Keskustelujen arkisto

Dear Folks,

Just back from New Hampshire. As of now all I have to respond
to so far (after reading Friday's digest) is a comment from Geir
Hasnes:

"The next thing will be to begin to rewrite Barks to make him
easier to understand for the children of the next generation."

>Ahem< This isn't the next thing, it's already been *done*...
Harvey Comics rewrote some Barks MGM-character stories when reprinting
them in 1989... after a fashion. Actually, what they did was that
they had nothing but foreign versions of some stories and
RE-TRANSLATED them from -- Dutch I think. Barks' Benny Burro story
about Senor Macaw, the most beautiful bird in the world, was changed
to a story about a *parrot*, not a macaw. No attempt was made to find
the original versions of the stories and reinsert their dialog... the
new dialect was abominable, complete with the term "nerd" used every
time someone insulted someone else. Bah!

I didn't mean to imply that Egmont wants to stamp out puns...
far from it. They just don't like it when a story *revolves* around a
misunderstanding of a certain word. They also don't like it when a
story is *really* wordy (mine tend to be *very* wordy)... and by that
I don't mean filled with grandiose words, but just TOO MANY words
(like in the pre-1932 Gottfredson strips, although I actually *enjoy*
that abundance of words). It's easy to skirt this and write
intellectually stimulating stuff.

And not all countries make infantile translations, either.
The German translations are great, and the flavors of Barks, Rosa and
Gottfredson come shining through.

The Germans also have a habit of naming incidental characters
in a story "Barks" (Neighbor Jones in one story, for instance...
until recently Egmont didn't recognize the early Jones as a consistent
character, only the later, slimmer version)

And, of course, Gladstone loves unusual language. Disney
seemed to, although now and then a pretty bad script would get
through. And as for wordiness.... Disney Comics' US 250, in the story
"Power Failure," has one panel with more than 50 words in it. I find
that to be just too much unless you have six-panel pages!

Your friend,

David Gerstein

"Here comes Clarabelle Cow, the town gossip! I heard she had
her tonsils removed so she could talk more freely! .... She musta
been vaccinated with a phonograph needle!"

Dear Folks (and especially Geir),

I'll respond to this message one part at a time. I already
wrote a bit about it before, but now I have a chance to say more, so I
will.

First a quote from Geir's thought-provoking letter to ground
my comments in what's been already said:

* Barks language was using contemporary speech, slang, newly formed
language structures.
* The Disney editors want the series to be moulded from the frozen language
of that day. The translators have to use that language - unless it is
considered safe to use more _modern_ language.
* Thus the emotional expressions of Donald and Scrooge are repeated, even
though it is a small matter to invent or even use modern day expressions.
This holds true for the translators, and to a certain extent for the
writers.

I suppose, first of all, that you're talking about Disney
editors *all* over the world -- Gladstone in the U. S., Egmont in
Denmark, Fleetway in England, Oberon in Holland, and whoever it is who
you especially find terrible in Norway (may be a division of Egmont).

In England, by no means is the language in the new stories
like that of the old. In the 1930s, Gottfredson strips appeared in
Britain in their American English, while other local features
(including British long Donald serials BTW) had British idiom that
sounds old-hat in the modern UK. As time passed, the British language
as featured in Disney comics changed. Now new stories use modern
British idiom... unfortunately, the vintage ones are often partly
rewritten now -- Barks included -- to make the idiom "modern".

It's not so much simplified as simply brought up-to-date. So
the Brits have avoided time-lock -- but is *this* what you really
want, Geir?

New phrases have indeed cropped up in the ducks' jargon in
this country. I don't believe that the ducks said "Great Honk!"
before Don Rosa stepped in, but it's become commonplace now, and I use
the exclamation now and then in my own duck work. The "DuckTales"
show gave $crooge the epithet "Curse my kilts!" Despite my general
distaste for most of that show's additions to the Duck universe (which
I essentially ignore in my own work -- as Don Rosa says, it smacks of
a fictionalization of the "real" Scrooge's life!), I have used "Curse
my kilts!" once, just for some variety. And I'll have my own comments
as well.

But I don't leave the old phrases in the rubbish -- my ducks
still say "Howlin' crashwagons" and "Oh, my sainted Aunt Clarissa!"
Isn't it the best thing to build on the classics but bring my own
flavor, too?

