Keskustelujen arkisto

"Comics:
DONALD DUCK MASTER
Somewhere in the world sits an American, who is a trained construction
engineer and originally chosen to take over his fathers illustrious
company, and spends all his time drawing Donald Duck stories. Don Rosa
is his name, and he is by many considered a worthy heir to the living
legend, Carl Banks. [sic.]
Don Rosa is a specialist in Scrooge McDuck, and he is known for his
teeming details. Rosa always starts with drawing the last page in a
story, continues with the next-to-last, and so forth, until he reaches
the middle, turns the table [idiom!] and starts on the first page. One
of his most beloved stories, The Son of the Sun, is brought as a sup-
plement to the latest issue of Donald Duck, and as a special exception,
the publisher has sent review copies to the culture editors. Inf."
[Information, July 26.th 1993]
-
"DUCKBURG'S ARCHITECT TO DENMARK
The in comic circles legendary artist, Carl Barks, comes to Copenhagen
in early June in connection with a tour of Europe, which will also take
him to the other Scandinavian capitals.
Carl Barks was the one who for Walt Disney designed the Duckburg uni-
verse plus several of the characters - for instance in 1947 he invented
uncle Scrooge.
Today Barks is 92 years old. When he retired from Donald Duck he
turned to oil paintings - which today are coveted collectors items and
are traded for millions. Carl Barks has never before visited Europe.
He will be recieved and celebrated as a cult figure. Inf."
[Information, February 21.st 1994]

These are quotes from my newspaper, Information; it only has ten pages a
day and costs twice as much as other newspapers. It does however usually
get it's facts straight and has run Doonesbury for some 20 years.
The above looks like summaries of official Egmont press releases though.
*Millions* for Barks' paintings?! Though the rate of DKr. is about 6,75
to a US dollar, it's a lot of money for a still-kickin' artist's works.
92 years old, going to Europe and all; I guess there are some really
cynical people who are stocking paintings, just waiting for the old man
to do them a favor, like lying down and stop breathing. Their oils will
triple their value overnight. I just hope those yuppies don't cash in
too soon, and plan to be in Copenhagen on June 9.th through 13.th.
If I can't shake his hand, at least I can wave mine.

<oLe 'RoC' Reichstein Nielsen, c/o Lasse 'Spot' R.N. (lrn at daimi.aau.dk)>

I was wondering who the new artist was who has made such stories as the
McDuck chronicles and Donald as a windowcleaner (yes, I know Donald has
been a windowcleaner in several stories but this one stands out, if you
don't know then you haven't read it.). Note that I read these comics in
Icelandic so the names may differ.
This artist has come up with a unique hilarious style of detailed
drawings combined with perfect facial expressions and character interaction.
He seems to be creating the McDuck family from scratch. We get to meet
Scrooge's parents and sisters in Scotland. His parents die and Scrooge
decides to take his sisters with him to America. This was the first time
I actually saw somebody die in a Disney comic and this was also the first
time we get a glimpse of the Duck family. Scrooge's sisters will probably
become the mothers of the characters we love.
Who is this artist and where is he from? Has he written some other stories
and is he going to follow the McDuck chronicles to the end?
--

SIGURDUR:

Forgot to tell you that: NO!!! Don does NOT create the McDuck family
from "scratch", but bases his stories, in particular Lo$, on Barks' stories,
and on real historical material.

Mattias

Here's my proposal for a Disney-comics Database format.
This message is over 200 lines long, but I just read that Don Rosa is not a
member of this list, so he can't complain about the length...

