History: Creator / DonRosa

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Rosa.jpg]]

'''Keno Don Rosa''' is a big fan of CarlBarks who eventually got promoted to write the official DonaldDuck stories in the spirit of ''[[CarlBarks The Good Duck Artist]]''. He is one of those rare few writers who have managed to make an excessive use of ContinuityPorn into great stories, and is widely regarded as one of the best things that ever happened to Disney comics.

Up until his retirement, he had executive power over the Duck family canon, and brought the world some seriously great ArcWelding in the process.

He grew up as a fan of the Donald Duck comics made by Carl Barks. When he grew older he submitted self drawn comics to Donald Duck fanzines, as well as letters to some debates. He even corresponded with Carl Barks from time to time. Eventually he quit being a hardcore fan, but he never quit being a fan of Carl Barks. Years later a new Donald Duck publication arrived, and Don Rosa applied for the job as an artist. He wrote a letter there he told how much he wanted to be the artist, that he would write the stories in the spirit of Carl Barks and that he was born to make it. (Indeed, in the 1970s and 80s Rosa had done two comics for newspapers in his hometown of Louisville, ''ThePertwillabyPapers'' and ''The Adventures of Captain Kentucky''. He later [[RecycledScript reused]] several ''Pertwillaby'' storylines for his Scrooge stories.)

He got the job, and he created Donald Duck and Scrooge [=McDuck=] comics from 1987 to 2005. Because he was a great fan of ''[[CarlBarks The Good Duck Artist]]'', he created what can be considered an ExpandedUniverse based on the Duck-master's works. That is to say, he used ContinuityPorn, lots of Continuity Porn. Even Carl Barks told him he did too much Continuity Porn, but he didn't listen. He even dedicated all his comics to Carl Barks by hiding the word D.U.C.K. (Dedicated to Uncle Carl from Keno) on the first page of each story.

Rosa is known for his quirky drawing style and epic storylines, best exemplified by ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', his personal MagnumOpus. Since Uncle Scrooge is his favorite character, Rosa's longest and best stories deal with the [[AntiHero complex]] and BadAss elder duck. His drawing style stems from his education in architecture and technical drawing, with no formal education in art.

For those who consider Disney comics childish stories for five-year-olds, Rosa's style of making comics may be a surprise. The artist is known for [[ShownTheirWork doing ridiculously extensive research]], basing much of his adventure stories on real historical factlets and making sure all the possible science in his comics is valid. In ''[[Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck Life and Times]]'', he [[HistoricalInJoke drops famous people from the late 19th and early 20th century to Scrooge's life here and there]], but always makes sure they were around that area around that time.

Another notable feature of Rosa's work is his unveiling of the [[TangledFamilyTree Duck Family Tree]], based on random RememberTheNewGuy characters from Barks' stories.

As of 2009, due to fading eyesight, and after years of disagreements over low pay and royalties from publishers, Rosa is more or less retired from comics. [[http://career-end.donrosa.de/ Here's]] his own words on the end of his career. TearJerker warning.

Rosa also wrote two ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' episodes, "I Only Have Ice for You" and "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck".

The YMMV page for his works is [[YMMV/DonRosa here]].

----
!!Tropes used:

