Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi, Folks!

Sorry to have sent my urgent demand TWICE before -- I got it
returned and thought the error was with my software, not with the fact
that someone cancelled their subscription (which I now remember has
happened lately).

Mark on colors
==== == ======
"...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..."

It sure isn't, Mark! WDC&S #1 gives Donald blue eyes and
Mickey a pink face for all the many text illustrations (and half-page
cartoons... that's right, like in the New Yorker magazine, consisting
of a picture with a caption under it!) in the issue. One Gottfredson
sunday strip is broken up over four pages with text ("Clarabelle's
Dinner Talks," it's called there) and it colors Mickey's face pink,
too.

But by the time WDC&S #5 rolled around a few months later,
pink face and blue eyes were gone for good from the inside pages of
the comics until WDC&S #548, decades later. Believe it or don't!

As for blue eyes on the comic's *cover*, I believe the
earliest ones I find are on WDC&S #14.

Some foreign studios still color oddly. In Germany, Mickey
often had a white face and blue eyes (yes, blue eyes on *Mickey*!)
until about two years ago, when this suddenly stopped. Now the only
place he keeps that appearance is the cover logo -- and it looks awful
unlawful, since right under that logo is often a cover drawing of him
with a pink face and white eyes!

Geir discusses cheese, lemmings and lockets
==== ========= ======= ======== === =======

[In US 9] "Barks also labelled another cheese "gjetost" in the
original comic. That is correct Norwegian for "goat (milk) cheese"."

I have always loved this story (although it's another one
that's been reprinted just *endlessly!*), and less than a year ago it
drove me to buy a large wedge of authentic Norwegian gjetost at the
Hanover, NH Food Co-Op.

It was *sweet* cheese. Never had goat cheese like that
before. I enjoyed it, but it somehow didn't seem like *cheese*, goat,
cow, chinchilla or otherwise. Just a warning to other fans who might
get the same idea as I...

Geir on translations
==== == ============

"It really depends on a good writer to make good stories, and so:
the translators cannot wreck a good story, but they can definitely
make it flatter."

I'll say... I'd say that Gary Gabner's scripts have seemed
flatter in general since Gladstone started again, though they are
improving now. I'll apologize *now* for "Bugged by Humbug" which has
its moments, but I think it is a little flat in places... still, I
hope you like it. On the other hand, I'm very excited about nearly
every *other* story I've dialogued, and hope you will feel the same
way.

Geir on some mysterious bodies of water
==== == ==== ========== ====== == =====

"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."

(A QUESTION I'M EMBARRASSED TO ASK) Uh, Geir... what story is
this? I think of the Golden River story, and of the water skiing
story (WDC&S 62), but each of those only involves *one* lake. What
*is* this story? Might you mean the Marco Polo story? Don't remember
any lakes there, tho' Disney sure would let Barks know just how they
felt about it were he working now.

Duck nudity (NEW TOPIC!)
==== ====== ==== =======

In Ben Verhagen's story "The Hoard at the Rainbow's End",
which I dialogued and which will be appearing in DDA 25, Disney's
"board of approval" had a most interesting objection. On page 16 or
thereabouts, Donald removes his jacket to dive into a river. When he
takes his jacket off, he looks just like you would expect... nothing
under there, just feathers.

Disney said that Donald should have an undershirt. Showing
Donald without pants is fine -- showing Donald without a *shirt* is
indecent! Talk about weird. Wonder how Disney likes Donald in his
fireman's helmet and nothing beneath in WDC&S 86! Gladstone can print
all ten-pagers uncensored in their albums, though, so I should worry.

Lost Library coming in English, eons from now
==== ======= ====== == ======== ==== ==== ===

John Clark has ordered "Guardians of the Lost Library" and it
will apparently see print next summer. Gosh, what a wait! But we'll
have lots of great Rosa until then starting in DD 283 and then
continuing with the Lo$!!

