Keskustelujen arkisto

Sorry about the length of this one...I'll probably go back to lurking after
this...

Okay folks --- I FOUND my copies of "Dan O'Neill's Comics and Stories" Vol. 2
Nos. 1 & 2 in my basement (I haven't the foggiest notion if there was ever a
Vol. ONE...maybe he was referring to the two issues of "Air Pirates"), from
1975.

They are fun books drawn in a moody, loose style, mostly featuring strips
starring "Cub Calloway, Ace Reporter." No. 2 has a classic that was reprinted
around in the UG press at the time involving the question of white sugar vs.
honey ("bee poop"). There are also some "Odd Bodkins" reprints, and one strip
that has a character who STRONGLY resembles the "Phantom Blot."

But the most interesting (and most relevant to our thread here) is in the first
issue; "O'Neill in the Dock!" A cartoon version of O'Neill himself is depicted
behind a courtroom dock. He says, "Yer Honor..."

"Walt Disney Productions has accused me and my friends of copyright and
trademark infringements, unfair competition, trade dispargement, intentional
interference with business ... and lately ... aggravated assault on MICKEY
MOUSE!!
".. A mere $700,000.00 from my petty cash fund will satisfy their honor.."

"To these charges, I must say POO-POO!
".. and WHY, your honor, do I say POO-POO to these charges.. ?
"I say POO-POO because I can't say BULLSH*T in court ..
".Poo poo it is, yer honor"

"I AIN'T GUILTY OF NO AGGRAVATED ASSAULT ON MICKEY MOUSE!!"

"I'm guilty of the PREMEDITATED MURDER of MICKEY MOUSE!!
"in the first degree ..
" hee hee hee "

O'Neill's explanation goes on for quite a few panels, revealing how his "Odd
Bodkins" strip, which had been running from 1963 to 1970 was about to be
cancelled because the publisher's friends at the country club didn't understand
it. But when hordes of fans demanded the strips return, it was reluctantly put
back. Eventually, O'Neill heard a rumor that someone "ABOVE the Governor's
office" wanted Charlie (his publisher) to drop it again in six months. Angry,
he decided on a plan of revenge: "Violate every copyright available ... get
sued!!

"Because if the strip was SUED ... CHARLIE would have to pay ... cuz CHARLIE
OWNED the strip.."

" .. I went to see my MOUTHPIECE. I said, 'WHO sues ANYBODY ..?"
"Bill, my mouthpiece, said "

" DISNEY!! "

"So I fired my characters .. and hired some RED CHINESE comic strip characters
.. MEAN ONES!!
"I dressed them up like Disney characters and ran them out on stage!!
"They were PERFECT lookalikes on the outside .. but INSIDE their bodies beat
hearts of pure red commie meat!!"

(Now you must understand that throughout his commentary, from the "mouthpiece"
on, characters are spitting images of Gottfreidson's mouse and other early
Disney images, except that their faces are covered with a black "stamp" that
says "CENSORED by Court Order")

O'Neill explains how the characters were a "hostile bunch" who quoted from the
little red book. He himself showed them the "secret entrance" to the strip and
went on a vacation.

"I let them appear in their Disney suits .. until I figured they had done about
$450,000 worth of damage..
".. at $5000 an appearance.."

O'Neill's mouthpiece gives him bad news. What he is doing is PROBABLY legal ..
"This is PARODY!!"

After a few month, O'Neill left the strip and started AIRPIRATES studio with
four other artists.

"We immediately drew upon the services of the Red Chinese comic strip
characters .. and did two comic books Air Pirates #1 & #2 .. Mickey Mouse was a
MOST INTERESTING mouse..
"He was in the dictionary .. he meant (A) a tyrademark for cartoon character
created by Walt Disney (B) .. designates danceband music that is corny,
unimaginitive, bland, etc. 2. childish, oversimplified.. unrelated to reality,
etc. (a Mickey Mouse college course)"

(pictured here is the MOUSE, standing in a giant copy of Webster's New World
Dictionary 1974, censor stamp blocking his face, and waving in the air, saying
" hi kids! ")

"It suddenly occured to us .. Mickey Mouse was an ADJECTIVE in the living
language .. you can't copyright or own an ADJECTIVE! Catherine the Great
doesn't own "GREAT" .. neither does the GREAT Gatsby.. "

O'Neill goes on to say that the MOUSE fascinated him now..."symbolically a
MONSTER.. all the world knew him .. he represented AMERICA!! The worst of our
national vices .. materialism and flag worship!"

He continues to explain how publishers are afraid to parody Disney because of
lawsuits -- "even if they win, it COSTS them to win .. so Disney wins by
punishment. ..Parody loses.."

O'Neill makes some jokes about his comics being pornographic and maybe causing
someone to become a "mouse raper."

Then he quotes ol' Joe Goebbels, "JOKES cease to be funny when they deal with
the holiest goods of the nation .." Then he explains how you can't keep a
magazine going for very long if you have to spend $10,000 an issue to defend
yourself.

There's more yet, but skipping to the end, he depicts himself in Jail next to a
"Black Pete" type character (of course there's a "CENSORED" stamp on the
character's face):

"Hi mate! I'm in for RAPE and MURDER .. what are youse in for.."

