Keskustelujen arkisto

Dear Folks,

This is the first of a whole lot of letters I have to write! I
have been away for 3-1/2 weeks and I have a lot to tell you. My first
comment regards some comments from Harry on Gladstone's Album #6 (with
giveaway stories reprinted). "Gladstone added some "interior covers",
full-page drawings,
not by Barks, but by someone who should not be allowed to draw Ducks!
Terrible." Well, they weren't so good, but those drawings were, in fact,
actually blow-ups of Barks drawings from the various stories!

They may have looked bad, but the guy we should argue with is in
fact whoever it was who made the statement that Barks' work looked good
reproduced at any size. (Several books have made this comment.) Ah,
well...

Back soon, folks.

David Gerstein
<gerstein at math.ucsb.edu>

gerstein at math.ucsb.edu

Dear Folks,

Here's Don Rosa on the San Diego panel:

> I did find out later that Heidi MacDonald, who was supposed to
>show up on this Digest but never has for some reason, was offended that
>she wasn't invited to be on the panel as representing the Disney TV
>comics (as seen in DISNEY ADVENTURES digest).

But.... but.... I DID SEND AN INVITATION TO HEIDI MACDONALD! If
you're still reading this, Ms. MacDonald, all I can say is that it musta
gotten lost in the mail. Quite frankly, I'm stewed! I wanted to have you
there...

> I didn't get a chance to talk to Daan Jippes... but I discovered
>why when Grandey, speaking with Barks' voice, condemns my work and
>praises both Van Horn's and Jippes'; as I suspected, Grandey is the
>sales agent for both of them.

I talked extensively to Jippes after I saw that the Grandeys were
his agents. He told me that while he may do business with them, he is
opposed to what they have said about you, Don. "When they have brought up
Don Rosa to me," he told me, "I have told them that I cared nothing about
what they think of him, and want nothing to do with any of their relations
with Don Rosa. I told them to leave me out of it." Jippes apparently
likes your work, Don, and he told me that "I'll keep out of it, and I think
this whole thing will eventually blow over."

I know, Don, that you may feel that if he doesn't agree with the
Grandeys, he shouldn't give them the privilege of selling his artwork!
Can't say I don't share that view. But take it from me -- Daan Jippes is
NOT your enemy. In fact, he had only recently started selling his art --
long after those interviews appeared in which Barks praised Jippes.

Anyway, Don, I can give you Daan's address or phone if you want.
There was no scheme afoot to keep Daan Jippes from you -- he was merely
only at the convention for about four hours, that's all. He left at
dinnertime that same day that my panel occurred, and had only come there
just a few minutes beforehand. I'm sure he would be glad to here from you.

(I've sent this to the digest at large so that all of you would
know Daan Jippes' stance on all of this.)

Last... I would have had some representatives from Marvel's Disney
comics there, but Gladstone was unable to help me reach them. Apparently
it is impossible to get through the red tape at Marvel. If anyone here
works on Marvel's Disney books, or knows someone who does, I would be
grateful to know how to get in touch with that person.

All the best (again),

David Gerstein
<gerstein at math.ucsb.edu>

gerstein at math.ucsb.edu

MATTIAS:
No fair complaining about something I drew into a story 2 years
ago. I have no memory of where I got the reference for those Crusaders,
but rest assured I would never draw such a scene without doing research.
I go to preposterous lengths to make as sure as possible that even tiny
background details are accurate to time and place. I recall copying
those horsemen directly out of some book on the Crusades, but at this
late date I can't recall what book it was in order to shift the blame.
By the way, I am currently doing a combined sequel to both "The
Guardians of the Lost Library" and "The Golden Helmet", titled (maybe?)
"The Lost Charts of Columbus" or "Secret Maps of Columbus" or something
like that. I'd been asked by publishers for sequels to both, so I
thought it would be ideal to combine them. I'm afraid I can't do them
much justice, however -- this 24-pages-in-three-8-page-chapters format
is VERY limiting to plot development! The only reason I was allowed 28
pages for "tGotLL" was that it was a special project for Norway.

