"Disney A Christmas Carol Starring Scrooge McDuck" (2019)

"Disney A Christmas Carol Starring Scrooge McDuck" (2019)
Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Guido Martina
Artist: Jose Colomer Fonts

We stay in the graphic realm for this recent volume from Dark Horse comics with the somewhat awkward title of "Disney A Christmas Carol Starring Scrooge McDuck."

So, one's first thought might be, "Wait, isn't that 'Mickey's Christmas Carol?'" It's not though! It's a fairly straightforward adaptation of the Dickens classic, but also features Scrooge McDuck as Scrooge.

It's actually part of a series of classic works featuring Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse as "Don Quixote" and Donald Duck as "Hamlet" (!!) published by Dark Horse.

They put me most in mind of "The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo" TV series, as they're fairly straightforward adaptations with a popular cartoon star in the lead.

So, this version of "A Christmas Carol" features Scrooge McDuck as Scrooge, but is he Ebenezer Scrooge or (Uncle) Scrooge McDuck? Hard to say. The splash page calls him "Old Uncle Scrooge":

This also shows how the supporting characters such as Bob Cratchit are mostly that semi-canine "dogface" types that pop up in cartoons and comics.  These guys have the dog nose but human ears, reminiscent of the Beagle Boys from Uncle Scrooge stories:

The Ghost of Christmas Past:

 ...and Present also fit this mold:

I dig that sort of thing. You have human-ish characters that aren't exactly human, as realistic humans would mix oddly with giant ducks, at least in the Duckverse!

But, since Scrooge has a nephew, he should be a duck, and naturally Donald Ducks fits the (ummm) bill:

Interestingly, Marley's Ghost is also a Duck, but he's called "Rock" Marley here:

Marley's Ghost reminds me of Ludwig Von Drake, the character who first appeared in 1961 on the "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" series:

In any event, the story is pretty faithful, but I think the dialogue is a bit stilted. I somehow get the impression it was translated from the book into another language (Italian?), then translated back into English, rather than just starting over with English.

Like "humbug" was translated into whatever, but then became "nonsense" when it was translated back to English.

Such things are always worth a look and you can find more info at www.darkhorse.com