Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi, folks. Unexpectedly had a chance to write one final
message today. Luckily the Digest had a lot to respond to!

TRYG: "... as a child in the '50s one of the Little Golden Books I had
was the story of "Little Black Sambo." At the time, it didn't seem
racist..." I don't really think it IS. Or at least, it wasn't
intended to be so by the author, even if the same author did agree to
illustrations which were kind of grotesque (if no more so than the
white kids in Hoffman's "Struwwelpeter," which they closely resemble
aside from skin tone). Unfortunately, aside from this one book --
which WAS meant to be set in India, BTW, and is in fact based on an
earlier Indian folktale -- the term "Sambo" has always been used
derogatorily, and thus dragged this completely well-meaning
children's book down with it.
The Sambo's restaurants became Friendly's, not Denny's. And
friendly they aren't -- the service there is terrible. The original
Sambo restaurant is in (!!!) Santa Barbara, and it alone still goes
by the original name (and shows Sambo in a TURBAN on its shopfront
sign). Years ago, they used to have a guy dressed as a tiger
standing outside to lure in little kids. Me, I ran from him.
Was the line about union workers deleted from Gladstone's 1989
reprint of "Lost Beneath the Sea", or from an earlier one (Whitman)?
It sounded like the latter instance from what I read, and I don't have
the issue near to check (it's only 8,000 miles away).

HARRY: Ye cats! MM Mystery #5 contains Scarpa's necklace story?
That's supposed to be his BEST Mickey story! I 231-A, BTW, = "MM
and the Chirikawa Necklace." If it fits in a Mickey Mystery along
with another story, just MAYBE it can appear in DM. I'll snap up a
copy in Germany, and we'll see. I've never read this tale.
But Atomino's in the story, which I guess means we've got to
see his origin story first ("MM in the Fourth Dimension," from 1959 I
think). That's 72 pages. Oh, well. >Sigh< Otherwise people might
mistake Atomino for Eega Beeva, as the appearance isn't so
dissimilar! (Or Atomino could be REDRAWN as Eega, but I don't think
anyone would really want to do that to a perfectly good story.)

RoC: Thanks for the praise about my Magica story. I've now got
British, Danish, and German copies of the story. I wouldn't mind
making a deal to get some of those other editions (I'll discuss that,
in a few weeks on my return).
Sorry, but I'm not going to retitle the story for its American
publication. I still like the title I originally gave it, "Two in
One." Wait 'til you see it from Gladstone, with all the puns in
there which Egmont deleted... (to be published around November 1995,
I think -- maybe in USA 35).

HARRY: If you think that most comic strips confuse Dutch with
Germans, you ought to see Otto Messmer's old "Felix the Cat" strip.
About 50% of all people in the strip (a lot, because Felix is often
off to seek his fortune, and the place he lives has very few other
funny-animals) are given Dutch names, yet look and talk like
stereotypical Bavarians.
The film title "Alice In Dutch" means 'Alice in trouble.' A
later Pluto cartoon, set in Holland, was also called "In Dutch."
(One of the best solo Pluto cartoons, I think -- save the two that
Barks worked on.)

FABIO: In Italy, what has been done to the stereotypical Italian
pet-shop owner, Tony Dinero, from FG's "Oscar the Ostrich"? When it
was last reprinted here, Disney made Gladstone "Americanize" his
dialect and alter the text so that his last name was never mentioned,
and his first one only minimally. I'll find out tomorrow when I meet
you, but you might want to tell the list.

Best holiday wishes to all of you, folks. (Per: Maybe you can
repost the Scrooge McDuck Christmas "greeting" I sent out over the
wires last year. I no longer have it.)

David Gerstein
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>

On Thu, 15 Dec 1994, H.W. Fluks wrote:

> Since I know now how to use UUencode, my only problem with Latin-1
> is that I can't get it from ftp! The ftp mail service (somehow) converts
> the characters to d's and v's and stuff.

Are you using the FTP-program or MailFTP?

If you use the FTP program, try to set the file type to binary mode.
I don't know the exact command, but the help-files or some experienced
FTP-user in your vincinity should be able to help you with that.

> (Have you ever been in Dlvsjv?)

Yes.

--
---
Steamboat Willie Data: +46 (0)8 626 84 09 (V34)
hellman at proxxi.uf.se

Hello;

Pls modify your distribution so that I only get the digest version.

thanks much;
Ike Leong
12/14/94

What happened to Moby Duck? His appearences in the comics have gotten
fewer and fewer. I am linking this to the Greenpeace propaganda and
social awareness for whales.
Poor Moby was a whaler so they had to let him go.
How is that for politically correct? Poor Moby had never been seen
hunting down a single whale, but on the basis of his profession, he
has been wiped out from the Disney universe.

Sigurdur

Here's the review of the latest Northern Barbarian Donald Duck &Co.

