You will not find many Carl Barks
stories, in which Gladstone Gander was not chiefly portrayed as
being lucky. Of course not, because the character's whole
existence depends on his incredible and thoroughly irritating
lucky streaks! Without those he would never have been able to
influence Daisy, Scrooge, and Donald the negative way he always
did. And Gladstone's immense luck was combined with other - very
negative - streaks such as laziness, self-importance,
cold-heartedness, boasting, and belittlement.
Barks never succeeded in giving Gladstone either human values or
redeeming features, and he was painfully aware of his character's
fatal flaws: I don't think anybody likes a
character who gets by with so little effort in the world. They
like to feel that other people have just as much of a struggle as
they themselves have, and Gladstone was a fellow who would just
go along, skimming all the cream out of life, without ever
sweating for it.
But, against all odds you might say, Barks succeeded in churning
out 51 stories with Gladstone in major or minor roles, and he
also managed to disperse with some of the monotonous luck in the
plot lines by also furnishing him with distinct unlucky streaks!
In fact, in a great many of the stories Barks let Gladstone be
both lucky and unlucky, which is not always recognized when you
think of Gladstone in general.
In the sub-pages you are, for the first time ever, presented to all of Barks' stories featuring Gladstone (he never made it to the front covers). The stories are presented in chronological order enabling you to follow his development.
http://www.cbarks.dk/THEGLADSTONESTORIES.htm | Date 2008-10-18 |