DD's 60th anniversary
==== ==== ===========

Gladstone is planning to celebrate the Duck's sixtieth year
with a special jubileum issue. Anyone have any suggestions about a
Barks 10-pager to use in it, or some particularly fine foreign story?
And more importantly, a suggestion which I *did not* make to John
Clark for obvious reasons: Don Rosa, why don't *you* do something for
that issue? Just a short story or something... that would be great!
I imagine you'd enjoy writing some story about Donald's youthful days,
or some such; sort of a miniature equivalent to the Lo$ but just a
short story, since Donald is only about 30!

That's all for now, folks.

David Gerstein

P. S. PLEASE... I NEED THAT ITALIAN INFORMATION!!!!

Such LONG digests! And yet no mention of Ariel! Please
unsubscribe me!

I am very interested in Duck/Barks slang. One of the first
things I did 7 years ago, aside from glomming a collection of NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC, was to make lists of Duck slang. Later I also made copies of
the articles from various magazines describing Duck slang. And I guess
it's true that Barks incorporated contemporary slang into his stories...
but I wouldn't say he did it very smoothly. In one of his last stories
he even tried to turn Gladstone into a beatnik, and that was rather
awkward as well. Where would Barks have been exposed to such slang other
than off TV which I can only assume he watched. And yet I STILL have
always had a distinct feel from his stories that his Ducks seemed to be
speaking in the hip lingo of the twenties -- maybe because, as someone
said, his use of more modern jargon wasn't as comfortable.
But what I'm also heading toward is this comment someone made
about Barks making a pun using Norwegian when he used a word that could
mean a cheese or could mean a direction; what's the pun? I think this
was just a misplaced hyphen... I don't think Barks knew any Norwegian. A
Norwegian fan once sent him some goat cheese (that "gjost" or whatever
-- I'm unable to go back and check the spelling), and he thought it was
reindeer cheese.
My introduction of more slang is strictly old-time slang! That
"Great Honk!" I use now and then comes from a movie starring Paul Ford
as a well-to-do 1910-15 merchant who was often uttering such
ejaculations. Recently I've read some P.G.Wodehouse books and made some
notes on 1930s slang.

Geir! Had I typed at you since I got back from Norway? Life
seems to be a blur lately -- I can't recall! You were busy up north that
week (in the nord-ost)? And what a kind thing you said about how you
read my stories to your kids! I love to hear that people like some of my
stories... but nothing tickles me more than hearing how parents share
them with their kids at bedtime. Great Honk, that feels nice!

Dear Folks,

I'll take you on one at a time. (COME ON AND FIGHT! WAAAK
WAAAK WAK WAK WAK!)

News from Mark Semich... but plenty!
==== ==== ==== ========= === =======

"This issue also has a review, by Dana "Duckburg Times" Gabbard, of
Alberto Becanti's "Disney Comic Book Index Volume 1", Joe Torcivia and
Christopher E. Barat's "The Donald Duck Comic-Book Index", and
"Malcolm Willits Collection of Mickey Mouse Paintings By Floyd
Gottfredson". This review contains, among other things, info on how
to order the books and info on some of the great lengths that people
have gone to in order to discover the credits of the early Disneys.

If anyone has interest in either of these, I'd be glad to type them in.

Donald Duck 282 ... has a letter from David Gerstein in it!"

Mark, I would love *nothing more* than to read those articles.
I have no way of getting the CBG here in Williamstown and it
infuriates me that they actually notice Disney comics only when I'm
not in range of a comic shop!! ;-)

Isn't that Beccattini? Or Becattini? Or Beccatini? (I've
seen all three of those spellings, but never with two "n"s.)
Surprising that the CBG misspelled his name.

What is DD 282 like? I won't get it here for at least three
weeks! Mark, pretty please (mince, coax) could you copy in as well as
the CBG articles *whatever* that letter was of mine, and more
important Gladstone's response to it? I'm excited to know.

Lost Library in English
==== ======= == =======

It's coming in summer *'94*, not summer 95. We would have
gotten it sooner, except that Gladstone gets the Danish issues
shipped, not the Norwegian ones, and knew nothing about the story
until Byron Erickson told them last week! They would have ordered it
long ago had they known about it, then had it in print not long after
its foreign printing (as with the recent WH story "Spotless Don").
Gosh, Don (and I mean Rosa, not Duck!), aren't you in just as much
of a hurry to see your stories in Gladstone's issues as *I* am? I
wish you had told them about the story soon as you knew the
code number Egmont had assigned it.

