Scrolls of Scrooge: Canon

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This page is a helpful guide to what canon is, what is canon, and more!

What is “canon”?

“Canon” is originally a Biblical term, later applied to Sherlock Holmes and later still to fictional universes in general. It stems from the idea that a large mass of stories featuring the same places and characters can be read as more than a loosely-connected bunch of 'possible' tales, but rather, as “historical texts” describing various events that happen in a single, self-consistent fictional universe at various points of space and time. 

This Wiki strives to present one such coherent fictional universe, wrenched from the extremely large corpus of Disney comics, cartoons, video games, novels, and more. Like with most large fictional mythos, the Disney Comics Universe's various authors don't all care for a strictly consistent universe, and so it is fraught with Continuity Issues. Between "what-ifs", stories meant as 'true' as any other but later ignored or contradicted, parallel universe, and simple mistakes, it soon becomes necessary to create a "canon": a policy of what, when material contradicts other material, should be considered the "true" version of events when describing the Disney comics universe in general in other parts of the wiki. 

Is there an official Disney comics canon? Or several?

Not really. The Walt Disney Company at large (and most publishers) tend to treat the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse universe as a franchise aimed mostly at kids, and therefore, one that doesn't warrant thinking long and hard about "details" like that. As far as they are concerned, writers can do anything as long as they don't characterize long-running characters in too jarring a fashion.  However, individual people who create or edit official content can have their own "head-canon", which they may abide by for their own stories or when editing others'. For instance, Don Rosa is well-known for defining the "Barks-Rosa Universe", a restrictive continuity where only his stories and Carl Barks's really took place, the rest being null and void. Egmont Publishing also has a set of guidelines that tell the writers to stick to a number of "facts"; such as the idea that Ludwig von Drake's existence sould be ignored or that Magica De Spell is a sorceress, not a witch.

Many fans all over the world also have their own head-canons, which they can share online. At the end of the day, the Scrooge McDuck Wiki canon is only one fanmade headcanon among many, though, due to its all-encompassing nature, it is the most thorough when it comes to giving a maximum of information about Disney comics in general. 

Our Policies

All-Inclusiveness, Speculating Over Ignoring, and Broadstrokes

A cornerstone of the $crooge McDuck Wiki's view on canon is that ideally, everything is canon. This cannot always be strictly true, but we favor an inclusive canon over an exclusive one. (The Barks-Rosa Universe is a good example of the opposite: a highly exclusive canon.) As many works as can be demonstrated to have ties to the Disney Comics Universe should be made so. 

When continuity issues come up, as they inevitably must, they should not damn the story all on their own. It is perfectly possible, and occasionally trivial, to propose one or several theories which would explain away the problem. For instance, much of the page Titus McDuck bridges together seemingly contradictory information given in several unrelated sources about Scrooge's grandfather, forming a coherent biography by the end. 

Even if no good theory can be formulated, you should use the broadstrokes principle sooner than give up. Even if it is shown that, say, Gus Goose could not have bene present at a given event of Donald Duck's childhood, this must not invalidate the overall narrative of a story which would show a flashback to this event; indeed, if the story still makes sense without Gus, one can assume the broad lines of this incident in Donald's youth did happen, minus Gus's presence. 

‘Any Sufficiently Advanced Fanwork Is Indistinguishable From Canon’

Quick, which of this image or this one is fan art, and which is an official promotional picture of the Duck Avenger ? You couldn't tell, could you? Well, after a point, neither can we. 

If a fan work — a comic, or a film, or a cartoon, or an audioplay — is virtually well-put-together enough, and consistent enough in tone with official Disney comics work, that it could as well have been endorsed by Disney — and if it breaks no continuity from official works… then for the purposes of this Wiki, it can be canon. This goes double if the story is the work of a professional artist (as is the case, for instance, of the short film Followed from the Mansion, or Sarah Jolley’s "doodle comics" featuring the Duckburg cast). 

This is a "secondary tier" of canon, of course — if there surfaces an official work which contradicts it, even if it is posterior to the fanwork, then the official version will take precedence.

Unofficial Works by Official Authors; Approval of God

The second-tier canon outlined above for fan works of significant value should not be confused with non-licensed works by official authors, which is considered to be equivalent to their authorized Disney work, canonically-speaking. Carl Barks's Joe Cowles' Popcorn Popper, for instance, is just as valid a comic story as any one-pager he did, and stuff on Frank Angones and the Suspenders of Disbelief might as well have been said right in DuckTales 2017.

To an extent, this also goes for ‘approved fanworks’ — a term which here means fanworks which, regardless of quality, have been endorsed or otherwise approved-of by official creators. For example, the comic gag Dart Guns may not have been quite notable or professional-looking enough for consideration on the Wiki, and its authors are certainly not notable professional authros, but Francisco Angones (one of the creators of Woo-oo! for which it acts as an epilogue) stating his hearty approval of it on his blog makes it de-facto canon. 

Crossovers

Among Disney properties, a crossover signifies that the Disney property crossing over with Disney comics is canon to Disney comics, and thus it falls within the scope of the $crooge McDuck Wiki. For that reason, most of the Walt Disney Classics are considered canon. 

Moreover, regardless of licensing, a crossover between Disney comics and another franchise is usually taken to mean that that franchise exists in the same universe. It thus falls within the scope of the Wiki. For that reason, the following non-Disney comic series are covered on the Wiki:

• Asterix
• Spirou & Fantasio (and spin-offs)
• The Adventures of Tintin

This is not the case if the situation matches one of the following two cases:

• The crossover is done through dimension-traveling or some other such method.

When this is the case, the over-crossing franchise's world would technically be worthy of coverage on the Wiki as a parlallel universe, but it is best to instead link all relevant concepts and characters to their pages on that franchise's Wiki.

• The crossover is a nod that clearly does not entail that the entire world of the over-crossing franchise exists in the Disney comics universe.

For example, Fluffy and Mervin make a cameo in a Disney comics narrative as members of the Legion of the Chartreuse Tortoise. However, their world is clearly incompatible with Disney comics, and it is an unspoken fact that the “Fluffy and Mervin” comics could not have happened per se prior to the Disney story, only an approximation of it. Thus, “Fluffy and Mervin” as a whole is not a canon source on this Wiki.

Another important thing to note is that if Disney does not own a license to both parties, a crossover with a crossover is null and void. For instance, if Asterix (canon to us through a crossover) crossed over with a different non-Disney series like Lucky Luke, this would not, on its own, make Lucky Luke canon for our purposes.