HEY! Rosa answered and debunked a lot of Life and Times things
Deadass talked to him for like 4 hours lmao but I got most of my questions answered! This is gonna be only the fact part of my talks with Rosa, I'll post the more personal interactions in another post.
Ok so number 1 is MOLLY WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A CHILD LMAOOOO. She was still very young (early 20s) and died fairly young as well, but Rosa said he just wanted to portray an overworked miner and mother. AND I THINK HE SAW MY POST FROM JUNE LMAO. He said 'A few months ago I saw someone post how Molly looks like a child and why does she look like a child! But no no no that's not what I intended at all! I don't know why other prints of the family tree make her look like a child! This is the most accurate one.' (he points to the one where Molly is older looking and has Ludwig in it was well.)
Number 2 is what happened to Hortense and Della? Apparently Della was always missing to him. He didn't clarify how exactly she was missing, but she just went missing. Hortense on the other hand, he had more details. Originally in his mind, Hortense was alive and well! She was hiding and only Matilda knew. Rosa was originally going to do a sequel to 'The Castle's Secret' where Matilda reveals that they should go reunite with Hortense.
Rosa got as far as creating a general script and some doodles but then Disney and his editors came up to him and said that he wasn't allowed to include any of the Sensational Six's parents. So treat her as if she died. So that's just what Rosa did, so yes Hortense is dead in the Life and Times.
Number 3: Would Scrooge have settled down and make Dawson his home base instead of Duckburg? Rosa actually laughed at this one cause he had never thought of it before. His first answer was that he wasn't really sure! But regarding a family and stuff, he wasn't sure either so he just said 'maybe? Who knows what would have happened.' AND BOY IS MAYBE GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME LMAO
But he did go into the whole Scrooge faking his death to go and marry Goldie, move back into the cabin, and live the rest of his days with her. Which actually he was going to get that published as well! But Disney immediately said a cold hard 'no'
Not really a number but, ROSA DOESN'T HATE DUCKTALES!!! This is the one that surprised me a bit! He laughed and asked why does everybody think he hates Ducktales! He said DT87 was one of the best shows of the 80s and DT17 is just...interesting and a bit weird to him.
The difference is he doesn't like how the shows were executed. He said the shows really dumbed down the lessons of the comics. But for little kids, yeah it's a good show. He thinks DT doesn't do a very good at portraying everything the comics were able to convey. He doesn't like watching the show, and hasn't watched it all the way through, but he doesn't hate DT.
Also he actually gets excited when people tell him that they discovered his books through Ducktales! Because they're still managing to find and actually taking the time to read the Carl Barks comics and the Don Rosa comics.
Goldie's eye color. Now this one was interesting to me. I brought up how Goldie's eyes constantly change between blue and green. Apparently Rosa intended for her to always have blue! 'She's supposed to be this beautiful woman, so I had to give her those shining blue eyes. But Carl Barks gave her green eyes so it's always changed. I don't control the colonization of the comics.'
What happened to the chilis? So many Don Rosa fans will know that at conventions, Rosa usually brings a basket of chilis for people to eat. But the last few times he hasn't brought them. Apparently it's because in Europe he found out he could get in huge legal trouble for it, and in the US, people would touch the chilis and not eat them. So Rosa just didn't wanna deal with the hassle of that anymore.
I'm sure we talked about more regarding TLAT but I don't remember at the moment, I'll add on if I remember again 😅
