The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion

Scrooge McDuck's life story has more narrative twists, substantive character moments, and storytelling tricks than any superhero "event." I can only wish for comics to be "for kids" the way this series was.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion is, obviously, the companion piece to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The Companion collects all the B- and C-chapters that Don Rosa has written since finishing The Life and Times, and also includes a couple of other stories which contain glimpses of Scrooge's life before Duckburg.

The stories themselves are by and large as good as I remember them. The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark and The Dream of a Lifetime are high points in humor, The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff brings the action, and The Prisoner of White Agony Creek and Hearts of the Yukon the drama. I am especially pleased to finally have my hands on Hearts of the Yukon, it has been missing from my collection for far too long. show more The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut and Of Ducks, Dimes and Destinies are amusing reads there and then, but otherwise unremarkable. I was a bit miffed to find that Last Sled to Dawson was not included in its entirety, only the flashback to Scrooge's youth was printed. While I understand this decision, as the bulk of that story has nothing at all to do with Scrooge's youthful adventures but deal with the consequences of them instead, it was still a bit disappointing to suddenly have the middle of the story thrust upon my on the new page, without any form of introduction. I thought it might be an error at first, but further examination of the index page revealed that it was only intended to be an excerpt.

As with the collection of the original twelve chapters, each story is accompanied by commentaries by Don Rosa, where he explains some of the background for the story, what inspired them, and what sort of research he did while working on them. They also include guides to find the hidden D.U.C.K-dedications. These pages are as interesting a read as they were in the original, and frequently add to the appreciation of the story, retroactively like.

The design of the book is obviously made to fit in with the original collection. It uses the same colors, the same fonts, and the same layout, and to my untrained eye it seems to use the same kind of paper. I appreciate consistency, so I mark that as a plus. I very much like the front cover, even if it is an amalgam of two previously made posters. Scrooge in front of the falling coins bearing his likeness from various stages of his life is a nice parallel to the cover of the original collection, with Scrooge in front of pictures in a photo album.

All in all, this book is well worth a read, and a definite must for anybody who owns the original collection. show less

By necessity, this collection is not the great interwoven and grandiose graphic novel the original "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" was. Big story is already told, and now Rosa is filling the gaps, whether or not all these gaps really existed before a new story was fitted in. As such, some of the stories of this collection fit better in to the storyline and themes of the original series than others. Some are good as themselves, some... not so much.

"The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff" is the story (though not yet made then) that Rosa omitted from the original stories not to have too many Western adventures following each other. It does have its foundations in Barks stories, like the original series: in one story, Scrooge told than once he show more outwitted the Daltons. This was referenced in one detail of the opening page of part VII of the original, but now we have the whole story. And it is a good story, funny and exciting, flowing with ease.

"Hearts of Yukon" is, hands down, Rosa's best take on the relationship between Scrooge and Goldie. It is funny, melancholy and true. The last third of the story is one of the two most dramatic pieces Rosa has ever written, on par with the rivership episode in "The King of Klondike". This story is among my Top Three Don Rosa Stories.

A decade later Rosa wrote an ambitious story to fill the gap between "The King of Klondike" and "Hearts of Yukon". It tells how Scrooge kidnapped Goldie to his claim for a month, as mentioned in Barks' "Back to Klondike". But sadly, this time the challenge surmounted Rosa. He has grown to love Scrooge's soft side too much — no more could he grasp the virile, angry and morally ambiguous Scrooge the story would have needed. The result is one of his worst stories, a mishmash of awkwardly overplayed drama scenes, omnipotent superman Scrooge and stupid, expendable villains.

From other stories, "The Cowboy Captain of Cutty Sark" is a good story in itself (and the Krakatau pictures are beautiful), but it doesn't fit in with the overall chronology very well. Rosa's explanation for Scrooge's appearance in the Indonesia in midst of his cowboy years is quite forced. But I can still swallow it. There is no explanation, however, for Scrooge being in Panama 1906 with his sisters ("The Sharpie of Culebra Cut"). This is hugely contradictory to the original series' intricate chronology and storyline, and for me undermines the value of the whole story (which otherwise isn't bad, even if it isn't that great either).

I'm very happy that Finnish publisher decided to include whole of "The Last Sled to Dawson" instead of just an excerpt as in the English version. show less

This is a later addition to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. It has all the stories that Rosa made to accompany his 12 story saga of Scrooge's life.

Since the stories do not need to follow the timeline of Scrooge's life, nor do they have to contain all the tidbits of "Scrooge lore" (see The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck), Rosa has been able to let himself loose more here.

The stories wander off in several directions, and are generally more ludicrous than those in the original set. I myself like them both, and I am very happy that Sanoma Magazines decided to publish them as a double pack here in Finland.

A must for any Duck or Rosa fan. :)

This volume includes stories of Scrooge's life prior to acquiring his fortune. Interspersed among the stories are blurbs from the author giving further details on the stories and sometimes his process. The whole thing was really interesting and I've always loved Scrooge b/c I was a huge Duck Tales fan growing up. I've even got them all on dvd now.

This volume includes stories of Scrooge's life prior to acquiring his fortune. Interspersed among the stories are blurbs from the author giving further details on the stories and sometimes his process. The whole thing was really interesting and I've always loved Scrooge b/c I was a huge Duck Tales fan growing up. I've even got them all on dvd now.

Like the original title says: A companion book for the first series of adventures of Scrooge McDuck (the richest feathered capitalist in the world). The stories are a little second hand compared to the earlier ones, though there´s enough "juice" to make this worth the effort for Ancologist. Lots of Klondike, perhaps too much.