Keskustelujen arkisto

On Fri, 28 Jan 1994, James Williams wrote:
> This isn't related to Disney Comics directly. Since it pertains to
> Gladstone, I thought you all would find it interesting. Apparently,
> Gladstone has secured the comic book rights to Filmation's Mighty
> Morphing Power Rangers. I'm pretty sure that Jack C. Harris will be
> one of the writers. I've been worried about how Gladstone would remain
> solvent when their titles sold so poorly. Hopefully, MMPR will help.
> Gary Leach: What other non-Disney Comics is Gladstone planning? Also,
> if I have any of the detail wrong, please correct me.

For those of you who do not have direct access to American television
(quick! Call the United Nations! We must have an airlift for Europe!), I
will explain the previous post.

Mighty Morphing Power Rangers is a live action television program imported
from Japan. The story is about five teenagers who have the ability to
transform into five martial artists to fight Rita Repulsive and her evil
band of nasties. Each MMPR (three boys, two girls) also commands a large
robotic prehistoric animal (tyrannosarus, pteryodactyl, mastodon,
sabertooth tiger, triceratops), which can also be assembled to create a
giant robot, which usually fights one of Rita's giant creations, and thus
destroys a miniature replica of Los Angeles. Guiding the youths is an
electronic sentient master, and an android.

So, what's so great about this program that kids actually get up early on
school days to watch it? Well, it has giant robots, prehistoric
creatures, lots of cool ninja fight scenes (no graphic violence, evil villains
disappear), and some really cheap dubbing of Rita. Mindless fun, usually
with some environmental message.

The real genius is that the MMPR costumes are unisex. You can't tell who
is in the costume, which means the Japanese fight scenes don't have to be
reshot. And the nasties are full costumes as well, leaving Rita as the
only difficult dubbing job, which usually isn't that well done anyway.
All that has to be done is about five minutes of USA filming with the
normal teenagers.

Fact: Last Christmas, MMPR toys were impossible to find in the U.S. I
visited Toys R Us last week, and didn't see any then.

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

SOURCE: Diamond Previews February 1994 Vol. IV, No. 2 p.107

Gladstone/Disney

Graphic Novels

CBL of DDA in Color #4 [illustration of cover showing giant dragon about
to devour unsuspecting Donald as HDL try to warn him. Comic book cover?
Card illustration?]

Since the inception of Gladstone's acclaimed "Library Album" series, Barks
devotees have anxiously anticipated a similar treatment of the artist's
longer Donald and Scrooge adventures, which originally appeared in the
pages of Dell Four Color and other comic books. Now, Gladstone is pleased
to announce that, via a new license from the Walt Disney Company, they
will publish those adventures in Comic Album format over the course of the
next five years. Each album also includes a special trading card,
featuring a full-color story image drawn from the book, and available
nowhere else. This issue: "Terror of the River" from Donald Duck Four
Color #108, as well [sic] two shorter backup stories: "The Firebug" and
"Seals Are So Smart".
SC, 8x11, 56pg, FC.............$8.95

CBL Album #28 WDC&S in Color [Illustration of DD and HDL in car looking at
old west town in background.]

This twenty-seventh [sic] volume in Gladstone/Disney's complete,
chronological reprinting of all of Carl Barks's comics from the pages of
Walt Disney's Comics & Stories includes: "The Daffy Taffy Pull" from
WDC&S #175; "The Ghost Sheriff of Last Gasp" from WDC&S #176; "A Descent
Interval" from WDC&S #177; "Donald's Raucous Role" from WDC&S #178; and
"Good Canoes and Bad Canoes" from WDC&S #179. Also contains an exclusive
Carl Barks Heroes & Villains trading card--numbered like this volume
(#28)--depicting Chisel McSue.
SC, 8x11, 56pg, FC.....................$8.95