* ArcWelding: ''[[Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck Life and Times]]'' as a work
* AscendedFanboy[=/=]RunningTheAsylum
* AsYouKnow: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade hung]] in ''The Last Lord of Eldorado''.
* AuthorAppeal: Rosa's love of classic Hollywood movies pops up in quotes and other forms of tribute from time to time.
* BadAss: ''Don't. Fuck. With [=McDuck=].''.
** Sometimes Donald, too, gets this treatment. Most notably, in ''The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros'', Panchito and José Carioca think that Donald is a real BadAss and treat him accordingly. The fact he ends up mentioning some of the various treasure hunts he's been on with Scrooge and his nephews, namely the discovery of ElDorado, {{Atlantis}}, the Lost Mines of the Incas, King Solomon's Mines and the Forbidden Valley (a valley in the Amazon rainforest filled with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals) particularly impresses them. See [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=9&loc=D2004-032&s=date here]], [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=20&loc=D2004-032&s=date here]] and [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=27&loc=D2004-032&s=date here]].
* BreakingTheFourthWall: [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=14&loc=D91071 The last panel of]] ''The Island at the Edge of Time'' has Scrooge telling the narrator to shut up.
* BunglingInventor: Gyro Gearloose.
* CelebrityParadox: Some of Don's Hidden Mickeys refer to Mickey's real-life status as a fictional character, while the Ducks are "real" people. Take into account that Donald started off as Mickey's co-star in the cartoons, and you see how this fits.
** That's nothing. Scrooge has a Ducktales comic as bathroom reading.
*** Considering Don Rosa’s opinion of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'', [[TakeThat that comic might have served another purpose]].
* ChewToy: Donald.
* ComicBookTime: Averted, Rosa set all of his stories (at least, the ones in the "present") sometime in the '40s or '50s, to be consistent with Barks' stories. He's even stated that the time line of his stories isn't the same as the order he wrote them.
* ContinuityPorn: Oh yeah!
** CarlBarks himself thought that Don Rosa made too much Continuity Porn, and he encouraged Keno to write original stories without the influence of his stories that were made in the 50s. One of the main reasons behind this is that Carl Barks m.o. was to make all his stories original, and that he was ashamed of reusing elements from earlier stories, even if those stories turned out to be great.
* CoolOldGuy: Scrooge, all the way.
* CreatorInsignia: "D.U.C.K."
** He wrote this more or less in plain sight in one of his earliest stories. Disney removed it, as they decided it went against their policy of not allowing artist signatures. Later, Don Rosa began hiding it in the covers and opening panels.
* CreepyTwins: Phishkisser brothers, the owners of "Oolated Squigs" fish company, whose ''heads'' are fish-shaped, with big lips, dog-ears resembling pelvic fins, and [[HairTodayGoneTomorrow remains of hair]] resembling dorsal and tail fins.
* DanBrowned: Although Rosa did research for his works, there are instances where he gets his facts wrong. He falls into this because he is proudly declaring that he was doing research for any real facts and that all references to the real world and events were true.
** You could consider this subverted, since not only Rosa's mistakes happen once in a blue moon, but when he realizes he made one (or is told about it by fans), he instantly recognizes it. The guy's human, even if he worked with ducks all the time.
** He also isn't shy to admit that if reality and his artistic vision clash, he'll go with the latter for the sake of the RuleOfCool. His stories are often published alongside with his commentaries, where he explains how certain details are wrong, and why he decided to leave them that way.
* DeadpanSnarker: Scrooge. Donald and the nephews have their moments as well.
* DeathTrap: In "Treasure of the Ten Avatars", Scrooge and Donald have to get out of [[DeathCourse an entire series of these]]. Among other things there's a DescendingCeiling and FakePlatform with SpikesOfDoom, TheWallsAreClosingIn, FedToTheBeast, and a SnakePit. Donald even lampshades it by the end when he points out that they've already been through every B-movie cliché.
* DramaticThunder
* DurableDeathtrap
* EveryCarIsAPinto: Mocked.
* ExtremeOmniGoat
* FandomNod : The Quest for Kalevala for the Finnish fandom
* FunetikAksent: Scrooge's family in ''Life and Times'' as well as Arpin Lusene.
* {{Fiction 500}}
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In the spirit of Barks.
* FunnyForeigner: Arpin Lusene, together with FunetikAksent.
-->'''Arpin Lusene''': Ah am truly ze master thif!
-->'''Donald''': "Thif"?
-->'''Arpin Lusene''': Not "thif", you iddy-ott! '''Thif!'''
* GentlemanThief: Arpin Lusene
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Especially "What did Scrooge and Goldie did [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=31&loc=D2005-061&s=date in that shack]] [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=32&loc=D2005-061&s=date that one night?]]", found in his own commentary.
* GreatBigBookOfEverything The Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] ''and'' [[JustifiedTrope explained]].
* GreenAesop: "War Of The Wendigo"
* HaveAGayOldTime: In the first ''TheThreeCaballeros'' comic Rosa did, he changed the lyrics of the eponymous song to remove the verse "the three gay caballeros". In the second one, the line is [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=34&loc=D2004-032&s=date intact]]. You could almost swear there's a guy giving them a knowing gaze as they sing it that time...
* HistoricalInJoke
* {{Homage}}: The two stories with TheThreeCaballeros. Complete with them [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=13&loc=D2000-002 performing the theme song]].
* ImpossibleThief: Arpin Lusene
