Keskustelujen arkisto

Again with prodding me about having Mickey exist in the Duck universe!
Why should you care? Let everybody else put him in THEIR Duck universe
and leave him out of mine. The reference Barks made to Donald calling up
a "Mickey" might have been Mickey Schwartz for all I know; but even if
Donald had SAID "Mickey MOUSE", I wouldn't care -- that was Barks. I'm
me. In my stories mice are little rodent scavangers that run around
behind the furniture and get caught in traps and that's all they'll ever
be. My stories feature people who, for some reason, have three fingers
and black noses. A very few of the people have pig-like noses and ears.
Another minority greatly resemble Ducks; I can't explain WHY they look
like that, but in my eyes they are human beings. Very possibly most/all
other Disney or Disney comics fans like the characters because they are
"funny animal" characters. I DON'T LIKE funny-animals. Mickey Mouse is
one of those funny animal critters, though less so than, say, the Warner
Brothers stable. But Barks' characters, to MY eyes, have always been
human beings. I hesitate to even try to explain it all THIS much -- it
should suffice to say that I will NEVER use this mouse character in MY
stories, so quit trying to get me to "listen to reason".

Mattais (and I never know if I have the 'a' and 'i' in the right order,
so forgive me -- I don't see that name in Kentucky very much):
Keep in mind that I'm tellin' ya that where I stick Duckberg is
just where *I* stick it. I don't require anyone to agree with me. But in
part 11 of the "Life of $crooge" series (and I may have already
mentioned this?) I begin the story with a map which, if you compare the
coastline with a map, PINPOINTS Duckburg. My comic world and the actual
world are identical EXCEPT... the section of California north of Santa
Rosa is Calisota; on the bay opposite Eureka is Duckburg on the Tulebug
river (and right now I can't recall if there IS a river there which I
renamed or if I just dug a fresh one). Again, as with the years the
stories take place, I don't show this CLEARLY... you'd hafta get out an
atlas and locate the coastline yourself... but that's where MY Duckburg
is. Any reference Donald ever made to South Burbank or Catalina or
anything else... I simply ignore. There can't be a city as big as
Duckburg in that area... and if there were, it couldn't SNOW there. (And
don't anybody tell me it doesn't snow in Eureka -- I don't wanna know
that. (Anyway, I guess I've eliminated the existance of Eureka and all
the Eurekans anyway... because of $crooge's develepment of Duckburg,
Eureka was never settled or it died out.)
`

>> [Geir] is known for his participation in the quiz "Double or Nothing"
>> on NRK TV in 1989.
>>
>What's this all about? Did Geir choose to compete in a category devoted
>to Disney comics? If so, what were the questions?
>
>> He often lectures about Donald and
>> measures his comics in meters, not in numbers.
>> Now I have about ten meters of Donald magazines and a couple of
>> meters with scholarly literature says Hasnes.
>>
>Hey Geir, can we come over to your house and play? :-)
>
>Anyway, thanks to you both for sharing this article with us. Please let
>us know as soon as "Dagbladet" follows up on this line of hard-hitting
>investigative journalism with articles about the sex lives of Pluto, the
>seven dwarves, and (of course) Ariel. Not to mention (** Please!!!! **)
>the scandalous live-in relationship between Chip and Dale....
>
>Wilmer Rivers

I have many reasons for letting Dagbladet investigate Donalds sex-life - or
the absence of it. The most important is (you might not believe it) is to
show that there is a depth to the stories that most people dont perceive. I
think most Norwegians feel hit on their head reading an article (or shall
we call it interview) that gives an _adult_ view on reading the Duck
stories. I think it very important to read Barks stories with adult eyes,
to try to understand his stories from an adult viewpoint. Many things make
sense that didnt make sense for me as a boy.

The other main reason is that it is impossible to have a serious article
about Barks published, because "Donald is for the kids. Period!" I have
been on the back of the Duck publishers in Norway for many years because I
wanted to write a relatively serious book about the artists and the main
stories and give a perspective on fairy tales and the development of the
characters and so on - and no sex, really - but they never found time to
work with the concept. I have sent a number of more or less serious and in
my own eyes well-written essays to magazines and newspapers, and never got
them in. So I get so damned bored about the whole thing. But I couldnt
resist it when they showed the official view of non-sex Donald on the main
news program on the Norwegian Television. I had to react. I cant let them
get away with that.