"uh .. .. I drew a picture of Mickey Mouse .."

This comic is long out of print & probably will never be reprinted. Needless to
say, it is a fascinating work that reads as well today as it did back then.
O'Neill's art was sketchier than he did in "Odd Bodkins" or "Air Pirates," no
doubt because he was pressed for time when producing these books. They helped
pay his considerable legal expenses, and the message that Disney got across to
artists the world over was "don't try to step on OUR toes or we'll squash you."

Don't forget, this is the same company that went all the way to the Supreme
Court to try to keep people from owning video tape recorders. Yet when they
lost that case, they turned around and became the most successful company in
the world in marketing pre-recorded video.

There's an object lesson there: as time wears on and more and more of Disney's
early material goes into the public domain, they will gradually lose the tight
controls they now impose on characters that have already entered the domain of
"folk legends." The answer is to widen licensing now, while they still can;
encourage experimentation; stop holding the lid down on the steam kettle.
Disney could be a name associated with creativity and be a powerful influence
on new generations. The first steps along these lines have already proven to be
highly profitable for them. The question is whether the company has more than a
"Mickey Mouse" imagination.

:)

Ron

I met Michel Nadorp by coincidence in a comic shop last saturday.
When I told him my name, he recognised me as "the guy who likes the
Rosa stories". Could I be the only one? 8-)

We discussed a few things, which I'll summarise here.
Michel Nadorp is a Dutch artist, who works closely with the Dutch Disney
editors. Sometimes he inks Jippes work and he has done a few stories
of his own, but mostly he designs and draws the covers of the Dutch
Disney publications.
("Michel" is pronounced like in the Beatles song.)

New Barks story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Barks script (we talked about it before) has been drawn by Van Horn now.
It has a title like "Changing History" or so, and only the first (splash)
panel is about the Trojan Horse. Michel had read the story in pencil form,
and he will publish the first panel in his column in the Dutch fanzine
Stripschrift.
It may take a few months before Egmont publishes the story, and a few more
months before some other publisher will...