Comics

DD #285
Contains Carl Barks's "Cheltenham's Choice", plus 16 pages of Donald Duck
newspaper strips from the 1930s by Al Taliaferro.
FC....................$1.50

Donald and Mickey #24
This issue: "A Descent Interval" by Carl Barks, and Part Two of "Don't
Call Me Tut" starring Mickey and Goofy. New cover image by William Van Horn.
FC.......................$1.50

USA #27 [Illustration shows US, HDL, and JWW hound (?) in front of giant seal]
Features Donald and the Junior Woodchucks in "Guardians of the Lost
Library"--a new, 28-page story by Don Rosa.
FC....................$1.50

Gary, you guys need to watch which stories are reprinted where. Having "A
Descent Interval" show up twice during one month is not good marketing.
Suppose I had already seen the other stories presented in the CBLA, and
just wanted to read this story? Which title do you think I would buy?

However, considering that you are publishing a new Don Rosa story (What?
No exclamation points?!), I'll let it pass this once.

Also, any chance of having that Overstreet ad run in Diamond Previews? It
would attract a lot of attention....

I have returned. Yes, my computer did, indeed, go foul and I
awaited a friend who knows computers to come by and see if he could
figure out what was wrong; but the VERY weird local weather kept him
away from my country home until today. What seemed to happen was that
my Drive A was suddenly unable to read any discs. Not just ONE disc,
but any disc. The last time I logged on I did so by switching my
software to Drive B. But the next moment Drive B also became unable to
read anything, and started making the same weird noises as Drive A. If
you're following me, this doesn't make much sense. The problem seemed
to be in the drives, not the discs, but what possible reason could
there be for BOTH drives to break down within an hour of each other. It
would be like driving around on some tires for 5 years and having all 4
blow out at the same time. It didn't make sense... until we took it
apart and found the problem. If I had ever guessed what the problem was
I could have fixed it myself right off, but who woulda' expected THIS
oddity. Here's a problem for all you computer buffs to make a note of:
The break-down occured on the morning after we (in Louisville)
had the COLDEST night in history... 25 below 0 (F). (This was 2 days
after we had the deepest snow in history and which was still on the
ground, and some of which still is -- 20 inches. Deep snow and
super-cold do NOT happen together -- in fact, they normally preclude
one another. It was a VERY strange day when Louisville had both its
deepest snow AND coldest temperature at the same time.
I turn off the heat overnight in my studio here, and it got
down into the mid 50s (F) in the room. In fact, the first idea I had
about my failed computer was that the discs were too cold (?) or the
computer dewed up, and all would be well after it warmed up, but that
wasn't the case.
Well, as near as we can figure, this is what happened: in each
disc drive is a tiny "cushion" of foam on a bit of metal which, I
guess, is designed to prevent the innards of the drive from bouncing
around during shipment or such. This cushion is attached to the top of
the drive compartment, metal to metal, with a drop of glue. 55 degrees
was JUST enough to make the glue become brittle and not one, but BOTH
"cushion" bits fell off and into the drive. This acted as a tiny
monkey-wrench in each drive and the drive was unable to read an entire
disc. Perhaps the bit of metal didn't fall into Drive B until after I'd
gotten through one last call-in. But anyway, we took out each drive,
shook it, and these tiny pieces fell out. Now everything works fine
again. That seems like a pretty strange thing to happen, but then I
guess that was a strange day in local history all around.

I just read through all those Digests...

TORSTEN made a gag (was it in a private note?) that maybe I
shoulda put antifreeze in my computer. That is exactly what my problem
was. Good call.

PER:
If you were asking me if the Russian MM you have is the same one
that Disney was selling in America as the #1 issue and charging $10+
for... YES, it is the same. And that is definitely NOT the first
Russian MM. It is the 3rd. Those Russian issues were printed by
Egmont-Sweden, and they gave me a copy of a previous issue. Since then
I've been told by another Egmont branch that there was an even earlier
issue (by a few months).