Recently I talked with a well-known Norwegian author who was an editor of a
large Norwegian literary magazine some years ago. He told me that in the
light of the work I had done for him and what he had read of me in various
places on various topics he was sorry that he had refused me when I had
sent an article to that magazine in 1984. He had another opinion of that
today, and said further that he planned a new literary magazine, would I
care to be one of the editors? Fantastic, huh, but too late.

I have actually ended my work on Disney and the Ducks some years ago, my
last work being this large bibliography on all articles etc. about Barks in
Europe, which I wrote together with Dana Gabbard of Duckburg Times fame for
the Carl Barks Library. It turned out to be too large for the Library so
that Bruce Hamilton has considered making a separate paperback edition and
Geoffrey Blum has proposed to fill in some serious Barks letters, but so
far, it is on ice. So here I sit with one of the best collections in the
world when it comes to writings on the Ducks and Barks - yes, I dont have
the Italian books, only all the articles - would anyone care to photocopy
the books for me? - I can read more or less all the main European languages
now and has found a lot of interesting and also less interesting things -
but there is no really serious interest in Barks that makes it economically
possible to write about him. So we sit there with all our fanzines, that
will dwindle now that the Index research is finished and everyone knows
where to find all the stories.

It must be said that without Gladstone, and then Rosa and van Horn, the
whole thing would have been over now, but we have witnessed a revival which
is just incredible. Hey Don, I never thought I would find another guy who
actually sat down to collect all those details about Duckburg like I did...

In 1989, my mother said to me that I should attend the quiz show Double or
Nothing on the Norwegian Television. You can choose the subject, but it has
to be a subject that people would care to watch. So you might choose Bach
or Beethoven or Mozart or Grieg (since in Norway) but probably not Poulenc
or desPres or Faure or Bartok for instance. You might choose Donald Duck or
Asterix or Lucky Luke but not Sandman or the Katzenjammer Kids or Polly and
her Pals. I was asked mainly questions from Barks series and actually came
so far as to the third program (on Saturdays, the most popular program on
Norwegian Television ever, over 80% of the Norwegian population viewing
each program) and 24 000 Norwegian Kroner to win if I answered correctly a
set of five questions. The last round was 48 000 NKr if 8 of 10 questions
were answered correctly. So the 24 000 round was considered the toughest. I
was asked to date five Donald Ducks given the illustration of the cover - I
identified the ones from 1952, 1960, 1968 and 1958, but the one from 1976
escaped me (it was not a Barks cover) and so I lost. Curiously enough,
Alberto Becattini, the Italian Disney expert wrote me a reply (he helped me
with the bibliography) and told he had also attended the Italian Double or
Nothing quiz show at the same time, 6 rounds and he won the equivalent of I
think $ 70 000. So if I wasnt depressed enough already about my loss...

Other questions was: What was the question in that quiz show which Donald
managed (drops in Niagara), who said "I can fly like a bird", what was the
value of the bills Donald found in the wallets when the nephews would fool
him on April 1., who appeared in a certain story (Gyro Gearloose), which
meals did they serve the Ducks at Plain Awful, in which issues was the
Plain Awful story printed in Norway the first time, there was some more but
I have forgot them, I can look it up on the video (which I have seen only
once since). I won the Barks Library, a lifetime sub to Donald Duck, a
Barks lithography - Dam diaster at the money sea, and a a trip for two to
Disney World.

I had never thought it was possible to become that nervous.

Seems that a lot of people remembers the show still. Oh, the mighty media!
I am still asked to lecture or whatever you might call it, both for
students and designers and so on and so on.

About Chip and Dale - in a Disney short they compete about a miss Two Chips
and A Miss. Clear sexual relations. Or what about Pluto in his shorts,
plenty of humour regarding man and woman either they are married or not,
typical sexually biased humour.

The 1000 lakes story - that was the one with the Pygmy Indians.