Covers
~~~~~~
Michel wasn't pleased that Don Rosa copied his concept of the cover of Life
Of Scrooge 2, without mentioning it in the credits. He admits that he himself
copies other people's ideas, but at least there are no credits given to
him...
Michel also was surprised about the lack of accuracy at Gladstone's. They
credited one of his covers to Ben Verhagen.

The WDC cover on "MM in Sky Island" was changed by Disney. Michel originally
meant the island and the characters to be much bigger, but Disney put a lot
of clouds around it, making the original picture smaller.

Nadorp meets Rosa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don: Michel says he met you once in San Diego. Do you remember him?

He also met Bob Foster there, and that's how he was asked to do some
covers for Disney Comics. But when Foster became Seidman, and Seidman
became Palomino, he lost contact...

Life of Scrooge (Lo$) in Holland
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Lo$ stories will still be backup stories in the next DD Extras: Michel
and Wilma van den Bosch already made the covers and there's no Lo$ cover
among them. Michel thinks the Lo$ is considered one big serial, and that
that's why the newer parts are not the lead stories. (It is usual to
put only the first part of a serial in the front of a comic.)

Donald's 2000th story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ole "RoC" said:
> (The Flux Soap ad is there, but there's only one Donald. Really.)

The Flux Soap ad is one one of the 1-page panels, while I was talking about
another 1-page panel, where Donald appears twice. It's the panel where
the Ducks and a lot of familiar persons have a banquet. In fact, Geir (and
some other Norwegians, I guess: it was a contest in Norway) tried to
identify all the persons on that panel, and we wondered if *all* the
characters could be identified.
I asked Michel about this, but he didn't know. He said is was possible
though that Mau Heymans (the artist of that story) put some non-existing
people on the panel.

--Harry.

Date: Sun, 08 May 1994 19:55:41 -0400
From: David A Gerstein <David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu>

> Furthermore, how do the German ones fit in? It seems to me
> they use EVERYTHING Egmont produces, and, due to MM's larger
> popularity there, they add a Murry reprint almost every week,
> particularly when they don't have a new Egmont MM story to use. Or
> are ALL the countries listed above just wallowing in Murry as well? I
> don't get that impression...

> In any event, the German ones usually run about 40-48 pages,
> although it varies from week to week (with no affect on price). I
> believe that this makes an overall larger comic than you get in
> Finland, because I have a Finnish 45/1991 which is like a shorter
> version of the German for that week.

In Germany MM is published by Ehapa which belongs to Egmont. It is right that
they use mainly Egmont stories but for Murry stories they use them frequently.
I don't know the reason but I'm sure that it isn't because of there are no
MM stories by Egmont. There are so many Egmont stories which aren't published
in Germany yet. (I think that these have minor quality. Why else aren't they
published?)

The German MM page number was until the eighties 42 and is nowadays about 46-54.

-- Gilbert

I must add my name to the list of those who did not notice the flaws in
Gladstone's printing of GotLL that Don is disturbed about.

Neither did my 10 year old daughter Megan, who has recently become an avid
reader of Uncle Scrooge. She started out several years ago with Disney
Comics' "Rescue Rangers" and "Tailspin", but later read through a few issues
of several other titles and decided she liked Scrooge best. I haven't been
able to get her to read any of the FG Mickey stories yet, but that's only a
matter of time. She's working her way steadily through my Scrooge
collection, but also is herself collecting the Lo$. She's only beginning to
pay attention to the creators, but the stories she enjoys most are primarily
Barks and Rosa. Her only complaints have dealt with the scarcity of female
charactors and with occasional plot inconsistences in stories by some other
authors/scripters.

She has never cared for the "Ducktales" TV show, and actually resisted reading
US for a while because of it. The shallow characterizations and generally
simplistic storylines left her cold, and it took a while for her to over come
her assumption that the comics were on the same level.

Mark Allen

I want to unsubscribe

James Williams wrote:

> I often wonder if one of the reasons that Disney comics don't sell well
> in the United State is because Disney comics are stagnate. It is not
> healthy for each new generation of comics to be based on the old.
> You've got to bring in concepts from outside of comics. Egmont and
> GP keep trying to churn out Barks and Gottfredson, but the people
> they have working for them aren't Barks and Gottfredson.

I didn't read the Disney comics that Disney did when they turfed Gladstone
out, but I suspect that they were trying to update things. That's why
they hired mainstream comics people like Marv Wolfman. In this case, it
didn't work. The older Disney fans were alienated and they didn't gain
enough newer fans to offset the loss. Since I haven't read these comics,
I can't judge if they botched the attempt or if U.S. Disney comics readers
just didn't want to change.

> Shortly after I discovered Disney comics, I discovered Don Rosa. I'll
> be frank, I hated Rosa's stories. I couldn't get over the artwork. It
> wasn't bad, it just wasn't like anything else in any other Disney
> comic. Don's artwork reminded me more of Robert Crumb than Carl Barks.
> As I've seen more of Egmont and GP's bland attempts to recreate Carl
> Barks, I've started to realize just how special Rosa's artwork is.
> Rosa's stories which turned me off 3 or 4 years ago are now amoung my
> favorite comics.

Of all the comics, Disney's have the strongest house style. I think this
is because they were based on pre-existing animated cartoons, and every
artist who worked on them in the 1940's and '50's had to match that look.
A lot of the artists (Barks, Gottfredson, Bradbury) had actual animation
experience so it wasn't difficult for them.

I also had problems with Rosa's work because it was so different. However,
I realized that I was a hypocrite. As a kid, I was conditioned to accept
different artists on Marvel titles. In about a year, Captain America
went from being drawn by Jack Kirby to Jim Steranko to John Romita to John
Buscema to Gene Colan, and I just accepted it, enjoying the specific
qualities of each artist on the character. It's only because Disney comics
are so homogenous that Rosa sticks out, and I've learned to give Rosa the
same leeway that I gave to the above artists, much to my reading pleasure.
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Mayerson Side Effects Software Inc.,
Internet: mayerson at sidefx.com Toronto, Ontario, Canada
(416) 366-4607

I find myself more than a little dismayed that Carl Barks
seems to dislike Don Rosa's version of the ducks -- and is
taking it so personally. Well, it may be that Barks worked
on the ducks for so long that he has something of a
personal interest in what's done with them...although I
get the idea from Barks's public statements that his
duckwork was ultimately just a job he happened to fall into.
It also occurs to me that what may really rankle Barks isn't
that Rosa is working on "his" ducks (after all, they belong
to the corporate entity in Burbank), but that Rosa is
explicitly building on Barks's work in particular. Barks
couldn't care less if nearly 30 years after he retired
somebody wrote a Duck story that had no relation to anything
he ever did -- but Don is doing explicit sequels to Plain
Awful and Tra La La. And Don Rosa is doing Don Rosa's versions
of the stories. Rosa may be building on Barks, but he's doing
it with his own distinct and personal sensibility, his own
vision of the Ducks. I like Rosa's work, but I don't look at
it as Carl Barks, Jr. It's Don Rosa. And I don't necessarily
like everything Rosa's done -- I think Scrooge's legend
really could have done without him exclaiming "Great Honk!" --
just as there are things in Barks I find jarring (the overuse
of "hip talk" in his later stories...I just don't dig that
crazy jive, man!).
But Barks is Barks and Rosa is Rosa, and I find things
to enjoy and appreciate in each of them that are distinctively
there own. Lord knows the Europeans have come up with artists
who have been able to imitate Barks's drawing style to the
point that I've had to look twice to make sure a story wasn't
a Barks story I'd never seen before -- but the stories usually
were vapid to the point of instant forgetability. Rosa's stories,
though...those you remember. There's something to them. He
thinks about his stories. I'd rather have a Rosa story than a
ton of second generations Barks imitations.
So...I kinda feel Barks's public statements knocking Rosa
are somewhat cranky and show bad grace, even if a 92-year-old
man with Barks's record of accomplishment behind him does
deserve a certain amount of understanding and forgiveness!

--Dwight Decker