The Good Luck Charm, better known by the later title of Gladstone's Terrible Secret, is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, Gladstone Gander, Scrooge McDuck, and, in his debut, Gyro Gearloose.
Description[]
Spying on Gladstone Gander, Donald Duck and his nephews attempt to figure out whether there are any limits to their cousin's luck, and what its source might be. All their "tests" deliver a negative answer to the first question, but as to the second, they figure out that the answer might lie within an iron strongbox Gladstone keeps in his house…
References[]
- Gladstone Gander worked once in his whole life, in “a moment of weakness”.
- Gyro Gearloose is hoping to invent Butterless Buttered Popcorn. He gets about via pogo stick.
Continuity[]
- The story has been referenced in its capacity as Gyro Gearloose's first appearance several times. In The Man Who Drew Ducks (1992), the in-universe process of Carl Barks drawing this very story is shown, with Gyro Gearloose inventing a hovering pogo stick to be able to hold the pose of his very first Barksian panel. In An Exquisite Duck! (2020), a background sight gag reveals that Gyro eventually succeeded in creating Butterless Buttered Popcorn.
Behind the scenes[]
This story was first published in 1952 in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #140. It was reprinted in #346 and #585, and, of course, in the various versions of the Carl Barks Library. It was also printed in English in the Australian Walt Disney's Comics #73, #187 and #304, and in the British Donald and Mickey #18 (in a cut version which received the title The Good Luck Charm).