About Burbank and Mousetown and Mickey and Donald. It is possible as
proposed by some of you to have Mickey and Donald living in the same
universe even though they dont see each other very often. I see no use in
denying what Taliaferro and Gottfredson wrote and drew. By the way, I have
got the complete Gottfredson daily strips 1930-1955, they are fabulous. And
the complete daily strips of Taliaferro 1938-195?. They become gradually
worse, just like Gottfredson of the late 40s and 50s. And the Sunday comics
of both of the 30s and early 40s.

In my theory, which is even published in the Barks Collector, Gyro
Gearloose was born in 1920, Donald in 1923 and the boys in 1933. In my
opinion, the Barks stories take place in the middle to the late 40s. This
suits both the films, the newspaper strips and the comics - apart from some
discrepancies here and there, there will always be such.

Thank you for letting me know that the series I thought were so well done,
was simply inking of Barkses scripts. Damned. I thought there was a new
genius around. I looked up the Library on the Woodchucks scripts, they were
the only thing I havent really cared for, probably because they were so
bacly inked (mostly) in the 70s when they were printed in the Norwegian
DD&Co.

There are really many more things that should have been commented upon, but
I have to return to work.

Geir Hasnes

Here we go, folks:

The Uncensored Wabbit (but isn't this a *Disney* forum?)
=== ========== ====== ==== ===== ==== = ======== =======

Wilmer Rivers responded to Geir's article on the sex lives of the
Ducks:

> Anyway, thanks to you both for sharing this article with us. Please let
> us know as soon as "Dagbladet" follows up on this line of hard-hitting
> investigative journalism with articles about the sex lives of Pluto, the
> seven dwarves, and (of course) Ariel. Not to mention (** Please!!!!**)
> the scandalous live-in relationship between Chip and Dale....

Then Torsten Adair added:

"Hmmm.... I never thought of Chip and Dale. And just what were they doing
while they were scampering around in Donald's sailor suit? Is Donald
homophobic? Or maybe the opposite? And I'm certain everyone knows
that Bugs Bunny was gay (cross dresser kissed Elmer Fudd, fought over
Elmer Fudd with Daffy Duck)."

Now I add:

First... Please note that kissing an antagonist of the same
sex is standard "cartoon wiseguy" behavior. Besides Bugs,
perpetrators of same include the aforementioned Daffy, Woody
Woodpecker, and of course all three of Warner Bros' recent
"Animaniacs" stars, Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Those last three, a group
with male and female members, will kiss antagonists of either sex, and
they do the kissing in a group. Outside of this, they subscribe to
the practices of heterosexual members of their sexes.

Second... Bugs didn't fight with Daffy over Elmer, he was more
than willing to let Daffy get Elmer's "favors" (BANG!) in the end.
"Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."

As for anyone who doubts whether Bugs is gay or straight, the
banned-from-TV wartime cartoon "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" contains a
closing sequence which is the most sexually explicit of any Warner
cartoon... Bugs chases a buxom female rabbit into the distance and
over a horizon, wolf whistling as he does, then a moment of silence,
then the boinging sound of him presumably leaping on her, or doing
some other sexual act. The cartoon CAN be seen on the recent tape
"The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: Bugs Bunny by Each Director."

Chip and Dale are brothers, although I don't reveal now where
that was revealed.

Mark on Donald's age viz. AT
==== == ======== === ==== ==

"that Donald was peers with Morty and Ferdie, but "boy" to
Clarabelle and others of Mickey's generation."

This seems fine until you note that as early as 1935 they call
him "Unca Donald." Yet Donald *is* younger than Mickey and
*definitely* younger than Clarabelle. And that old lady whose window
Donald broke in DD 280 refers to Donald as "a nice boy". I imagine
Donald being born in 1920 a la Rosa; then I see Mickey as being born
in 1917 and Mickey's nephews about 1936. And Clarabelle around
1895-1900, ditto for Horace, and I imagine Goofy as being about
Mickey's age.

And then Mark said
=== ==== ==== ====

"I finally got my paws on some Jippes stories. The first one that I
read (in WDC&S 513) where HD&L plan to buy cigars for Donald's
birthday (but Donald thinks that they are buying them for themselves)
gave me an extreme sense of deja-vu, and I could swear that I'd
already seen the same plot in an old Donald Duck cartoon. Does anyone
else remember this?"