Story code
~~~~~~~~~~
A unique STORY CODE is assigned to each story. The first letter of the code
denotes the publisher (see our ftp file 'story-codes' for more explanation):

USA - King Features Syndicate, daily newspaper strips:
'Y' + newspaper strip letter + space + date

'Y': an arbitrary letter; 'K' (King Features) is already in use
for Disney Comics; 'D' (Daily) for Denmark...
newspaper strip letter: D = Donald, M = Mickey, S = Scamp
date: in the form yy/mm/dd, e.g. 94/02/28.

Mickey Mouse sequels have a number in stead of a date; the start- and
ending date vary, depending on the reprint.

USA - King Features, sunday strips:
'Z' + newspaper strip letter + space + date (yy/mm/dd)

In my Dutch index, I used a week number in stead of the date. That
way it is easier to see if strips are missing. But I don't think
it's a good idea to keep using it.

USA - Western (Dell/Gold Key)
'W' + space + series code (4 characters, left aligned) + issue number
(max. 4 characters, right aligned) + '-' + position number in the comic
(2 digits). Total length always 12 characters.

examples:

W OS 1234-01
W BDDUS 1-01
W WDC 456-FC

We can make a list of Western series abbreviations (see Crone's index)
I propose either 'OS' or 'FC' for the Four Color Comics/One Shots.

Denmark - Gutenberghus / Egmont
'D' + 2 spaces + 4-digit code, or
'D' + space + 5-digit code

USA - Disney Studio's
'S' + space + 5-digit code (4-digit codes from 1963-1972 will be preceded
by a '6' or '7')

Holland - Oberon / Geillusteerde Pers
'H' + space + 5-digit code (a code like H 8302 normalized to H 83002), or
'H' + space + normalized code (for codes from 1978 or earlier; see Dutch
index)

For the other publishers, we use mainly the codes they deliver themselves,
maybe with some normalization:
USA - Gladstone (AR)
USA - Disney (K)
Italy (I)
Germany (G)
Brazil (B)
France (F)

Database files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We have two kinds of files in the database: story files and issue files.
The story files list everything about the particular stories, the issue
files list specific information about the issues, and contain references
to the story files. Both kinds of data files are in a readable form, so
that data entry can be done in a "user friendly" way with an ascii editor.

Apart from the database files, there are the 'list' files. These are files,
generated from the database files, with information in the form that most
people want it. List files could be:
- Carl Barks list with reprints
- Gladstone/Disney list
- Gottfredson list with reprints
- Gerstein's K-index

(Our 'don-rosa' and 'van-horn' lists will not be generated from the database,
because they have a lot of extra information that doesn't fit (?))

Story files
~~~~~~~~~~~
These files contain one line per story with information that can be used
in the various lists, and zero or more lines with extra information that
will not be accessible for other lists (e.g. exact dates for pencilers/
inkers in the Mickey Mouse newspaper files).

Data fields:

- story code (12 characters)

- number of entire pages (2 characters should be enough...)

- indication for number of broken pages:
space = none, '+' = somewhere between 0 and 1 (need we be more exact?)

- (start) date, in the form yy/mm/dd
This can be used in (MM) newspaper sequels (where the dates are not in the
code).
It also can be used for the delivery dates of Carl Barks' stories (as
mentioned in my Dutch Barks index).
(I don't think we need the issue dates of Western's comics. Or do we?)

- end date, only used in (MM) newspaper sequels

- creator codes (3 characters) for:
plotter (spaces if equal to writer)
writer
artist
inker (spaces if equal to artist)

- title hero (2 [or 3?] characters. DD, US etc. We'll need a list of
Disney characters. I like Tryg's abbreviation for Gyro: GY is better than
the GG or GyG we used so far.

- title tag (2 characters):
T: original title
R: story has no original title, title of one of the reprints given
D: story never had a title, some "official" Gladstone description given
O: story never had a title, the indexer gives an own description
H: Dutch title or description (I plan to create H-lists and D-lists from
my Dutch index, but I don't plan to translate all the titles! If a
story is reprinted in the USA, that title can be listed. Or should
we list both?)

- title or description
I know Per prefers additions like 'in' and quotes, as in:

T:DD in "No Such Varmint".

I myself prefer a title without any additions, and all lower case, like:

T:no such varmint

It seems desirable to separate the title hero from the (rest of the) title.
That would mean titles like:

T:in "No Such Varmint"

which I think makes less sense.
How shall we do this?

- remarks
Is it OK to put Tryg's information about occurring characters here, or
should it be a separate entry? Remember: we only have that information
for a very limited set of stories. It seems not suitable to reserve
a special field for this in all story-files.