(Not trying to chew you out... honest! That's what I'm gonna
do when *my* Egmont story's art is finished!)

Jack Hannah
==== ======

Mr. Hannah did half of "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold," art
only, while Barks did the other half. Hannah then did:

"School Days," a pretty good story in WDC&S 37;
"Santa Claus' Visit," another good one in a special giveaway
WDC&S made for toy stores -- NOT Firestone -- in 1943's Xmas season;
and "Sleepy Time Donald," in WDC&S 78. I requested this story
from Cris Palomino right when she told me she had two spare pages in
the back of DDA 29 (Disney Comics), did I have any favorites I would
like to see? It appeared there, sure enough.

The Xmas story is presumably lost to the ages. The special
WDC&S was *unnumbered* and *not* distributed by Western, and is quite
scarce now. I saw a copy at the San Diego Con for a large pocketful
of money which I wouldn't have spent if I had it. The issue also had
original Thumper and Bucky Bug stories in it, both by Carl Beuttner,
and some Manuel Gonzales MM Sunday pages from circa 1941.

"School Days" *does* exist and I'm trying to convince John
Clark to reprint it. Maybe the 60th-anniversary DD is the ideal time
for this!! I'll request it right away.

And... nothing post-Len Wein about having a WDC&S cover
illustrate the lead story. "School Days" is illustrated by a Walt
Kelly cover in that 1943 issue.

My personal Rosa tradition
== ======== ==== =========

Whenever a Don Rosa comic came out, through my final year of
high school and now whenever I'm home at the time, it comes on a
Friday at the local comic shop.

My favorite memories are of having a delicious Friday night
Jewish Sabbath meal of roast chicken with gravy and stuffing, then
sinking into my easy chair and reading the Rosa which I've purposely
hidden from a full reading until then. Don, you know how I *can't
wait* to do anything (as you could tell at the convention no doubt)
and so this was HARD for me! Up until this point, if the comic had a
Rosa cover, it leaned against the bookshelf in such a position that I
could see it from my spot at the dinner table. And of course, my
brother waits impatiently for me to *finish* said comic so he can read
it. (He's 15 now.) If he finished dinner before me, he got it
first... which did indeed happen now and then. Your biggest
competition, Don, is my favorite meal! But if you tasted my mom's
roast chicken I think you'd feel it was a fine complement to one of
your stories read for the first, second or fifteenth time.

Your friend,

David Gerstein

COMMENTS ON #134:

David --
I am going to do a special "Donald's 60th Birthday" story
beginning as soon as I finish the 211 page "Life of $crooge"... which I
expect to ink the last page, the big finish, a single full-page panel
(first in a Disney comic? Probbly not...) by next Tuesday. That will
finish the project I started about 2 1/2 years ago. I have no idea what
sort of story I'm going to do about DD... maybe something about his
early life, though that might seem a repititious theme after this
$crooge deal. And I don't know if it will be completed and available to
Gladstone when they need it. All I know is I hope my DD story or
ANYBODY'S DD story can prevent them from possibly using that nicely
drawn (Marco Rota) but idiotic "Life of Donald Duck" epic that the
Italians did some years ago. Actually, I've never read the whole story
which I think deals with Donald's past life on the basis of his old
Disney cartoons rather than his comic-book career -- but I do know the
story opens with brother and sister $crooge McDuck and Grandma Duck
(!!!! -- my family is Italian so I can vouch for the fact that, even in
Italy, one's uncle is not the brother of his grandmother) driving along
in a storm when a duck nest is blown out of a tree and Donald pops out
of the egg. This whole idea is so bizarre that it baffles any logic! So,
Donald is the offspring of a wild duck? Or the kind grandma keeps on her
farm and cooks for Sunday dinner? This is such an odd story that I find
it rather creepy... like something from ZAP COMICS or something.
Anyway, the "Lost Library" story won't appear until next SUMMER?
Why not? They're using the Van Horn stuff about a week after it appears
in Europe -- what's the delay on the "Library" story? Or is summer their
"ratings period"?

