Keskustelujen arkisto

On Tue, 4 Jan 1994, Harry Fluks wrote:

> > Tryg Heseth <tryve at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
> >
> > "I wish they all could be Calisota Ducks!" -The Beach Drakes
>
> I think I still miss an 'l' and a 'g' somewhere...

Wak! I must have really been off in the Twilight Zone when I entered that
signature! The problem is compounded by the fact that I never see it as
Minuet automatically sticks it on the message when it is sent. It
doesn't even show up in the sent-message folder...

I'm not using Minuet right now, but my correct name and address should be
(as you pointed out):

Tryg Helseth <trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu>

Maybe the Screaming Cowboy shook loose some of the letters from my
signature. BTW, is the Screaming Cowboy still around, or did they
finally bury him thar with his ol' guiiar... :)

> > --Harry.

On Mon, 3 Jan 1994, David A Gerstein wrote:
> FULL NAMES OF CHARACTERS: Okay, then... if Goofy's real name
> IS Dippy Dawg, then it doesn't follow that Mickey is going to be
> Mortimer. Please remember... the character has to have actually HAD
> the name in a finished product. By the time any films were in
> production, Mickey had lost his earlier monicker.
> Mickey = Michel Mouse (given in cartoon "Symphony Hour")
> Donald = Donald Fauntleroy Duck
> Goofy = Dippy "Goofy" Dawg

Those of you out there who are die-hard fans might wish to look at the
first Outland comic book collection by Berke Breathed ("Bloom County"),
wherein, Mortimer, Mickey's brother, comes back and gets revenge on the
current "restructuring" of Disney by Michael Eisner.

> the Mississippi" by Don Rosa. Please note, Don... no cover "LO$"
> special logo shown on that issue in Diamond's catalogue. Which brings
> me to:
>
> OFFICIAL TITLE OF LO$: I believe that it's only to be called
> "The Life of Scrooge" in the U. S. Don, you probably forgot that
> there was the Celestial Arts book titled, "Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His
> Life and Times." This is just a reversal of your title, and Gladstone
> presumably felt that their later book collections would be hopelessly
> confused by dealers with the older book if they used the planned
> title.

Yeah. Right. The Barks book is large and thick, and costs about $30 in
paperback. The Lo$ book(s) will be graphic novel size (~28 cm), thin, and
probably cost $20.

As a student of comic books since 1984, I had not heard, nor seen a copy,
of Barks' book until I looked for it last year. I would be surprised if
any comicbook store dealers even knew about Barks' book, or even Barks,
period.

> Although I have never asked John Clark ANYTHING about this
> one, so I'm really just guessing. I may be wrong, and perhaps the
> whole title IS being used.

If I were Gladstone, I would not worry about the confusion. The book was
published many years ago, and aside from trademarks, I don't think there
is any legal basis for not using a title which is similar to another book.

Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA

Dear Folks,

I said the other day that the title "The Life and Times of
Uncle $crooge McDuck" (as applied to Don's twelve-part biography) was
suspiciously similar to the Celestial Arts popular edition of 1987,
"Uncle $crooge McDuck: His Life and Times." Torsten responded that
one reason there WOULDN'T be any confusion is that "I would be
surprised if any comic book store dealers even knew about Barks'
[Celestial Arts] book, or even Barks, period."

Actually, Torsten, I found few comprehensive bookstores in the
1987-91 period that didn't seem to have the book. Same goes for comic
stores. The bigger outlets of both variety seemed to generally have
at least one copy. Seems to have sold well, too, though I'll still
see an occasional copy gathering dust somewhere.

As for how many comic shop owners know about Carl Barks, I
find that most who I've talked to not only do, but a large percentage
complain that not enough people are buying their Disneys and they
can't understand why... because they like them a lot more than a lot
of the stuff they tend to sell lots of. Of course, there's always
someone like the guy I talked to last week who said, "We keep the
Disneys down below the Harveys and Archies, since older people like
the Harveys and Archies more, and in fact we don't order all the
Disneys since no one minds if we miss some of them."

I can easily postulate the solution: this one shop has
charged unbelievably high prices for Dell Disneys for years. I find
that the places which sell back issues at a good rate also tend to be
the ones who attract continuing Gladstone customers.

Also: Mattias, I haven't done any work for Disney since
spring of 1992. Did you think I was still doing things for them?
Perhaps one day I'll write some MM story books for their publication
division (a secret wish of mine), but we'll just see about that when
the time comes.

Zassall for now, folks.

