Carl Barks invented a
large number of characters for his numerous Disney comic book stories.
Most of the primary ones still flourish today. This is also
true for a character that was created to be an arch-nemesis for Scrooge
McDuck. His name is Flintheart Glomgold and he is very popular in new
stories in a number of countries. Still, Barks dropped him after just 3
adventure stories, because his personality did not contribute to Barks'
storyline developments, and in interviews he aired his frustrations of
having invented the character.
The first opus in the trilogy was the 20-pager U$15 The
Second-richest Duck that was published in 1956*. It was a
popular Scrooge McDuck adventure
story despite Barks' vexations; in a worldwide count a few years ago it
came in as #3 (#1 was U$07
'Cibola' and #2 was U$18 Land of the Pygmy Indians).
This is the story.
* The following were U$27 The Money Champ from 1961 and U$61 So Far No Safari from 1966.
INTRODUCTION |
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STORY |
U$15 The Second-richest Duck - 1956 Synopsis: Scrooge gets into a contest with Flintheart on who is the world's richest duck. At the end it comes down to two balls of string, which they have been collecting and adding to for years. Scattered comments: The trip starts at Flintheart's Money Bin in the Limpopo Valley in South Africa and moves slowly (they are on foot!) 'right up through the heart of Africa', as Donald puts it, meaning through the grasslands. On the first night after having unwound miles of string the nephews gasp: 'There's enough string left to roll to Tripoli!'. Tripoli is the capital of the Mediterranean nation Libya, which is due north from their starting point. Still, most of the story takes place on the plains of Bechuanaland, which was named Botswana from 1966. Trouble is that these plains are situated directly west of the starting point (see more under Titbits!). Right from the start Barks presents Scrooge's nemesis as he would continue to look and act. He also makes sure we understand that he is in a similar financial position as Scrooge (he has his own Money Bin). But it does not take long before it becomes clear that Scrooge and Flintheart have little else in common; after all Scrooge has a heart and a conscience! Flintheart has neither. Barks dreamed up this story, in which not only the largest ball featured in his stories was the center of attention, but there were even two seemingly identical balls of twine on the roll. And roll they did stringing along across Africa in an attempt to find out which of the two combatants had the most string. Of course, they would not think of the quick, inexpensive, and easy solution of determining who had the most string - by simply weighing the balls... Mankind has probably always felt the inexplicable urge to collect things, and this could come in handy, if the things were worthwhile collecting. But through time collecting lunacy has emerged in the most unusual areas. Take for example Scrooge and Flintheart who are both eager twine collectors. You don't see that on a daily basis anymore (see more under Titbits!)... Scrooge travels through the greater parts of the Southern Africa in order to beat his nemesis Flintheart in a competition. In this story they fight for the rights to call themselves the world's richest, and in another they fight for the rights to buy a gold mine. Scrooge is the owner of the Number One Dime, which he holds in high regard. He keeps it in different places; inside his vault, on a pedestal, around the neck in a chain, or loose in the pocket. But in this story he keeps it on a little piece of string, which turns out to be extremely lucky and decisive for Scrooge... |
BARKS' COMMENTARIES |
In the rough world of commerce, financial
tycoons are always winning or losing monopolies on oil or
rubber or something. Some even win monopolies on
monopolies, and such tycoons become very, very rich. For
many years Uncle Scrooge thought he had a permanent
monopoly on the title 'World's Richest'. He got that way
by being outrageously stingy, overbearingly aggressive,
and undignified greedy. He never dreamed that another
person in all the world would develop similar mastery of
such an array of unsavory characteristics. Striving to find a duplicate for Uncle Scrooge, to show that there were other people just as ornery as he is, I invented Flintheart Glomgold, who is even more ornery than Scrooge. He takes unfair advantage of Scrooge to such an extent that Scrooge comes out being the sympathetic one. Some funny things in the story are the stinginess of those guys and the dirty things that they do to one another to save a penny. Also funny is rolling the balls of string through the heart of Africa to see which one had the most string. I don't know at what point I thought of that, but it must have been quite early in the formation of the synopsis, because I wouldn't have started out with that string-saving gag unless I had planned to use the unrolling scene. That led into action gags and comic menaces in Africa. Years ago, saving tinfoil and string used to
be quite a thing. The only tinfoil you ever came across
was around chewing gum or inside of cigarette packages.
It wasn't as common as it is now. People who saved
tinfoil would get a ball maybe six inches across and feel
quite rich. I don't know what they ever did with it -
whether they really thought it had value - but it was
something heavy. |
GALLERY |
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TITBITS |
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http://www.cbarks.dk/THEFLINTHEARTSTORY.htm |
Date 2017-03-27 |