That's about it for now. I will send a hoozoo on Clarabelle
Cow and Horace Horsecollar to Per soon, for the characters file.

Yours,

David

David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu writes:
> First a quote from Geir's thought-provoking letter to ground
>my comments in what's been already said:
>
>* Barks language was using contemporary speech, slang, newly formed
>language structures.
>* The Disney editors want the series to be moulded from the frozen language
>of that day. The translators have to use that language - unless it is
>considered safe to use more _modern_ language.
>* Thus the emotional expressions of Donald and Scrooge are repeated, even
>though it is a small matter to invent or even use modern day expressions.

I just finished reading an extensive article by Andrew Lendacky in The
Duckburg Times #21 that illustrates how Carl Barks' duck-slang was
modelled on slang that was contemporary with his stories, and also
effectively shows that as the decades passed, the duck-slang was
constantly and considerably changing with the times. (I'm aware of
the possible legal humbuggery, but if anyone is interested, I'd
actually consider typing the article in.) (I'd also recommend the
article for its explanation of "BopBop".)

It seems a tad silly to me to try argue that the duck language can be
"frozen" in a certain time period, as you'd be attempting to freeze it
over a constant state of flux and evolution that lasted 40 years! In
this case, change is traditional.

> New phrases have indeed cropped up in the ducks' jargon in
>this country. I don't believe that the ducks said "Great Honk!"
>before Don Rosa stepped in, but it's become commonplace now, and I use
>the exclamation now and then in my own duck work.

I'd certainly say that Don Rosa and William Van Horn have demonstrated
that duck-slang is far from a dead art and are fantastically building
on the grand tradition that Carl Barks started.

Humble rumble-bumbles:
----------------------

On a somewhat unrelated topic, I'd always thought that Don Rosa
originated the state name of "Calisota", but I'm running across
references to it in old Duckburg Times issues. Just where did this
name come from?

Also, I recently purchased my *second* old Disney, WDC&S #62, and
noticed that on the cover, Donald is colored with blue eyes, much like
what Disney Comics recently attempted to do with the ducks. So I
guess that the idea isn't as new as I had thought it to be...

===========================================================================
"Howlin' crashwagons! I'm afraid to open my mouth, my brains might
fall out!"
-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
mark a. semich mas at csa.bu.edu
===========================================================================

Mark wrote that he just read "Slang in the stories of Carl Barks" by
Andrew Lendacky in The Duckburg Times #21. I have read that one too,
but as usual I had forgotten what I'd read. After re-reading it, it
seems like I was wrong about the language mostly being a bit
old-fashioned. "Some of it consisted of hold-overs from the Roaring
Twenties ("skidoo") but most of it dated no further back than the
previous decade, and a surprisingly large portion was contemporaneous
with its first appearance in Barks' stories. ..."

Mark also asked where "Calisota" comes from. It's from "The Gilded
Man" (USOS 422) where Miss Susiebelle Swan's address was "45 Mallard
Avenue, Duckburg, Calisota" (back in 1901). I don't think Barks ever
used the name of Calisota again.

> Also, I recently purchased my *second* old Disney, WDC&S #62, and
> noticed that on the cover, Donald is colored with blue eyes, much like
> what Disney Comics recently attempted to do with the ducks.

Cover colours have always (?) been a different thing from the colours
in the comics, as I've said before, and the blue eyes have been
extremely common later too. In general most differences between
cover colours and comics colours have been that the covers are more
colourful: Donald's jacket is blue instead of black, HDL's shirts are
in different colours (as on the screen) instead of black, etc.
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se
"Duckburg!" -- "That's our" -- "home town!"

"Barks' comic book language was not American 1950's slang and
idioms. It was the slang of the 1920's, Barks' formative years -- this
is the main reason his dialogue had such a unique feel to our 1950's
eyes. It was the talk of the "23 skiddoo", "O, you kid", "So's yer ol'
man" days -- the stuff that Barks and his buddies would speak around the
CALGARY EYEOPENER offices." says Don Rosa...