This Milton/Jippes story is a direct adaptation of the cartoon
from ca. 1949 "Donald's Happy Birthday," which was directed by the
ubiquitous Jack Hannah. One of the better DD cartoons for its time
(during which most of the DD cartoons aren't that red-hot).

Donald is 60 on June 9, 1994 (by "debut" data, not "year of
Donald's fictional birth" data). The anniversary issue will be some
issue of DD around then, I believe, though I don't know when. I'd
like to see the issue of DDA that comes out then be a commemorative
issue too... but I dunno whether THAT will happen.

Donald's film appearance wasn't his first appearance in
general. "Donald Duck" was named and shown in the 1931 book _The
Advs. of Mickey Mouse_, then in the 1932 British _Mickey Mouse
Annual_. This version of Donald looks more like Mickey interpreted as
a duck. In the first appearance, he is a white duck with a bowler hat
and a suit of clothes. In the second one, he has exchanged that suit
for black shirt and shorts and has black feathers on his head.
However, the face and general design are the same.

According to Bruce Hamilton some 1933 Disney poster includes
this same duck, *now* with a sailor suit. I don't know what cartoon
that poster is for.

Re-reprinting foreign stories (NEW TOPIC)
============= ======= ======= ==== ======

Some of the readers of this list have expressed interest in
seeing the best foreign stories that Gladstone printed from 1986-1990
be reprinted. I don't remember who asked this, but for now, I hope it
will not happen.

My reason for believing thus is simple: Gladstone has very
little space for foreign DD material in their new comics: some issues
of DDA and WDC&S and that's *it*, it would seem. The only artist we
have seen besides Barks in DD is Rosa in the coming #283, and D&M is
pledged to Barks ONLY. USA is beginning to re-reprint stories that
were in Gladstone's first album series -- and very soon those will be
used *again* in the coming CBL of US in Color albums.

I prefer Barks' best stories to most other Duck material, but
I must say that overreliance on Barks is now occuring at the expense
of other DD and US creators. Since there's not much room for foreign
stories now, I'd rather see new ones than old ones.

What brings me to all this is that I was worried someone would
suggest that Gladstone REPRINT that Milton/Jippes story over here for
the 60th birthday. I love that story, but I want more reprints like a
hole in the money bin (with the exception of MM, of course, but that's
because there aren't albums collecting Gottfredson's work).

John and I have a great DD story by Mau Heyman -- whose work
has never appeared here and whose style is wonderful (Harry will
back that up... when are you getting back, Harry???!) planned for that
anniversary DD. (I don't know what number that will be.) Yes, it's
about Donald's birthday, and a couple of other burning issues in the
Duck world...

Yours,

David Gerstein

"He looks just like you, Unca Donald, only his hair is black!"
<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>

Hi, folks!

Ole on Danish stories
=== == ====== =======

"I'm personally sick and tired of Vicar, Branca, Colomer, and
Santanach, but if you find them new-improved-super I'll bear with you,
David. Gail Renards plot for [THE DUCK WHO CRIED WOLF] is boring and
gag-less, using a predictable 1-2-3 plot linearity, all too common in
Danish stories."

I'll say it's that way! As originally done it was a mistaken
identity story like SO-OOOO many other Danish stories. I have
transformed it into a PARODY of the typical Danish mistaken identity
stories and added a mock-Aesop narration a la that Barks gemstone
hunting story. Partway through my version Donald actually begins
remarking that the story is like a fable, and the moment he begins
twisting the rules of Aesop around, he's in for it! I was trying to
do something like Barks' old Goldilocks and "King of Luck" (Gemstone
hunting) stories.

I think Gladstone could use better "nouvelle" (new to this
country) MM stories in D&M too... but no matter what we think, Jaime
Diaz stories are going to appear there by Bruce Hamilton's request at
least through D&M 25. Please join me in writing in and requesting
other things! I hope that after #25 these Diaz stories are only used
*once* in a great while.

Which brings me to...

Mickey as a "funny animal"
====== == = ====== =======

Don, please do not class Mickey with other cartoon animals...
you know, those characters who because they're not depicted as human
beings, get to live in a world which is just removed enough from
reality for the reader to stop believing in! You must be thinking of
those *non-Gottfredson, non-Scarpa* MM stories and *their* world...