DAVID:
What you tell me about Daan Jippes disappoints me, though I'll
bet you didn't expect it would. Naturally I wouldn't expect him to
dislike my work or me... why should he? But he is willing to cooperate
with Grandey and tell him to simply leave him out of whatever Grandey
wants to say about me. The expression that comes to mind is "with
friends like that, who needs enemies?" The reason Grandey thinks he can
slander or libel me is that he uses Barks as his shield, and people like
Dana Gabbard and Joe Torcivia and Daan Jippes will still kiss up to him
regardless of how he conducts himself or his business. He counts on
this. If Grandey libeled any of these three, and had never uttered a
word about me, I would be nearly as mad as I am now, and would have
nothing to do with him, no matter what he might be able to do for me
per$onally. That's just the sort of righteous and intolerant #@^&* I
am, and I'm proud of it.
Now that you've mentioned it, what brought up that subject with
Jippes? What does he know of this, or that famous FAX? If he is in
touch with Grandey, as I'd suspected, it explains the quote of Jippes'
in the Danish CARL BARKS AND CO. where he said that I was furious that
Van Horn was illustrating Barks' new story rather than me, when in
truth I had been very careful never to have made ANY statement about
the matter (and frankly wouldn't have wanted to draw the story myself).
When I wrote to Jippes to ask him why he'd make such a comment like
that, he replied that he was told that by someone who had reason to
bear me a grudge. NO ONE has a reason to bear me a grudge, except
Grandey, and then simply as a perceived threat to his future income. Or
maybe Jippes offered a guess to you as to what Grandey is up to? Or what
else Jippes was told?
Also -- when you say you sent Heidi MacDonald an invitation to
the panel, do you mean over this Digest, or by regular mail? I'd like to
make sure she knows she was NOT slighted since that's how she seems to
feel.

FABIO:
Doggonnit, fella, where do you keep disappearing to? I'd like to
make sure you received the looooong answer I sent to your previous
message, but we can't seem to maintain contact on here.

FRANCE:
(Is there anyone on here who's in France?)

Don Rosa writes:
> By the way, I am currently doing a combined sequel to both "The
> Guardians of the Lost Library" and "The Golden Helmet", titled (maybe?)
> "The Lost Charts of Columbus" or "Secret Maps of Columbus" or something
> like that.

If you're looking for research materials on Columbus's voyages to the
New World, you could do a lot worse than the "Columbus" one-shot comic
which Dark Horse published a couple of years ago. It's by Starlen
Baxter and Jack Jackson. It's well written, quite pretty, and insofar
as I can tell, historically sound. Even if you can't use any of the
period information, it's a nice comic book to read, just for its own
sake. As I always say, you can learn the most interesting things from
funnybooks.

Let's see, since this posting hasn't had anything to do with Disney
comics, how I can redeem it? I'll ask a question about LO$ # 2. Can
you give a thumbnail chronology of the Beagle Boys? Everyone was trying
to come up with birth dates for Donald and HD&L to make chapter 12 work
out right, and I'm trying to do the same for the Beagles. Are the
brothers in LOS # 2 one or two generations removed from the "present-
day" (i.e., circa 1955) Beagle Boys? Since the brothers in LO$ # 2 are
apparently a bit older than Scrooge is, I don't think one of them could
be the father of the present Beagle Boys. These Beagles may have been
born a bit before 1860, in which case one of them is the grandfather
of the present gang. Is one of those brothers in fact "Grandpa Beagle"
(who becomes a squatter on the land where Scrooge will eventually, and
incorrectly, bury his money)?

While I'm at it, I might as well make a completely pointless comment
about LO$ # 1. In the McDuck cemetery, one tombstone is labeled (at
least in the English-language edition) "Sir Roast Duck". Was this just
a random gag, or were you making a reference to the legend in which an
ancient English king was so impressed by the cut of meat served at a
banquet that he pulled out his sword and "knighted" it, saying "I dub
thee Sir Loin"? [Of course, scholars maintain that this word came into
English from the Norman French, who named it "sur loin" because this cut
of meat comes from above the loin. But then what do the scholars know -
they probably didn't read enough funnybooks when they were kids.]

Wilmer Rivers
(sorry for wasting the bandwidth, but this list has been quiet lately)

DAVID:

> At the San Diego Con, Dana told me a new issue is being prepared
>for this fall, and apologized for the delay...
>
> And THE BARKS COLLECTOR's still going -- at least it's still
>advertised in the Overstreet guide this year.