Your friend,

David Gerstein

"Now will Petrolio de Balonio de Donald Ducko PAY for his
Christmas dinner, or will he wash dishes in *my* kitchen?"
<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>

DAVID:

Did I think you were still working for Disney? No, maybe not, if I had
any firm hypothesis on this subject at all; but you HAVE worked for them, and
1992 is not too way back, is it, and you DO work for Egmont presently, right?
Which, I guess,is why I directed that closing question in my last posting to
you as well as Don.

Well, you did ask, you know...

DON:

About those Swedish uncles. Well, first of all I wholeheartedly agree with
Per, that of course the American version has top priority, and also that
there's no reason (nor any possible way!) for you to try to take into
consideration all various languages that your work is or might be translated
into... There just ain't no way they can all be reconciled!

Anyway, I don't think the reason(s) why Donald and $crooge became paternal
uncles in the Swedish translation has much to do with sexism, or similar, but
with a) ignorance, and b) Swedish idiom.

Ignorance: there was (almost) no possible way for a Swedish schoolteacher (Axel
Norbeck, the first Swedish translator of Donald Duck) in 1948 to know that HD&L
were the children of Donald's sister. The words of the comic he had to
translate (The Fireman Donald WDC) gives no clue - "nephew" and "uncle" being
neutral words - and for Norbeck to have seen AND remembered the ONE Taliaferro
strip from which we extrapolate the relationship, that's asking a bit much.
Sure, he might have seen the cartoon, just possibly, but to remember a factoid
like this for almost 10 years? Not likely. And even had he known - what bloody
difference was he supposed to believe it would make, any ol' way?

Swedish idiom: as I've explained before, the word "farbror" (from "far"=father
and "bror"=brother) has two meanings in Swedish: one giving an exact
relationship - the brother of my father, the other meaning more or less "male
elder person", or "male person, older than myself, to whom I'm not necessarily
specifically related, but whom I want to treat with a certain amount of
respect". Where in English a mother might say to her child: "say thank-you to
the nice man" a Swede might say "s{g tack till den sn{lle FARBRORn" without
implying any relationship by blood or marriage.

This does not so for the word "morbror" (from "mor"=mother etc.), which can
ONLY mean your mother's brother and nothing else.

Why, then, is this so? Well, I'm no linguist, but I think one reason is that
the word "farbror" contains two male words, but the word morbror only one; and
this might be one reason why the first is used in two contexts.

There is more that could be said on the subject, but it's back to work for me
now...

Mattias

DAVID:
There was no worry about whether or not to use the title I gave
to the series as "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck". It IS so named
in Gladstone's ads and in the comics and (hopefully) on future covers. I
assume that "Life of $crooge" has found its way into some magazines
since that's how we all refer to it in conversation just to save our
breath.
Also, tell me when this name "MOUSETON" was first seen in print
(or heard on screen).

MATTIAS:
I got out my original working draft of the Duck Family Tree and
you are RIGHT! I originally had Fanny as Grandma's sister! And now I
also remember why I changed it: Byron didn't like the idea of Gus Goose
being of the same generation of ducks as Donald's father and of $crooge
McDuck. You'll hafta agree that's a good point, though yours are as
well. But certain decisions had to be made and, as I guaranteed you,
this Tree was not taken lightly and lots of thought went into the
decisions (whether they were RIGHT or not). I firmly believe that Ludwig
Von Drake is married to Matilda McDuck, even though nobody would agree
to allow me to include that on the tree (which might be good since it
wouldn't have fit... too many ducks in that generation for the page
width. Birth control in Duckburg is based on margin width.)

Fabio asked:
> Could someone tell what happens instead in the rest of Europe?

Some remarks in random order:

I don't know much about Dutch laws concerning this.

In the regular Dutch Disney comics, noone is ever credited for a Disney
_story_. But there have been many occasions where the (Dutch) Disney artists
did get credit: 'special' drawings like centerfolds, gag (text) pages, puzzles,
games. Even if they involved Disney characters, most of the time the text
"drawn by Carol Voges" (or whoever) was added.

Only a few artists got credits in Dutch albums: Barks, Murry, Gottfredson,
Taliaferro. But (very peculiar) in the most recent movie adaptation-albums
(Junglebook, Aladdin) all creators were named (including our lurking list
member Weiss).

Thom Roep once told me that naming all those artists in the regular comics
would be very confusing for the little kids, while only less than 5 per
cent was really interested. He was however willing to give full information
to anyone who asks for it: the information is not secret.

Most Dutch Disney artists also produce non-Disney comics. Sometimes they
appear in the Donald Duck Weekly. In the case of non-Disney material, full
credits are always given.

Sometimes, the editors put the name of a writer or artist in the story itself.
For example, some Brazilian in a Joe Carioca story is called Colomer Fonts.
On Jan Kruse's 1000th page there is a newspaper with a portrait of Kruse.
One of the movie cowboys in "Bullet Valley" is called Karel Barks.
Etcetera.