Somebody saw that letter from Lustig in the CBG. Pity you can't
read between the lines. Lustig and Van Horn are working closely with
Grandy, Barks' new "agent" who sells his work and Van Horn's. Van Horn
makes copies of his stories and covers which Grandy and he sell on the
open market, in direct violation of their contracts, and in direct
conflict with my efforts to gain legitimate permission for such
activities. This will also help us see the reason for lots of recent
events, and more to come... such as Barks writing a story for Van Horn
to illustrate which he and Grandy will then.... well... And you can see
where the directive to Lustig originated to have him write the letter
objecting to someone other than Van Horn getting the kindly attention
from Duck fans.

Don Rosa <72260.2635 at compuserve.com> writes:
> Somebody saw that letter from Lustig in the CBG.
That was me. I last read it a couple of days ago, so my memory of it
may have faded a tad.

>Pity you can't read between the lines.
Well, it was apparent from my reading that there is obviously some
Lustig-Rosa tension or disagreement, but no clues as to its exact
nature. Lustig also had some criticisms of your work, all of which I
thought were extrememly ill-informed and disagreed with.

>Lustig and Van Horn are working closely with
>Grandy, Barks' new "agent" who sells his work and Van Horn's. Van Horn
>makes copies of his stories and covers which Grandy and he sell on the
>open market, in direct violation of their contracts, and in direct
>conflict with my efforts to gain legitimate permission for such
>activities.

Will they get in any sort of trouble for this? Would you get in
trouble for doing the same thing? Perhaps they're taking the risk of
ground-breaking?...

>This will also help us see the reason for lots of recent
>events, and more to come... such as Barks writing a story for Van Horn
>to illustrate which he and Grandy will then.... well...

Yes? I gather they have some big secret plans for it? What are the
other events?

>And you can see
>where the directive to Lustig originated to have him write the letter
>objecting to someone other than Van Horn getting the kindly attention
>from Duck fans.

Have you read this letter? He didn't object at all to you getting
attention - he may have been putting words in your mouth, but he
was saying that both you *and* Van Horn object to being referred to as
"Barks' Heir apparent". Nothing about it "being OK" for Van Horn but
not you. And there's nothing preventing you from writing a
rebuttal about their illegal activities - that's that the CBG letter
column is all about!

---- mas at csa.bu.edu

COMMENTS ON #135:

David:

Now, don't go and tell John Clark that I told you something that
conflicts with something HE told YOU. That's just the sort of thing that
I mentioned before would get me to clam up around here. But... John
Clark was aware of the "Lost Library" story while I was DOING it, and he
received copies of it immediately upon its completion about a year ago.
What you may have misunderstood him explaining is that he didn't know it
was used in Norway last month... maybe, I dunno.
And when would $crooge say "curse my kilts"? Would ANY Scot ever
utter such a thing? You do know that a Scot's kilt contains his tartan
and that is something he would die for before he'd dishonor. I'm
probably overreacting to a small thing... but I can't think of an
expression that is more out-of-character for a Scot to say.

Mark:
No, no, to sign contracts then to break your word on the sly is
NOT the way to make progress with the Disney system. While some of us
are trying to work in the open to change the system, having one person
who does not help that cause in the least ALSO be cheating on it in a
reckless fashion is a selfish and greedy activity, not brave. With no
help from that faction, I have actually made headway with Disney in the
past year -- were they to see how another party signs the contracts then
directly violates, they may dig in their heels and backslide, and all
the people who are trying to work for change within the system stand to
lose everything they've accomplished. Lustig was another of Van Horn's
sales agents who I've expressed my objections to, and it's this sort of
thing you can't really see between the lines as the impetus for that
letter.
I didn't see where Lustig was claiming I objected to being
called this "heir apparant... something I never commented on. His letter
was saying that Barks was giving Van Horn this appelation, followed by a
quote that Van Horn gave him to include.
But the illegal art is being sold by "the Carl Barks Studio"
(Grandy) since the new stance seems to be that they know nobody will say
a word to a 93 year old icon no matter what he does, so they figure
Barks can negege on promises to Hamilton and Grandy can deal in
unauthorized art copies and he will be untouched. I could put a stop to
it with a phone call, but a loss of honor is the worst fate someone can
experience, so I let them stew in their own juices, while I and others
continue to deal with Disney in the proper manner.

