New DuckTales Animated Series

I could see it if Lena was actually her niece, but she's not. They just call her that for simplicity's sake.

And yeah, Magica's shadow war was the clear inspiration, especially considering the S1 finale.

Well, you could say the idea of Magica having a niece came from Minima, with Shadow War informing everything else.

But she's not even Magica's niece. She's more her magical clone if nothing else.

Well, she actually debuted in a Ducktales comic story, "Dime After Dime", and you can see the parallels between her debut and Lena's arc: in Da D, Minima is introduced as a lonely weird girl in a camp Webby attends, and tries to befriend a lonely girl called Minima, who's bullied by the other kids. Minima doesn't want any friends until she finds that Webby knows Scrooge Mc Duck and that her aunt Magica wants his 1st dime, so she accepts to participte in a scheme involving Webby getting her the dime and putting a copy in its place, but then her friendship speaks louder, especially after seeing Webby stand up to a few girls who were calling her a freak, and then she undoes her part in the scheme, much to her aunt's frustration. Minima never reappeared in the Ducktales comics (only on a few non-Ducktales comics where there are no mentions to the events of Dime After Dime), which I think it's a shame, for I'd have liked to see her dynamic with Webby and the triplets. But at least she inspired a character in the new Ducktales series.

That does sound plausible enough.

Well, she's not banned from the comics as far as I know. That questionable distinction still goes to Fethry and Ludwig.

Why are Fethry and Ludwig banned from the comics?

Because this one guy running Egmont doesn't like them, and consistently vetoes any comics featuring them from being published.

Yes, it's really that petty.

Do you have a source for this claim?

Well, it used to be because of Tom Rhoep, head editor of Donald Duck magazine, not allowing them, at least. I remember something about Egmont too, though that may have been Rhoep as well.

I know this is not very satisfying, but it seems this story is tricky to track down. I'll ask on our old Duck forum, but it is all but dead so there may not be any answer coming.

Edited by Redmess on Jul 21st 2021 at 10:57:44 AM

This video talking about the ending to "The Last Crash Of The Sunchaser" shows some excerpts from a very long interview with John Aoshima (a director on season 1) and Sean Jimenez (the art director). There's some interesting tidbits in the video. For example, John had a dead father when he was young, and that served as an inspiration for the scene. There's also the flashback showing the full context of Scrooge trying to rescue Della. Ever notice how it's almost like a slide show with minimal animation? Well, there was a plan to make it more animated, but budget (and more importantly, the impact of showing little yet saying a lot) is what played into the scene being put in as is. I'll see if there's more in that long interview, but here's the information for now.

Also, Angones posed a couple tweets recently about the show.

First one is regarding why he changed Doofus, he outright said he looked up if people would be upset at the show's take on him and all he found was one piece of art and a negative fanfic.

https://twitter.com/FrankAngones/status/1421924111064829952

Next up is that they apparently were gonna do a story on Benzino Gassolini (from Hotel Strangeduck and Top Duck in the 1987 series) if they had gotten a fourth season.

https://twitter.com/FrankAngones/status/1426054523836006404

And also when asked whether it was intended as a four season story, this is what he said: "No. We did have lots of ideas for episodes we just didn’t get to, or knew we would never get past Disney for approval. Among those was a Justice Ducks episode and a riff on Robotech called “Gyrotech”. But we were already doing Astroboyd in S3. From day one, we always referred to Duck Tales as “an adventure machine.” We could have done one-off episodes forever. But the narrative we were building from the pilot all got told. Anything further would have had to mix it up or be strictly stand-alone."

https://twitter.com/FrankAngones/status/1426281251732787201

Thoughts on those recent behind the scenes facts he said?

So I've given the first show a try and if I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere on TV Tropes about the Beagles trying to rob the Money Bin only to be foiled despite the building being empty. Which episode was that? Or was that a comic?

If that was all he found about Doofus, then sorry, but he didn't try to look all that hard. Come on, Argones. Doofus wasn't terribly popular, but he was hardly obscure.

As for the no four seasons part, that sounds like justification after the fact. It seems pretty clear to me that the first episodes of season three were setting up things that they never got around to because of the end of the series.

He didn't say anything about Doofus being obscure.

He said people wouldn't be upset at Doofus getting revamped into something different, not that he was obscure you know?.

I was kinda upset.

Like, not a big fan of doofus, but if you were going to change the character that much, why bother naming it after the character?

Because that's what ended up giving us Faris D'jinn, and D'jinn is awesome.

Fair enough. But that's because they liked Dijon and clearly wanted to do him better.

Same with Webby.

I don't think it worked with Doofus to be honest. I don't think they cared for him as much.

What I meant is that Argones implies Doofus is obscure by saying he couldn't really find anything about him besides some fan art and a negative fanfic.

Pal, Doofus being obscure is neither what he said or implied. He said that he couldn't find any negative reception to the concept of making Doofus a villain besides one fic and one fanart, could you at least read stuff before typing?

Edited by VengefulBale on Aug 14th 2021 at 12:36:08 PM

....wait what?

Like, wasn't he a part of the old series from like early in the first season?

I admit, he's likely not well known outside of that to the extent of say, Gizmo Duck, who got his appearances in Darkwing Duck, and I doubt he showed up often in Disney Duck comics due to Don Rosa not really caring for anything not created by Carl Barks, but surely someone else used him on occasion.....right?

Even then, using that to just turn him into a bad guy is kinda....I don't know. It just doesn't jive with me.

Edit: Looks like I got ninja'ed.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Aug 14th 2021 at 10:37:32 AM

Again, Angones said he couldn't find much people complaining about the change like this:

I get the feeling people are really rewording something right in their faces for no reason whatsoever

Huh. Well yeah, that doesn't bode well for Doofus.

Dislike is one thing, but apathy is the true death of a character.

How could he possibly have found people complaining about the change before making the change?

And that comment does seem to imply he couldn't find anything positive, which I assume he meant by "people who would object to the change".

Doofus appeared in the Ducktales and Darkwing Duck comics, but he hasn't appeared in much else, because he's a very tertiary character.