dogcather leaving duckburg

Written and drawn as an 8 page story "but the editors whittled it down to fit a speciale hole in a rush. In the process they got some panels reversed on the bottom half of page 5, leaving the story a bad jumbled mess." (letter from Barks to a fan)

The proper sequence of the panels is 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.7, 5.8, 5.5, 5.6. That is, the fourth tier should come between the second and the third tiers. Besides this, a careful look through the story reveals indications of extensive cutting and repasting, which is to be expected if a quarter of the story was dropped.

Judging from The Carl Barks Library - Set II, lots of tiers in the story look as if they're misaligned. Guessing where the cuts might be, one transition might be particularly strange: the dogs Donald is observing on page 2 appear to be on a very different place in panel 2.7 than in panel 3.1.

In panel 4.3, Donald refers to "the police department", "the fire department", and "3000 TV fans" being mad at him. The circumstances with the TV act and the fire department are both shown in the story as published. The police department is an exception.

A sequence involving the police department may have been eleminated between panels 4.2 and 4.3. Another possibility could be that a scene with the police department took place between page 2 and page 3. If so, then either "the third dog from the end" in panel 2.7, or "the second dog from the bottom" in panels 3.1 and 3.2, may have been changed to make them look the same. And Donald's hook in panel 2.8 may have been something else, his landing-net for example.

The hook Donald is holding in panels 3.1, 3.2 and 3.4, looks like the kind of hook as used in the radio-quiz ten-pager (WDC 99-02, panel 5.3). A hook that is used to get unwanted or failing performers off-stage. Panel 2.8 and panel 3.2 appear to show a big difference in the length of the hook. In panel 3.2, the hook appears to be much longer. Maybe this could be a trace of a change in one of these panels. Another hint could be that such a 'stage hook' does not belong to a dogcatcher's standard outfit, at least not unexplained. (And why would Donald have such a hook in panel 2.8 already, just before he walks inside, to a stage where such a hook can be expected as being among the stage's equipment?)

The reason why Donald uses a hook instead of a landing-net, could be that the dogs are standing on top of each other. As Donald only wants to catch "the second dog from the bottom", a landing-net would be too unhandy. So, even if the dog in panel 2.7 is the same dog as the one in panels 3.1 and 3.2, there may at least have been an eliminated scene explaining why Donald decides to use a hook instead of a net. And an insertion of the hook in panel 2.8 would have smoothed over that cut. Would have, because this is all just guessing what might have happened. No cut art is known to have surfaced.

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