First a couple of old questions that I don't think anyone ever
answered:

Chris ("Mickey's #1 Fan") Lawton asked what was first: "Donald in
Mathmagics Land" the comic or the film. The comic book (four color
#1051) has August 1959 as it's cover date (reprinted in four color
1198), and the cartoon was released June 26, 1959, so they appeared at
about the same time. I guess Disney asked Western to do a comic book
version of the cartoon and provided them with the manuscript of the
cartoon before it was ready.

Andy> Secondly, what happened to the Gladstone Barks index on the ftp
Andy> site? I couldn't find it. Is anyone planning on adding a
Andy> complete Barks index?

It was removed, because it contained no information not found in the
Gladstone and Disney indexes. Maybe that was a bad move, would you
like it back? I'm not planning on adding such an index, but I would
of course welcome it and put it there if someone else did! Nowadays
when I want to find a particular Barks story I use my Carl Barks
Library if it's in one of the six (out of ten) sets I have of it, and
for the rest of the stories I have a list where *I* have it, so it's
not top priority for me.

More on our indexes: Fredrik wrote about rearranging the indexes and
having programs do other indexes from them etc. My position is also
that we really should have indexes of "all" H-stories, all D-stories
etc, so that information on artists etc. would be only there,
associated with the story as such. Then the entry for a comic book
would only say what comics are in it, and if you want a nice-looking
index of that title giving writers and artists too you'd have to run a
special program for that. I think is sort of necessary, cause having
the same information stores in several places creates all sorts of
problems. Then I'd also like a Disney Index server to which you could
send (directly if you're on internet, via email otherwise) queries
like "List the contents of WDC 150" or "List stories with Uncle
Scrooge from before 1960 not written by Barks in chronological order"
or whatever. I've been thinking a little about things like this, but
don't hold your breath... :-)
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"

Don Rosa wrote:
> I am going to do a special "Donald's 60th Birthday" story
> beginning as soon as I finish the 211 page "Life of $crooge"... which I
> expect to ink the last page, the big finish, a single full-page panel
> (first in a Disney comic? Probbly not...) by next Tuesday.

Actually Barks's "You Can't Guess" (CP 2) *begins* with a full-page
panel. That's one of the three (or am I forgetting any) times Barks's
pages can't be divided neatly in two half-pages.

> ... that nicely drawn (Marco Rota) but idiotic "Life of Donald Duck"
> epic that the Italians did some years ago. Actually, I've never read
> the whole story which I think deals with Donald's past life on the
> basis of his old Disney cartoons rather than his comic-book career --

Rather comics. There are lots of one-panel allusions to various Barks
comics.

> but I do know the story opens with brother and sister $crooge McDuck
> and Grandma Duck (!!!! -- my family is Italian so I can vouch for the
> fact that, even in Italy, one's uncle is not the brother of his
> grandmother)

Well, in this story Donald isn't really related to Grandma or Scrooge
at all, so "Grandma" and "Uncle" are just what Donald calls his
foster-parents. I agree that the story is strange though.

After some of Fredrik's old messages suddenly found their way here he
wrote in a more recent message:

> For example, since Grandma is called that by everyone (even
> non-relatives), whose grandma IS she really? It is true that
> Taliaferro clearly states in her first appearance that she is Donald's
> grandma, but [...]

He did? I've always gotten the impression that Taliaferro intended
Grandma to be grandma of the boys and Donald's *mother*. Then that area
got muddled until it much later was made clear that Grandma is
Donald's Grandma.

> In one Italian "flashback" the first meeting between Scrooge and
> Grandma is depicted and there it is actually clearly stated that they
> are sister and brother and also that they were not brought up together
> nor, indeed, knew of each other's existence.

Where is that flashback?

> Of course, if the above-mentioned Rota story was to be used today,
> it would have to go through some serious re-dialoguing.

Only if we insist on everything fitting nicely together.
(Or only if we insist on every story taking place in the same
universe, to put it another way.)
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"