| "Christmas on Bear Mountain" | |
|---|---|
 "Christmas on Bear Mountain" comic book cover. Cover art by an unknown artist, probably Dan Gormley. | |
| Story code | W OS 178-02 |
| Story | Carl Barks |
| Ink | Carl Barks |
| Date | 1947 |
| Hero | Donald Duck |
| Pages | 20 |
| Layout | 4 rows per page |
| Appearances | Donald Duck Huey, Dewey and Louie Scrooge McDuck (debut) |
| First publication | Four Color Comics #178 December, 1947 |
"Christmas on Bear Mountain" (1947) is a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks, first published in Dell Comics Four Color Comics #178. It was the first appearance of Scrooge McDuck, a character who became a comic-book icon throughout the world.[1]
Scrooge did not yet have his familiar characteristics in his first comic story. In "Christmas on Bear Mountain", Scrooge was a bearded, bespectacled, reasonably wealthy old man, visibly leaning on his cane. He was living in isolation in a "huge mansion", which is said to be influenced by Xanadu from Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Scrooge has always been a somewhat bitter character, but his misanthropic thoughts in this first story are probably less characteristic of Scrooge than those of his rival Flintheart Glomgold: "Here I sit in this big lonely dump, waiting for Christmas to pass! Bah! That silly season when everybody loves everybody else! A curse on it! Me—I'm different! Everybody hates me, and I hate everybody!"
- ^ Becattini, Alberto (2016). Disney Comics: The Whole Story. Theme Park Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-1683900177.