in "Back to the Klondike"
This story was written and drawn as a 32-pager, but as published in "Uncle Scrooge" One Shot 456(1953) it was shortened to 27 pages. Most of the deleted art changes the characters' motivation, itmakes Scrooge a much more sympathetic character and Goldie less so. It ties up loose ends, containssome very fine episodes and gags, and reveals aspects of Scrooge's character that were previouslyunknown.
A four-page sequence was cut after page 11 of the published story, where Scrooge turns to walk outthe door of the Black Jack Ballroom. In the deleted art, the nephews trip him and they demand Scroogeto tell what happened when he met Goldie. A flashback sequence begins, which has Scrooge walkinginto the bar, ordering coffee, opening his poke and then showing a hunk of gold, which he calls a"goose egg nugget". Suddenly Goldie appears and after drinking some coffee with her, Scrooge findshimself robbed outside the city. He discovers that he had been drugged and he goes back to theballroom to start a fightscene which Gary Brown once described as "like Jack Kirby with ducks".The fight is settled in Scrooge's advantage and he demands Goldie to give back the goose eggnugget, which she does by throwing it to his head. Since more gold has been stolen from Scrooge'spoke, he makes her write an I.O.U. and takes her to him goldclaim to make her work for a month,learning how hard a miner works for his gold. When the month is over, Scrooge pays her off fiftycents a day, saying that it's all she's earned. Goldie replies by throwing the money in his faceand saying: "I dug more gold than you did, you tightwad!" This marks the end of the four pagesequence, followed by page 12 of the published story.
In aletter to Kim Weston, dated February 17, 1972,Barks explained the sequence "was cut out of the story at the editorial office in Beverly Hillsin 1952. I was a little skeptical of whether I could get by with such a bar room atmosphere butI did it anyway for fun. Such pages when cut from stories were never returned to me... the sequencewas cut because of violence and dance hall atmosphere."
In a 1974 interview with Michael Barrier, Barks enlarged upon the reasons for the deletion of the five pages. When asked if he had been paid for those pages, he said: "Evidently I wasn't...I think they figured I should have had sense enough to know you couldn't get involved in fights in a barroom...It was quite a while afterwards before I found out why they cut it...I got a letter from the office, or was told on my next visit to the office, that I had violated a lot of their taboos and should have had sense enough to know it wouldn't work..." One problem, Barks said, was the month that Scrooge and Goldie spent alone on Scrooge's claim. "That was kidnapping, he picked her up and carried her out to his claim and made her go to work...It didn't look very much like kidnapping yet it was."
Although Scrooge seemed justified in abducting her and forcing her to work off her debt for thegold she stole from him, " he was taking the law into his own hands and that is notlawful." (1984 interview) Another problem in the sequence could have been the implication- however veiled - that Scrooge and Goldie might have been lovers. Their month-long sojournat Scrooge's claim raised the question, "What did he do with her at night? I had really oversteppedthe bounds, and I realized it when the editors cut the sequence out".
Published page 12 wasn't left untouched either, the first half page shows misaligned panels.The space between panel 1 and 2 is wider and panel 4 has the left balloon cut off a little.This shows that this first half has previously been a page itself (making the original page 13begin with the second half of published page 12). Of this cutting, no original art has survived.
After the published page 15, a half page sequence was cut. It shows the ducks at the campfire(in the published art only one panel of this scene is published, right before this deleted part began).This art has survived. In it, Donald suggests going into town to get the law after this tough littleold lady. Scrooge rejects that idea. He wants to keep the law out of this because he never kept uptaxes on the claim; he really doesn't own it anymore than she does. Donald comments: "Oho! So you'reclaim-jumping your own claim!" To which Scrooge replies: "Well, it amounts to that!" Apparently,Western objected to this thought and so they cut out this part as well. (Maybe the total of arejected 4 and a half pages was the cause for cutting a half page from page 12, sothat the story would have full pages again? This is just guessing.)
In panel 8 of original page 32 (the story's last panel), the lettering of the words "Good old Unca Scrooge!"obviously is added by the editor. Since the balloon had to be enlarged (which is roughly done), it'sunlikely that the words were substituted for something else. This means that the original last lineof the story was just the first line: "Well, whaddaya know!" Maybe the editors felt this line wasnot clear enough, especially after having cut out an important part from the story?
Except for the missing half-page worth of material, all art has survived and is now usually included in reprints of the story. One panel can be seen here as illustration.
When in 1981 "Uncle Scrooge His Life & Times" was published, the cut material was inserted into the story again. To fill in the half page worth of lost art on page 12 (now page 16), Barks was asked to fill it in with new art. He penciled ahalf page which is meant to be placed between the first and second tier of the page. It fits in smoothly, even though it doesn't reconstruct the page as it had originally been. (I've always wondered if the counting of Scrooge's pills was also in the original art, because it fits in logically and it's a forerunner on what happens later in the story. Maybe Barks remembered this while penciling the new art?) For the more regular comic releases, this half page wasinked in an early 50's Barks-style by Dutch artist Daan Jippes.
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