I'm talking about a world where artificial intelligence comes
from tin cans ("The Mystery of the Robot Army"), where a car can
contain a ghost ("The Wonderful Whizzix"), where crooks always carry
guns with a mysterious notch out of the barrel, where interior
decorators shove you out of your own house... if it's funny, it
doesn't have to be realistic to match up with a "funny animal," right?

What I'm getting at is that the folks who didn't write good
Mickey stories did so because they didn't take Mickey seriously.
Anything funny can happen to a funny animal, right?

Aside from Carl Barks, everyone else on the Western staff took
Donald the same way. We had REALLY, REALLY BAD stories that didn't
work because they lacked enough connection with reality. You know
that Donald's not a funny animal because you had the good fortune to
have a good artist around to compare with the bad ones. For you, as
for all of us, that artist did *THE* interpretation of the Ducks that
mattered.

As you have mentioned, you didn't grow up with Gottfredson,
and were on the wrong side of the ocean to grow up with Scarpa. Thus
*all* you had to judge MM by were those... those *funny animal*
stories which for DD were second-echelon, but for MM in the comic
BOOKS after 1948 were all we got.

Think of the contempt you feel for those "Disneyana"
collectors who think of Donald as a funny animal -- and even worse,
think of *Uncle Scrooge* as one, just a cartoon of a duck for immature
children, one they find *cute*. Please don't think that just because
you didn't have the good fortune to grow up with a version of MM whose
writers and artists took him seriously, that he has to be a funny
animal. If all you'd grown up on with the Ducks was Tony Strobl, Jack
Bradbury, and so forth, you'd have thought Donald was a funny animal
too and gone on to do comics about your own *human being*... Marvin
Monkey!

Cartoon MM = Animal
Ub Iwerks MM = Animal
Floyd Gottfredson MM = Human Being
Bill Walsh MM = Human Being (but seriously hurt by being
depicted in a "funny animal" environment)
Paul Murry MM = Animal
Jack Bradbury MM = Animal
Tony Strobl MM = Animal
Romano Scarpa MM = Human Being
Jaime Diaz MM = Animal (or "funny human" like Mutt and Jeff --
same lack of believability)

David Gerstein = Anim... whoops!

<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>

One of my last sets of unneeded comments before I disappear for about 8
days...

What's the objection to April, May & June's BEAKS on my Family
Tree? I can't say I see many stories with those three -- they usually
appeared in the Daisy Duck stories which, even when by Barks, never
caught or held my attention much. When I drew those portraits I got out
a Barks DAISY DUCK'S DIARY story, and he drew them with sharp, pointy
beaks. I just checked their first appearance in WDC&S #149, and though
their kissers are pointing away from camera, they do seem to have HD&L
type (round) beaks there. Were they drawn more often with rounded or
pointy beaks?
I might change their beaks when Gladstone prepares to use that
Tree. But I would FIRST ask them to delete the use of that side-bar to
the Tree altogether. That bar with Daisy and AM&J and Gyro was never my
idea and was added later when some of the affiliate publishers started
whining that Daisy and Gyro weren't shown as being related to Donald!

Mattias (with the 'a' & 'i' in the proper order):
No, I'm not reneging on the 1920 birthdate for Donald -- I like
it... but it was giving me some trouble. But if my young Donald in part
11 looks and acts like he's 9 or 10, then there's no problem. When I use
HD&L in part 12 (which takes place on Christmas Day, 1947), they should
be 7 years old... but I draw them the same as I always do since to do
otherwise would become very difficult and very confusing to readers
(many of which are already perplexed by this whole series). I also
didn't try to draw HD&L the same way Barks did in the Bear Mountain
story since A) I'm far from the whiz Daan Jippes is at imitating art
styles, and B) Barks' earlier version of HD&L looked OLDER than his
later (cuter) version.
Also, if you read that the first Kentucky Derby was in 1875 and
figured that the 6th one was in 1881, you made the error of adding 6 to
1875 instead of just 5 (since the first Derby was IN 1875, not a year
later like a birthday); so Part 2 opens in 1880 (and ends in 1882).
Yes! I DID adjust my birthyear for Grandma Duck and her kids. I
was struggling mightilly to have $crooge be the oldest living Duck...
this meant that his sister would have been only a few years younger than
Grandma whose son she later marries! I tried to make it work, but
finally Byron just said "Hey -- this isn't working! Grandma HAS to be
older!" and I caved in. Now I'm thinking Grandma was born in 1855 and
Quackmore in 1875, which makes him a year older than Hortense. This also
makes Grandma about 100 years old at the time of the Duck Universe
(circa 1955). I don't like that, but that's it.