MATTIAS:
You might come to America? Of course, I hope you might find
yourself passing through Louisville, and staying a night here at my
home... but there's nothing really to waste time seeing in Louisville
and I don't know how it would be convenient to pass through unless you
were going from Chicago south to Florida or such.
Did you imply that your musical job involves playing "swing"...
so called "big band" music? Did I know that? Did you know I am a very
great fan of "swing", and that it's the only type of music I like
besides classical (and movie soundtracks which I consider to be the
classical music of the 20th century)?
And you like American style breakfasts? With all the GREEEESY
eggs and GREEEEESY pork and GREEEEEESY fried potatoes and GREEEEEESY
gravy??? When I visit Europe the thing I MOST look forward to, honest
to gosh, are the Scandanavian breakfasts with cheeses and cold cuts and
smoked fish and boiled eggs. I think the worst food we have in America
is the #$%@& we eat for breakfast. Maybe the only reason you look
forward to American breakfasts is that it's the MOST different sort of
food we have all at once? Would you wanna eat that greasy slop every day
for the rest of your nacherul life? Why do you think you people LIVE
longer than we do in the first place? It's all that greasy food and red
meat we eat. (Though, I LOVE my bloody, undercooked, American red meat!)
Speaking of my visiting Europe, it looks like I might be in
Germany during the first week of June, visiting their big comic
convention near Nuremburg.

ALL:

please excuse me if this posting is not-so-donaldistic; but I don't wanna
make Don pay extra, just to get a non-duck message from me, so I'm putting this
on the list any way...

DON:

THANK YOU for your invitation -- I sure hope to be able to take you up on
it! I might very well pass through Louisville, going nowhere in particular --
my preliminary plans is to just rent a car for a week, mebbe ten days, and go
on the road. We did that occasionally when I and three friends travelled in the
U.S. in 1991; I liked that kind of not too heavilly scheduled travelling very
much, and also I don't care for flying, if I can avoid it... Not that I'm
scared of flying -- it's just lacks any kind of creature comfort, and is a
total bore at that!

Yes and no -- I play orthodox 1930's small-band swing (on the pattern of, say,
"Red" Allen, Fats Waller and similar) with my latest, just started band; but
the one I'm hoping to come to America with is a 1920's bigband - NOT a swing
big band -- we play stock arrangements, arrangements transcribed from records
and a few original arrangements, and base our repertoire on such bands as King
Oliver's Dixie Syncopators, Fletcher Henderson, Charlie Johnson's Paradise Ten
and others, in the period c. 1921-1931. In yet other bands I play Classic Jazz,
based on Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, or Clarence Williams, or Bessie Smith. So,
all in all, my musical emphasis and my greatest musical love is 1920's Classic
Jazz, I guess -- but I'm also a reasonably avid swing devotee, and generally
enjoy all jazz up to and including John Coltrane (albeit I'll have to confess a
certain difficulty with the MOST modern styles within this compass). I also
have a great liking for classical music -- perhaps in particular opera, with a
certain extra passion for Verdi and/or (preferrably and) Jussi Bjoerling.

Well -- American breakfasts... I DO confess that during my last (and only, so
far) American tenure, I greatly enjoyed starting the day with a stack of
pancakes, a few strips of bacon and two eggs sunny side up... but then I do
have a terribly sweet tooth, so any breakfast were I'm allowed to pour
concentrated sugary syrup on top of everything is fine by me... but NO! i
couldn't live that way! During my two months in the States I gained 20
pounds!!! And also -- American coffee took SOME getting used to, I can tell! I
come from that part of Sweden where men aren't necessarily all that manly, but
where coffee is STRONG and BLACK!!! Anyway, I really guess it was the CHANGE as
much as anything I enjoyed back then... Over here, I break fast MUCH more
frugally, I can assure you!

Anyway -- I hope I do get to see you; but for the time being: All my best!!!

Mattias