FOR THE LOVE OF GNELLIE

In the beginning of the 80’es rumours went, that the Egmont publishing were interested in publishing a series with newly produced album length stories with motives from the Disney universe. I wanted to present my 10 cents worth of contributions, so I showed them a story with the ducks that I had always wanted to read, but no one else had told by that time.
It was a story from Grandma Duck’s past. A story about how she came to possess the farm and the land she has owned ever since. A drama worth some attention, I figured.
So being the guy I am, I did not inquire beforehand about the interest in such a venture. Of course it would be of huge interest, and if there were some doubt, that would be overcome seeing the brilliance of how I rendered this groundbreaking theme.
Time took us back to the period of land rushes. Since we have learned to accept, that Scrooge McDuck has been a gold digger in the 19th century, it would be no problem letting Grandma Duck be involved in an event going back to that period, since we must assume, that Grandma is at least as old as Uncle Scrooge.
Therefore I wrote my version of “How Grandma Duck got the Farm”, and Egmont did take a look at the script. They had it lying around for a while until they came up with the decision that they wanted another concept. Instead the project came to be the Goofy history albums, where Goofy wanders through history and meets a number of historical figures along his way.
I myself then had also the idea lying around for a while, but ultimately I decided to use it with my dragon characters, and Grandma was substituted with Gnellie. It would fit in well in Kim Thompsons American magazine “Critters”, where The Gnuffs had just started publishing. The lucky O’Ganders being originally ancestors of Gladstone Gander, came to be a competing dragon family instead. Since the dragons are several hundred years old, it formed no problem to assume, that they could also have had a role to play during an American land rush in the 19th century.
The story premiered in USA and it is my attempt to launch a regular historical melodrama, an ambition I had always wanted to try out. Afterwards it is a further satisfaction to me that it ended up being a part of my album saga with the dragons.
But what about the idea to another story of “How Grandma Duck got the farm”?
Well, I came to do that anyway. You can read that under another instalment in this column.