Gladstone Gander Character Study (for Animation)
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Disney Ducks comics have negative continuity, as many of you know, and as artists over the decades came to write and draw stories for the Duckverse, the same characters were inevitably portrayed with differences. Some small, others more noticeable.
That is totally okay (and enjoyable) in comics, but what if we wanted to make an animated series with these characters, in which they appear regularly, have goals they wish to fulfill, fears they have to face, flaws they have to live with/overcome, people they have to interact with, etc?
These characters would have to be modeled more definitely. Their traits would have to be firmly established and cannot change without explanation from one story to another. This was done with Scrooge McDuck for DuckTales, and can be done for any of the other ducks.
Gladstone was first created by Carl Barks for the story Wintertime Wager in 1948. In the story, Gladstone isn’t given an interesting personality or anything - he’s just Donald’s jerkass cousin who’s heartless enough to leave him out in the freezing cold. Barks probably didn’t know back then that he was going to reuse this character again, but he did. Gladstone became slightly more developed in the stories that followed, and in those works, he was this:
It seems Barks didn’t like Gladstone that much, and only used him in a few stories out of the 500+ Duck comics he ended up drawing in his lifetime. He hardly changed in any of them, always portraying the 3 traits listed above.
Then one story showed an interesting side to him; when asked by Donald if he had ever worked a day in his life, Gladstone becomes disturbed and upset by the memory, answering yes and that it was a horrible, humiliating experience that he never wanted to repeat again. He bursts into waterworks and Donald leaves him be with this classic look on his face:
Of course, Barks intended the exchange to be funny like that, to further accentuate Gladstone’s laziness, but this story can also bring to light an interesting side to Gladstone..
He is so used to having things go his way, never worrying about hunger, poverty, sickness or other serious ailments in life that when he does feel a negative emotion like fear, shame or sadness, he doesn’t know how to handle it. The end result is crying like a child. Furthermore, his outlook on life is definitely warped because of his extraordinary good fortune.
If you like more serious takes on Disney characters, I’d say Gladstone deep down has a serious existential crisis. He has no accomplishments to be proud of, or even a dream to follow.
Many artists followed after Barks, and Gladstone was used in comics produced in Italy, Brazil, Denmark, and other countries. In Italian comics, for example, Gladstone’s arrogance was eventually toned down to open doors for a wider range of communication and adventures between him and his other two cousins, Donald and Fethry in ways that wouldn’t have been very possible had Barks’s disgustingly arrogant Gladstone been still used.
He gradually became less flat a character; he was given some character quirks and redeeming qualities to make him more tolerable, and to make his solo stories more interesting.
There is at least one story where Gladstone willingly puts his supernatural luck to use for someone else’s show that he’s not a complete a-hole personality-wise, but it should be mentioned that the ‘how Gladstone’s luck works’ detail changes from author to author.
Technically speaking, Gladstone’s luck only serves him. Even when he puts it to someone else’s use, it will fail that person should their interests conflict with Gladstone’s.
If Barks’s Gladstone portrayed a goose that didn’t seem to care about his family or what they thought, that was changed in stories by other writers. In fact, some show Gladstone to be surprisingly affectionate when it comes to family. In one story, Gladstone fights Donald over an old family lamp that was displaced. It’s nothing special or particularly beautiful, but he’s adamant to get it back simply for the sentimental value of it.
Another story had Scrooge McDuck drag Gladstone along for good luck looking for the lost treasure chest of a princess. He thinks it contains valuables, but they only turn out to be old toys. Gladstone is extremely touched, and Scrooge is torn between throwing a tantrum and calling out his relative on his sappiness.
Not to mention that this goose cries when his family throws him a surprise birthday party.
Have you ever heard him praising his Grandma’s cooking? Or admiring a girl’s beauty when alone? He is such a corny corn despite the debonair image he tries to maintain.
Summary/Cheat Sheet for Gladstone’s Character
To write a lengthy story or create an animated series where Gladstone appears regularly, below are the most prominent traits of his personality:
He’s the luckiest goose in the world, duh. The reason for his supernatural luck is left for interpretation
Gladstone is Donald’s first cousin. His mother is Donald’s aunt
He’s half-goose, half-duck. A duck on his mother’s side, a goose on his father’s
His mother, Daphne, is also very lucky, but not as lucky as him
He is knowledgeable in horoscopes
Gladstone pays attention to his looks, and is implied to be handsome by the other characters
He secretly loves his family and wants to feel a part of it. However, his relationship with Donald is bumpy at best because of their different personalities. His relationship with Scrooge is also unsmooth, but overall better
Gladstone has a very passive mentality. He is so reliant on his luck that when it temporarily hides, he easily gives up and becomes depressed
He is so used to having everything come to him on a gold platter, that he is incredibly lazy. He is unfit physically and a little bit of running exhausts him. Despite that, he isn’t overweight. His luck allows him to stay in just enough shape so as not to become ill
Gladstone does not look where he is going. He trips and falls and bumps and slips into things all the time, usually in good fortune. However, in the DuckTales episode ‘Dime Enough for Luck’, he’s cursed with bad luck, and trips and falls around with injury, and when Scrooge snaps at him to look where he’s going, he answers: “I never had to before!”
He is less reserved with his wording than Donald. As a result, what comes out of his beak either sounds very rude, or very cheesy and overemotional
He doesn’t know how to handle negative emotions due to his severe lack of experience in real life
His priority in life is to be happy and carefree. He’s not particularly interested in being rich or important. In fact, plenty of the time, Gladstone hardly has any money
Gladstone Gander (from GeoX’s blog)
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