* JailBake: The Beagle Boys visit their grandfather in prison, to celebrate the birthday of their gang. They bring a huge elaborate cake, of which not much was left after the security removed all sort of tools hidden inside. Including a flamethrower.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: [[http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?num=2&loc=D96066&s=date This well-known panel (bottom left)]], for instance.
* MegaMicrobes: In "The Incredible Shrinking Tightwad", Scrooge and Donald are eventually shrunk down to microscopic size due to the effects of a malfunctioning shrinking ray, and are menaced by a horde of microbes.
* MoneyFetish: Scrooge swims in it.
* MonumentalTheft: Arpin Lusene steals a whole viking ship while nude.
* MrViceGuy: Scrooge and Greed.
* NumberOneDime: Just don't call it "lucky".
* OlderHeroVSYoungerVillain: Scrooge to several members of his RoguesGallery.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Lots of characters in Rosa's timeline seem to have extraordinarily long lifespans, with Scrooge living up to the noble age of 100 and half of the characters he met in his youth still being in fine shape in the "present" (1950's), but one particularly outstanding example would be Blackheart Beagle, who back in 1880 already had sons who were old enough to wear moustaches.
* PettingZooPeople: The dog-nosed but otherwise human supporting cast.
* PooledFunds: Scrooge, of course.
* PromotedFanboy: Hence all the ContinuityPorn
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: In the second story featuring the Three Caballeros, Donald becomes especially depressed and Huey, Dewey and Louie decide to reunite the Three Caballeros in the hopes that it will cheer Donald up.
* RebusBubble
* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Deconstructed in "Super Snooper Strikes Again!". Donald briefly becomes a FlyingBrick after chugging down some AppliedPhlebotinum, and makes several attempts to impress his nephews with his new powers. He tries to travel around the world in an instant, but realizes that he still perceives the passage of time normally despite everyone else effectively being frozen in time while he's moving around at superspeed, so the task could take him several months or even ''years'' to complete, and nobody would notice anyway. He also tries to use his superstrength to lift both a mountain and a sunken cruise ship, but the mountain starts falling apart at the base and the ship breaks in two due to years of rust decay to the hull.
* RunningJoke: In ''The Sign of the Triple Distelfink'', something implausibly unlucky for Gladstone happens, prompting a character to say "What are the odds of that?", to which Gladstone becomes increasingly more annoyed.
** In "The Dream of a Lifetime", whenever Uncle Scrooge sees Donald in one of his dreams, he says "Nephew, what the [[SymbolSwearing &#*%]] are you doing here?!"
* TakeAThirdOption: Rosa had a bit of trouble with naming the star of ''Guardians of the Lost Library''. It starts with Donald and the nephews, but then once Scrooge comes in, the plot follows him, leaving Donald behind. So was it a Donald story or a Scrooge story? He decided to go with Scrooge, but when other countries labelled it as a Huey, Dewey and Louie/Junior Woodchucks story, he realized that made perfect sense, yet he never considered that as an option.
* SceneryPorn
* SelfMadeMan: Scrooge. The point being that the "making" was more important to him than "getting made" in the first place.
* ShaggyDogStory: Scrooge, as he is unable to become a Junior Woodchuck and legally get his hands on a copy of their famous guidebook, goes hunting for the remains of the Library of Alexandria in an attempt to obtain something that can rival it in knowledge. [[spoiler:That Junior Woodchuck guidebook? Yeah, it's what the contents of the Library eventually got turned into... After chasing the library the world over, his goal ends up being the only book in the world he ''can't'' obtain]].
* ShoutOut: Rosa never wrote any Mickey Mouse stories, but that doesn't keep him from littering various Hidden Mickeys within his stories.
** The D.U.C.K. dedication, as described above, also counts.
** ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' gets quoted at least twice.
** ''Film/CitizenKane'' is referenced three times
** '''José Carioca''': [[Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre "It's a great joke played on us by fate or greed or whatever you prefer, but whoever or whatever played it certainly had a good sense of humor !"]]
** From the same comic, '''Gold Hat''': [[Film/BlazingSaddles "Bandages? I ain't got no bandages... I don't need no stinkin' bandages!"]]
* ShownTheirWork: Probably the king of this trope.
* TheStinger: An extra page for ''The Quest for Sampo''.
* StockScream: [[MythologyGag Goofy Holler]] is used when Donald [[ItMakesSenseInContext falls horizontally along the street and crashes to a wall]] in "A Matter Of Some Gravity".
* ThisIsReality
* ThrowTheDogABone: He did this to Donald in ''The Duck Who Never Was'', ''The Three Caballeros Ride Again'' and ''The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros''.
* TimeStandsStill: ''On Stolen Time''; played with in ''Super Snooper Strikes Back''.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Twice in ''A Matter Of Some Gravity''.
* VillainTeamUp: ''A Little Something Special''
* WonderfulLife: ''The Duck Who Never Was'' does this to Donald. [[TearJerker It works]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The second generation of Beagle Boys, last seen at the end of chapter ten of [[Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck Life and Times]] when Blackheart Beagle tells them to get married and start families [[IWantGrandkids so there would be more Beagle Boys]]. The next time Scrooge meets Beagle family is forty-five years later in chapter twelve, when it's already Blackheart plus his grandsons. The middle generation is never mentioned again.
* WorthyOpponent: Scrooge and Arpin Lusene.
----

Troperville

Tools