Thanks for the update, David. I was going through some old files this
weekend, and I came across an letter from Paul Anderson III of Laramie,
Wyoming announcing that he was starting a new publication titled VACATION
IN DUCKBURG. The letter was mailed in April of 1981, and he mentioned
that he had lost the DUCKBURG TIMES to Frank and Dana Gabbard in August of
1980. I had forgotten that Dana was not the original publisher, and I also
forgot that I had sent money to Paul for a subscription to VACATION IN
DUCKBURG which never appeared. I seem to remember hearing about an
earlier fanzine also titled VACATION IN DUCKBURG published by someone
else. Does anyone know of this?

As for THE BARKS COLLECTOR, I may have just let my subscription lapse.
There was a period of time a few years back when I took leave of my senses
and lost almost all interest in comics. This mailing list has helped me
back on the road to recovery...

Tryg Helseth <trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu> Minneapolis, MN, USA
or <tryg.helseth at tstation.mn.org>

WILMER:
Yes, this has nothing to do with Disney. I should gripe at
myself for causing myself to pay to read this tomorrow -- but it does
tell something about how I write my stories... perhaps?

I never saw that Columbus comic book, and though I'm sure it's
interesting, it couldn't have contained anything I'm not thoroughly
familiar with, as I have become quite the little amatuer Columbus buff
over the past several years. I think he's easilly one of the most
interesting characters in history, partly because of his obvious
accomplishments, but also because of what a mixture of bold genius and
reckless nutball, and selfless hero and greedy profiteer he was. In
many ways, he reminds me of $crooge.
In fact, just yesterday I was reading another book about
Cristobal, and came onto yet another interesting fact which wasn't
included in those movies (or in the comic book?). During CC's 4th
voyage to America, after he was taken back to Spain in chains after his
3rd, he discovered Central America and was having a bad time of it
losing many men and several ships; he was finally shipwrecked on
Jamaica for nearly a year. The Spanish governor of Hispaniola knew it
but enjoyed having CC's governorship of the New World and wanted so
much for CC to disappear from history that he wouldn't rescue him. All
this I knew. But what I was reading about yesterday was that when the
Jamaican natives refused to help CC's men from starving to death, CC
got out his almanac, noticed that there was an eclipse due the next
day, and terrified the natives with his magical powers by "causing" the
eclipse. This corny stunt has been in countless books and B-movies, and
Columbus was the first to pull it. This is the reason why I've learned
that basing comics on actual history is FAR more interesting than just
making up stupid super-hero-type crapola.
I also learned of a mistake in my "tGotLL"; Columbus did NOT die
in poverty as many sources say. He was actually rather wealthy when he
died. But he did die in obscurity. The governments and later explorers
had resented him so much that they managed to have the world-at-large
never be aware that it was CC who discovered and opened the New World
(easy to do in those days before newspapers and TV), and they succeeded
so well that CC was unknown until people in the newly formed United
States, seeking to celebrate the founding of their nation and the 300th
anniversary of the voyagers that started it all, started
looking at historical documents... and only then did the world find the
truth about the actual discoverer.

Anyway, you were also asking about the age of the Beagle Boys.
It works out very easilly, so I'm surprised you couldn't figger it
(unless you'd forgotten when my "current day" stories take place.
Blackheart ("Grandpa") Beagle is the only actual problem that I
see. When he makes his last appearance in Barks' "The Money Well", he'd
have to be well over 100 years old!
The Beagle Boys you see in my Lo$ chapters 2 & 10 are, as you
say, the fathers of the "current" Beagle Boys. They could have been born
about 1855-60 or thereabouts. In my chapter 10 I have Blackheart telling
his bachelor sons that it's time they had families to breed more Beagles
for modern crime -- this was 1902, so let's say these hard-to-wed boys
had kids by 1910. These will be the BBs that Grandpa Beagle introduces
to $crooge in my Lo$ #12 (1947).
So the modern Beagles would have been born about 1910-1920 (not
all at once, surely) and would therefore range in the ages of 35-45.
Remember that my stories take place sometime in the mid-1950's.

On 29 Aug 1994, Don Rosa wrote:

> never be aware that it was CC who discovered and opened the New World

Norwegians might want to add a little comment here ;)

--
Only usable address: thorehh at stud.hedmarkdh.no