... who ought to know since he READ Barks already in the fifties; but I'd like
to add, anyway, that I don't think it's quite as simple as that: Barks ALSO
used more or less contemporary slang and expressions, like f'rinstance the
bereted and bearded person who says to Gyro "Man, man, Gyro! How come you dig
that weird jazz?" (or someting like that - it's a bother not to have one's
references handy here at work). However, I think Don's right in the sense that
when Barks wrote "natural" or "plain" dialogue - in a word, when he wrote what
felt natural to him - then it was twenties slang if anything. I also feel that
his attempts to move with the times, slang-wise, never gets the same smooth,
natural feel to it as his use of his "own" language does. But that's just my
opinion, folks...

Mattias Hallin

Hi Per, jag lyssnar till Roxette nu som jag skriver dessa ord...

>Geir wrote that
>> * Barks language was using contemporary speech, slang, newly formed
>> language structures.
>
>Was it really? All the time? American English from the 50's is of
>course not my native language (and not any other English either, for
>that matter), but I've gotten an impression that the language in
>Barks's comics wasn't that "up-to-date", but rather had a special feel
>to it, even back then. Or am I off my track here? I don't really
>know why I have that impression. For instance I thought that his
>frequent "baloney" was used a lot more in still earlier days (Rube
>Goldberg uses it a lot too), but I just went to the library, and I
>gather that it really was part of the current idiom (It's not
>nowadays, is it?), so it seems I was wrong on that one at least.

As you may not know yet, I have researched somewhat into the reference
material Barks used and the books he read and so on. I found he was much
more contemporary than I had imagined:

* Cars. When doing our little book on his automobiles (Duckmobiles - which
is the only detailed study in book form on Barks) I realized that he used
the models of the year in his series. He immediately saw the fun he could
have with the new models of the automobile industry. He must have been
equipped with their newest catalogues. He very seldom used older models,
i.e. more than 8-10 year old cars, except where he should depict a
situation where it would be proper to use an old car - Grandma and Scrooge
for instance. He was very careful about depicting new technology, new
gadgets of every kind.

* Slang. In a flash I remember his jazz talk in some of the Gyro stories,
that kind of thing could only be matched by using rap talk today.

* National Geographic. He used the latest research in Geography when he
sent the Ducks to the far corners of the world. The stories are very up to
date in that he uses terms from the articles, and the language that
contemporary geography writers wrote. It was fun when Geoffrey Blum visited
us and we fought about who had found most stories in the National
Geographic that Barks had used.

* Politics. Barks discussed issues that were discussed nationwide at that
time. Some of these issues are forgotten now, but some are there to be seen
at least.

These were just a few examples that goes to show that Barks was incredibly
thorough in his work. His language was a thorough working through the
language he was served that day. He has depicted himself as a kind of
hermit, but nothing could be more wrong. Although he didnt travel much he
was well read in geography and world affairs. Although he didnt read much
contemporary fiction, he certainly knew something about popular fiction,
which he very often referred to, especially in the way of creating a story
of a certain genre, but with a different twist than the popular one. He
loved reference material - do you think the Norwegian translators saw his
pickings out of Shakespeare?

That Barks used language constructs that sometimes had gone out of fashion,
yes, that is true, but certainly not out of a certain context. He was so
careful in his wording, like a very skilled music composer, he had an ear
for language and expressions, so it would be silly to think that he was
careless about whether his expressions and wording would be read or not.

So my conclusion is that these examples show you a very up-to-date author
writing about contemporary subjects with contemporary language. When I
think about the story of the 1000 lakes, I shudder at the thought of what
Disney would have done with something so strong as that today. They would
have sacked Barks, treated him, sued him and beaten him up.

Now let us imagine what should have been done if we were to write that kind
of contemporary stories. We should have had one story each year about the
sort of work that people are given Nobels peace price for. And those
stories should not come after the world opinion had acknowledged the price
winners and what they were fighting for, it should come before. Don Rosa is
the only one who dares to do something like that, but he would have to
write about the conflicts of the 50s. Let us see the Woodchucks help their
neighbourhood against racism, let us see Huey, Dewey and Louie make a rap
group together with other chucks of every colour. In a series that would
not depict all coloured people as heroes and all whites as silly bastards,
like how the conflict is treated today. Let us see Donald begins to be
restless about his lack of work, and march toward Scrooges money bin
together with other jobless people and politicians who want Scrooges money
to be able to create jobs to the half of Duckburg who is without. Let us
see Donald and the boys travel in South America and Central Asia to stop
the drug production and traffic - OK no drugs in the Ducks stories, I
agree, but the thing is that the big crime is not that picture you see in
the Disney comics, it is the economic crime and the drug thing, and the
Woodchucks could at least do somethng with economic crime. And they could
definitely do something with the power plants of Russia.