The last two years, Disney organizes 'club days': the children can meet
Unca Donald (the real one, you know, the one you meet in Disneyland) and
other Disney characters. They had things like a "Gyro Gearloose inventor's
contest". They even had some "real Disney artists" making drawings on
command. In the DD Weekly, they sometimes print photos of a 'club day'.
That's how some of the Dutch artists got their picture in the comic (but
without their names...)

There is only one Dutch album where the name Keno Don Rosa can be seen.
He is mentioned as the artist of the Gyro "Pied Piper" story, in album 17
of the series "All classic stories" (formerly "All stories by Carl Barks").
The Gyro story (partly scripted and penciled by Barks) is NOT printed in
the series (apparently the publisher doesn't know exactly what the word
"all" means...)

--Harry.

HARRY:
I guess I don't have to tell you that Thom Roep's explanation
(which echoes the "official" explanation that all Disney editors are
told to give) that giving credits in comic books would "confuse kids" is
utter bawlderdash. Hogwash! It's foolish on the face of it. It's
reminiscent of the line in MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL where somebody
suggests making that rabbit fiend "so cross it will make a mistake" and
the king asks "Like WHAT?" The kids would become confused HOW? Besides,
the editors' names are given, as are the translators, as is the
publishing company's name -- isn't there a worry that THIS will "confuse
the kids"? Credits can so EASILLY be given on a page apart from the
actual stories as Gladstone does and as Egmont did for a time after
Disney told them to stop giving credits (and they thought there couldn't
be any possible reason not to hide them in the indicia) -- but not even
this is done.
It's a plain and simple matter of these being among the world's
(if not THE world's) most widely printed and endlessly profit-making
comic books, and Disney is desperately afraid of the creators gaining
some form of legal ownership in their work. I mean, I work in the system
and allow them this arrogance and greediness -- as long as they don't
try to bullsheet me and tell me that it's to protect lil' kiddies from
confusion!

MATTIAS:
I never said I thought that the European translators should have
known that $crooge was the maternal uncle of Donald. It would have been
impossible -- that was my whole point. We don't have any such
distinction in English. Even lifelong readers of the American editions
couldn't know this -- only us Barks fans who have seen copies of his old
Tree in fanzines. That's why I knew no one in America would have any
notion one way or the other. I never dreamed that Europeans had a system
of naming relatives that would have given them a certain idea of the
$crooge-Donlad relationship for many years.
Also, to you or anyone else in Sweden: as usual, even though I
give them free publicity, often at my own expense, the Swedish publisher
will NEVER think to send me copies of that newspaper exploiting my work
for their benefit. I hope one of you can find me a copy of that issue of
(whatizzit?) AFTONBLADET? And mail it to me someday (hopefully with a
translation).
Now -- Mattias, I just received a letter from Stefan Dios!!! I
could write him but here I am in daily touch with YOU. Do you live close
enough to him that a phone call is not long-distance rates? If so, it
would be very easy for me to pass some info from me to him through you,
as you will probably find the info interesting as well (I assume).
In his letter... actually in the P.S. ... Stefan quickly
mentioned several ERRORS he thought he'd spotted in some of my stories
he recently translated.
1) (As Harry said) that calculus equation has a "=" where a "-"
should be! YES, IT DOES!!! I must have not been careful while inking my
pencils! I'm going to see if it's possible to catch this before it's
printed in Europe!
2) I made a joke about "the Lone Ranger" in Lo$ part X, as
Stefan says, 30 years before the creation of that character. Yes, THIS
one was on purpose and I gave it some thought. But the gag tickled me
and I decided to treat the L.R. as if he was an actual person.
3) In the "Guardians of the Lost Library" I say that the Library
had info from Cathay brought by Marco Polo when the knights of the 4th
Crusade stole it in 1204. That's a mere 50 years before Polo was born
and 90 years before he could have arrived in Constantinople, dashed off
the data, and had it snatched out of his hand by a galloping Crusader. I
obviously meant for this to happen back in Italy where the Crusaders
took the books. I am currently doing rewrites and new art for the
American edition of that story, and now I must also do two new panels to
replace two while shifting some other art about in the story. This is an
easy error to fix IF it's not too late! I THANK him for catching this
error!!!!!!
It doesn't bother me that I make errors like this as much as it
bothers me that I TRY SO DAMNED HARD NOT TO!!! With as carefully as I
research and check my facts, I then get careless at the last instant and
screw it all up! Perhaps I have so MANY facts floating around loose in
those stories that it's only natural to get a few wrong? NOPE -- there's
NO excuse!!!
Anyway, tell Stefan thanks! Or tell me that you're not in touch.