And I doubt if anybody bothered to run to their atlas when I was
talking about where Duckburg is in my part 10, but I misspoke. My
Calisota is that portion of California north of the 39th
parallel...that's north of the angle in the coast at Point Arena...north
of that other angle at Lake Tahoe... north of where the Ponderosa was at
Lake Tahoe. I don't know where I got that Santa Rosa stuff -- maybe I
just liked the sound of the name.

Hi, gang!

Two comments today:

Torsten dared to ask
======= ===== == ===

"Aside from the recent U$ vs. the mouse cover that Don Rosa
did, are there any stories dealing with rats, mice, or exterminators?
Did Donald ever work in pest control?"

In WDC 52 Donald tries to protect his home from first one rat,
then many rats, all of which keep swiping things and leaving other
things in return. In DD 57 (I mean "The Lost Peg Leg Mine," maybe I'm
a few issues off), U$ and the ducks battle trade rats again, now
called by their more authentic name of pack rats. (Isn't "trade rat"
slang for someone who runs a trading post?) In "A Christmas for
Shacktown" Donald lets a rat loose in the money bin so that he can get
money from Scrooge by catching it again (Scrooge doesn't know *Donald's*
the one who let it loose... at least not at first). In that last
story, the rat's face is faintly like Mickey's... and another rat is
actually shown being killed by a trap in US #1 (Four Color #386).

As for extermination in general, I think right off of Bill Van
Horn's story "It's Bats, Man!" in Disney Comics' DDA #6. One of my
favorites of his stories... its use of a parodic rock band, "Oso Loud
and the Tonal Drones", brings back fond memories of Tweedy Teentwirp
and Shoeless Pashly.

And Donald pits his wits against a phony exterminator next
month in my first published dialog, Ben Verhagen's "Bugged by Humbug"
in WDC&S 589.

Don Rosa on April, May and June
=== ==== == ====== === === ====

"[In] a Barks DAISY DUCK'S DIARY story, he drew them with
sharp, pointy beaks. I just checked their first appearance in WDC&S
#149, and though their kissers are pointing away from camera, they do
seem to have HD&L type (round) beaks there. Were they drawn more
often with rounded or pointy beaks?"

The appearance you mention in WDC&S #149 sounds like you
looked at the *second* panel of the story that they appear in... the
one of Donald, Daisy, the nephews and AMJ walking along the sidewalk
on their outing, as seen from the rear. I believe it's the panel
right before that in which Daisy reveals her nieces to Donald: "My
three little *nieces* are going with us!" Seen from a front-on view,
the nieces run out from a hallway or something, and their bills are
*exactly* like HDL's.

Barks drew the nieces that one time in 1952 and then not again
until 1958 or so. In all his later stories with them, they had the
more angular bills. It's a mystery to me... although I liked them
better the early way. A greater mystery is why in WDC&S #149 the
nephews are glad to go on a triple date with AMJ... in "Hobblin'
Goblins" right about the same time, they flee the opposite sex in
horror.

Good night, all!

David Gerstein

"I'd better be packed and outta here by the time they get
*back!* There was *mayhem* in that duck's eyes, if I ever saw it!"
<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>

Torsten Adair (torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu) wrote:

> Aside from the recent U$ vs. the mouse cover that Don Rosa did, are there
> any stories dealing with rats, mice, or exterminators? Did Donald ever
> work in pest control?

One Barks story that comes to my mind is one where Gyro is trying to build the
proverbial 'better mousetrap,' by inventing a super-cheese (?). The image thatstill makes me chuckle today is the background action of Gyro's Litle Helper roping the mice that are around the workshop and harnessing them to a stagecoach and riding them around. I think Gyro's competition in the conetst
was Pete in one of his many incarnations. Anyone have a title or issue # for
this one? I guess I could look it up in the CBL if no-one comes up with it
first.