Issue files
~~~~~~~~~~~
In the first conversion, the current files like 'gladstone-disney.index'
will be used as issue files, since we can't have all the printed stories
in story files (for instance because we don't know the exact code, or
because it's a cover).
So, issue files can contain complete story information, or a reference
to a story, or a mixed form, e.g. when the number of pages or title etc.
are different in the reprint.

We have one problem with the Western comics, where Story file and Issue
file have an overlap (see the current Crone files). WE can keep these files
and use them both as Story files and as Issue files.

Data fields:

- issue code. We already have well-defined codes for Gladstone and
Disney comics, but maybe we should normalize them: the issue numbers
always right aligned, e.g.

WDC 570
AA 1
US 12

- story position number. In the Gladstone-Disney index, this is a letter,
like a, b, etc.
In Crone's Western list, it is a '/' and two digits (because
issue code + position number == story code).

- an indication whether the comic has been indexed completely: a '*'
indicates that some data (like exact title and position number) may be
wrong.
(In Crone's Western list, the 'position number' also has a '*' in that
case)

- story code.

- number of pages, if not the original

- title, if different from the original (this should hardly occur)

- USA scripter, if == David Gerstein (?) 8-)

- additional remarks

Current issue files (to be transformed):
- gladstone-disney
- swedish (from Crone's list, and maybe from the NAFS(k) list on ftp)
- danish (only if Ole wants to do it...)
- dutch

That's it for now. Let the reviews begin...
(Meanwhile, I'm gonna make some test databases and try some programming in
C...)

--Harry.

Harry PTT Research ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak
Fluks Leidschendam (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl

"Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!"

Yes, fans of the frenetic, I AM quietly sitting here reading all of your
comments (or at least scanning them). Just want everyone out there to know
that we are finally entering a rather interesting period in our publishing
history at Gladstone, when not only Van Horn and Rosa are coming our way via
Egmont, but stories by Michael T. and Janet Gilbert, Dave Rawson, Pat
McGreel-all American writers-as well. We're just beginning to see these
becoming available, but I've read a few and-no slight intended to the overseas
writers-it will be nice to start using stories more in tune with the American
audience.

I have to agree with Mark Semich here:

"..to see 'THAT DUDE IS AWESOME - NOT!' in a Disney comic.."

This really jarred on me too. In what was an acceptable, but not
outstanding story, this bit seemed to be a cheap and very ephemeral
attempt to seem 'hip'. In even ten years, who will find that comment
comprehensible let alone funny? I know this is a comic book, but lots of
stories (and I'm sure all of us here could think of one or two..) have
already lasted 40+ years without seeming stale.

It may just be that I am not an American reader, and am also out of
touch with the youth audience, but this just doesn't sit well in my
mind. It's a bit like Carl Bark's anti-Japanese stuff in a few early 10
pagers. Perfectly acceptable then, even appealing to the intended
audience, but how does it strike you now?

On a lighter note, did anyone know that American Disney Comics used to
be translated into Australian? When I was a kid we used to have
Australian editions of DD, WDCS, MM and of course the US stories, and
often (looking at them now), the Australian editions would have words or
phrases crudely whited out and equally crudely relettered. Some examples
(off the top of my head):

rutabagas --> swedes (Forbidden Valley)

dollar --> pound (lots of stories, thankfully stopping in 1966)

January --> July (Frozenbear Lake bet story)

nickle --> five cents (Screaming Cowboy [I think, won't swear to this one])
color, flavor, honor etc --> colour, flavour, honour etc

I'm sure there were lots of others too, but I'd have to dig them out.
I've also seen Barks translated into English. I had a few comics printed
in the UK with condensed versions of stories in them, at least one of
which (Think Boxes) had a similar change (2nd last panel, begging
rabbit):

Mr, can you spare a few pence for a bunch of carrots?

Andrew Davies

PER (and all the others):

I don't quite agree with you there -- as I said, my
idea breaks down into two parts: a) you shouldn't necessarily have to go look
in the ftp for the latest introduc(k)tions, and b) it wouldn't mean more
reading for those who've already seen older versions, since they'd only have to
scan the first few intros, until they reach the warning "previous
introduc(k)tions below", after which they could just delete the whole thing --
while at the same time our newcomers -- whom I am inclined to believe are the
least ready to dig into the ftp -- would get a complete version fairly soon
after joining up.

These are MY thoughts -- any comments, anyone? If several of you (like,
f'rinstance those who "pay-to-read") disagree with me, I'll do as Per suggests,
instead!

Hmm...?

Mattias