Clan McDuck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Clan McDuck is a fictional family in the style of a Scottish clan, from which a great number of Walt Disney Company's comic book characters held their origin.
According to the story Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (History and glory of the Duck Dynasty) it was founded during the 1st century BC by Pah-Peh-Rheo, an Egyptian, that had become a Roman citizen as Petronius Paperonius. Originally following a campaign of the Roman Army to Britain, he eventually decided to settle in Caledonia (the Roman name for Scotland) among the populations of the Picts.
According to Don Rosa's timelines the Clan is known since 122, when an, as of yet, unnamed member of the clan sold stone to the construction crew of Hadrian's wall. The most famous members of the clan are Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck.
Other notable members include (in chronological order):
- Sir Eider McDuck
- Sir Quackly McDuck
- Sir Stuft McDuck
- Sir Roast McDuck
- Sir Swamphole McDuck
- Malcolm McDuck
- Hugh McDuck
- Quagmire McDuck
- Dingus McDuck
- Angus McDuck
- Fergus McDuck
- Jake McDuck
- Matilda McDuck
- Hortense McDuck
- Gideon McDuck
Donald, his sister Della Thelma Duck and her children Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck are descendants of the Clan through their maternal line of ancestry.
[edit] Family tree
This family tree is based on Don Rosa's Duck/McDuck/Coot Family Tree, and shows the McDucks from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the most famous McDucks that did not appear in Rosa's tree are Scrooge McDuck's half-brothers Gideon McDuck and Rumpus McFowl.
[edit] Literary origins
In the early 1950s Carl Barks was in his second decade of creating comic book stories starring Donald Duck and his various relatives. He had personally created several of the latter, Scrooge McDuck and Gladstone Gander being the most notable among them. But the exact relation between them was still somewhat uncertain. Carl decided to create a personal version of their Family tree. To better define their relations he added several previously unknown relatives. Carl never intended to publish this family tree as he had created it for personal use.
In 1981 Carl was well into his retirement but his stories remained popular and had gained him unexpected fame. He had given several interviews and answered questions about his personal views on the characters and their stories. Among other subjects, Carl described his early version of the family tree. Rough sketches of the tree were published in a number of fanzines. Fans of the characters were pleased for the background it added to them. At this point Mark Worden decided to create a drawing of this family tree including portraits of the characters mentioned. Otherwise Mark made few changes to the tree, most notably adding Daisy Duck as Donald's main love interest. His illustrated version of the tree was published at first in several fanzines and later in the Carl Barks Library. The later was a ten-volume collection of his works in hardcover black-and-white edition.
In 1987 Don Rosa, a long-time fan of Carl Barks and personal friend of Mark Worden, started creating his own stories featuring Scrooge McDuck and his various associates. His stories contained numerous references to older stories by Carl as well as several original ideas. After several years he gained a fanbase of his own. In the early 1990s Egmont, the publishing house employing Don, offered him an ambitious assignment. He was to create the definitive version of Scrooge's biography and a family tree accompanying it. This was supposed to end decades of contradictions between stories which caused confusion to readers. The project was to become The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The family tree accompanying it was first published in Norway on July 3, 1993.
In the process of working on Scrooge's biography, Don studied Barks' old stories mentioning his past. Then he added several ideas of his own. Among them were biographical information for Scrooge's supporting cast. In a way Scrooge's biography was also their own biography.
