to explain why there's nothing else in the vicinity of the hill, no ideological content intended, but dang, man, it's Barks--seems like it oughta mean SOMETHING.  But it never comes up again (natch), so there may not be much more to say about it.

This is fun.  We associate more overt silliness with Barks' later work, but even in 1951, we get this kind of goofily surreal joke.

And...well, we know that Scrooge guarding the Bin with over-the-top traps is de rigueur.  But I dunno; for my personal taste, this goes a bit too far.  Yes, the mine fields, those are traditional, but for whatever reason, I have to draw the line at the sulphuric acid moat.  Your mileage my vary, but for me, that forcefully brings to mind really gruesome stuff, even if I have to concede that, rationally, the mines wouldn't be any less bad were you to trip them.

Man, that "I think it'd be lonely"--just a little, throwaway line, you could read the story and hardly notice it at all, but it sure does speak volumes about who Scrooge is.  Obviously this is no "Only a Poor Old Man," but, as noted, Barks was very clearly rehearsing who he wanted the character to be.

And this stuff--less famous than "I love to dive around it like a porpoise, sure, but also...basically the same thing.  It's hard to read this story out of the context of its more famous successor, but I can't help but think (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) that if you'd read it at the time, you'd think--huh.  There's more to this Scrooge guy than meets the eye; where are we going with this?

Also let's note Donald's "isn't there anything you want to spend it for?"  This is clearly for the audience's benefit, but if you really want to, I suppose this IS a strike in favor of Rosa's chronology where Donald and HDL don't know anything about Scrooge until "Bear Mountain Times" (then again, the fact that the Bin is presented as NEW here would seem to confuse things; don't think about it too hard). 

Beagle Boys!  This is not their first appearance; that was the previous month in, "Terror of the Beagle Boys.

As we can see, they've been somewhat revised since then to look a lot more like their standard incarnation, and Barks has hit on the idea of giving them prison numbers.  And yet, oddly enough, they don't appear to be wearing their standard prison uniforms.  Go figure.  They only appear in two panels here (and only one in ("Terror"), and they have dialogue in neither story.  This seems another oddity; why create these distinctive-looking characters and leave them with so little to do?  Nevertheless!  Especially in this more recent story, I do feel like, just from looking at them, you can get a fairly accurate sense of their personality.  Although, yes, I do have to concede that I'm saying that the fact that I DO know may make that easier.  Regardless, Barks are eff tee double-you.  And is that Beagle on the left smoking a cigar, or what?  Reprints don't make it any clearer.

Boy.  Well, Scrooge, that was certainly, um, a choice.  Most experts will agree that floors are highly desirable, not just for security but for basic structural integrity as well.  And now, perhaps, you can see why.

Hmm.  Is this the first appearance of "sixteen cents?"  I feel like it might be.  Also, Scrooge despairing and then getting all determined will, like many things here, reminds you of "Poor Old Man," though in this instance his gumption doesn't really get him anywhere.  I do enjoy the way Donald inspire him.

I also enjoy him setting off his own traps.  Yeah, okay, the mines don't actually hurt him.  The same way Darkwing Duck can get blown up and it's fine.  I suggested, in writing about "Notre Duck," that this kind of inconsequentiality was characteristic of later stories, but that's at least somewhat false.

It...won't hurt the money?  Even if we posit that these particular bills are impervious to water (hey, it's true in "Poor Old Man" also), are they not going to be flushed down the drain?  The Beagles may be ejected also, but can't they just collect it after?  Unless Donald is literally suggesting that Scrooge drown them, in which case, man, that got dark.

We know how this is going to turn out.  But I have questions.

And they mainly involve the logistics of this.  Okay, so they're clearly IN the Bin here, as we can tell from that speech balloon bottom left.  Or so I think, but  then what's with Scrooge talking about it as though they're not?  Sure, we can have part of the building being the money part and part not, I guess, but...

...where are they NOW?  What in the world is that building they're standing on?  I thought the entire surroundings were meant to be empty, and even if not, how get being trapped in the Bin to somewhere completely different?  And then, they "crawl from under the wreck of the Bin?"  But HOW?  They're in this mysterious other building!  There's no way they could've ended up under the Bin!  Not that this is terribly important or anything, but it does seem like a bit of uncaracteristic carelessness on Barks' part.

Well, 'twas bound to happen.  The idea that Scrooge's money "belongs" to the Beagles as long as it's on land that they own is one that we've seen repeated in many stories.

You know, and that's about all.  Feel free to fill this entry out with your own observations, but I'd say that, while this is a perfectly fine story and historically important, it's not super-profound or anything.  The super-profundity, Barks saved for what was to come.