>Another thing that Geir wrote:
>> To a great extent a new writer / artist who has had two series
>> published, that looked almost exactly like Barks. If I didnt know all
>> of Barks, I would have believed it was him! Who is he?
>
>Well, what stories were they? The most Barks-like items I've seen in
>recent books are Daan Jippes reinkings of Barks's Woodchuck stories,
>but I guess you include these in all-of-Barks?

One of the stories was about Scrooges money-bin. The woodchucks (would you
call the girl scouts woodchicks?) march together with other protestants
towards his bin to have it removed from the remnants of the house of
Cornelius Coot or something like that. It ends with the bin floating down a
valley and hindering the water flow past it. Something like that. The other
story was about Donald dressed as a new boy in town who wants to be a
woodchuck. He does that to get the nephews kicked out of the woodchucks, he
trows a cassette tape player down into a cave where the woodchucks are not
allowed to go. for instance. These two stories were very talented in every
way. (Or am i just starved for new stories?) Anyone who can solve this
mystery, come on!

Geir Hasnes.

Dear Folks -- particularly Italian Folks,

I am helping John Clark to prepare the 60th Anniversary issue
of DONALD DUCK these days! He wants to use one of the pre-WWII
Italian long adventures by Pedrocchi and/or Pinochi. Someone just
said that a catalog for a museum exhibition -- or something like that
-- would have code numbers for those stories.

I need ANY code numbers as SOON as humanly possible... PLEASE!
You've gotta help me! (GASP)

Here are the stories I know of already, as well as the places
they have been reprinted. I know all but code numbers for these! There
are probably more, too... note that not all issues of Paperino
Giornale are accounted for.

(Info comes from book DISNEY ITALIA, which for some bizarre
reason doesn't give the most vital info -- code numbers!!!)

Story Title Artist Pgs. Date Publication

DD e il Mistero di Marte Pedrocchi 18 1937 PG
1-18 (1937-38), NTR 57 (1983), NRTR (1986)
DD e la Pietra Filosofale Pedrocchi 32 1938 AOA 22
(1938), TL 49 (1952), AR 94 (1956)
DD Inviato Speciale Pedrocchi 30 1938 PG 19-48
(1938), AOA 21 (1938), AO 66 (1947), SAP 9 (1979) AOAR (1986)
DD Chiromante Pinochi 30 1939 PG
101-130 (1939-1940), AO 39 (1940), AO 60 (1947), SAP 2 (1977), PM 115 (1990)
DD e il Vaso Cinese Pinochi 19 1940 PG
131-149 (1940), AO 128 (1948), AR 2 (1954), SAP 11 (1979)
DD tra i Pellirose Pinochi 29 1939 PG
72-100 (1939), AO 33 (1939), AO 52 (1947), SAP 10 (1979)

Here is the code I used to indicate the issues of origin and reprint:

AO = Albo d'Oro (1946-1956)
AOA = Albo d'Oro [Prewar] (1937-1940)
AOAR = Albo d'Oro [Prewar] Reprint Series (1986-present)
AR = Albi della Rosa/Albi di Topolino (1954-1982)
NTR = Nel Regno di Topolino (1935-1940)
NTRT = Nel Regno di Topolino [Reprint] (1980)
PM = Paperino Mese (1986-present)
SAP = Super Almanacco Paperino (1976-1980)
TL = Topolino (Libretto) (1949-present)

If ANYONE can give me code numbers for these, probably from
the recent printings, PLEASE, PLEASE help me!!! I will have an
opportunity to help Duck fans get at least one of these stories in
English VERY SOON if you can help!

I also need the code number for Romano Scarpa's "Colosso dello
Nilo" -- any help available? John Clark is trying to have Alberto B.
find it for him, but they are having trouble because I was unable to
give them a code number!

Please help! I know I sound desperate... I am!

Your friend,

David Gerstein

"Money or tricycle? ... Money or tricycle?" (FLUB! FLUB!)
<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>