DD&Co #50
---------

The lead story is a Magica story (D93140, 12 pages). I think you'll
like this one, David. Well, Magica isn't exactly playing a big role
in the story... She comes to Duckburg (you know why) and start to
attack Scrooge, Donald and HDL with foff bombs (what do you call them?).
She didn't bring enough bombs, and is getting arrested by the police.
The ducks go to Vesuvio to destroy Magicas book. When they arrive, they
meet the heavily injured spies. Magicas raven is making a lot of
trouble for them in their mission.
I like this story, and the art is good (Branca). The part were they
investigate Magica's house could have been better, though. This could
have been a really exiting part of the story.

Second is a Goofy story (D93487, 6 pages) drawn by the artist we like
so much... (the farm story). Anyway, the art is much better here (I'm
not saying it was _good_). Mickey is working as a reporter in a
newspaper. The newspaper building is very tall. Goofy gets the job of
cleaning the windows. Some mountain climber is getting injured in a
mountain where earlier mayors of Duckburg are portrayed (like Mount
Rushmore). Goofy is using his experience of hanging from ropes in high
altitudes to save him.
Ah, well. What shall I say? Didn't you say something about boring stories
being stopped written, David?

Ah, the third story. This is Barks' "Turkey with All the Schemings"
(WDC148, 10 pages). They must have redone the coloring since the last
reprint. It's actually quite good.

Then the finishing part of the continuation story (D94049, 8 pages).
Not too bad, actually. The art is quite good, but I don't recognize
the artist yet.
They find out the crook is out for when a big Christmas tree takes of
like a rocket, then falls into the ground and opens an oils well.

Last is a Pluto one-pager (KF6.30.40).

I was wrong when I thought we had got all the Extras this year. There's
at least one more.
Next week we get the comic adaption of the Lion King...

Jorgen
- Enten betaler Petrolio Balonio de Donald middagen sin,
eller sa arbeider han inn belopet som tallerkenvasker i
restauranten min!

My last mail tonight, I think.

I have just started to work on an index of Norwegian Disney magazines.

The format looks like this:

(#44/1994 and #45/1994 used as examples)

1994-44 1 D91397 10 DD Stjernereporteren
1994-44 2 8 DD Oppdrift i manesjen
1994-44 3 D91409 10 Vi DD Sponsor ma man ha
1994-44 4 D93323 8FH Fer MM Fossiljegerne 2
1994-44 5 KF2.2.58 1 Fa Den maten!
1994-45 1 D93520 10 VR DD Kloke ord
1994-45 2 D93477 8 MM Eggeror
1994-45 3 D93168 5 SU Ulv i lante fjaer
1994-45 4 D93326 7FH DB OD Den som graver etter en grav 1
1994-45 5 KF4.30.39 1 Pl Fuktig dag
1994-45E9 1 WDC181A 10 CB CB Ha Hvem bygger best?
1994-45E9 2 D7914 10 VR DD Frem for Friskusforbundet
1994-45E9 3 D7436 10 VR Ha Sommerleir med Sokrates

The first column should be obvious. The last three rows are the contents
of Extra #9 which came with DD&Co #45.

The second is where the story is placed in the issue.

The third is the code.

The fourth is number of pages. I haven't really decided the format of
this column yet. FH means "fortsettelseshistorie" -- continuation story.

Fifth and sixth columns are writer and artist.

Seventh is the main, or title character.

Eighth is the title, if any. In the example above, I have removed
Scandinavian letters. I won't do that in the "real" version.

In addition to this information I was wondering if I should put into
it another code, for what type of story it is. That wouldn't apply to
very many stories, but some stories can be put into some kind of category.

Examples:

- Sequels to Barks stories -- mostly Rosa, and at least one Vicar.

- Newspaper stories (Scrooge as editor).

- Those awful Zoom Transport stories.

- Don's Life of Scrooge.

- Daisy's diary

- Grandma Duck stories (drawn by Barks).

- Christmas stories.

- Italian Mickey time machine stories.

- Danish time machine stories.

- Anything -- personal favourites or stories relating to Norway,
for instance.

So far the index contains only the issues #35-#50/94. Those are the
issues I have here in Oslo. I don't think I will manage to index the
rest of them in the Christmas vacation, but at least some of them.
Maybe you can do some of the late seventies and the eighties, Jon? I'll
send you a copy of it. Anyone else who wants to participate?

Any suggestions or opinions?

Jorgen

Jo/rgen:
> I have just started to work on an index of Norwegian Disney magazines.

I sent you a private e-mail about the format.

There is a (very similar) bunch of indexes on 'our' ftp site (ftp.lysator.liu.se
subdir pub/comics/disney/index). It contains Swedish, Dutch, Gladstone,
Dell/Gold Key, Newspaper strips and several other indexes.
I call this the 'Disney comics Database'.
A next version can be expected near the end of the year, with a lot of Swedish,
Dutch and Gladstone info added.

BTW: any volunteers for indexing the missing Gladstone issues? Contact me, and
I'll give you a list of missing issues.

--Harry.

Fredrik Ekman wrote:

> Jorgen:
[...]
> The only main difference I can
> find between your format and Harry's is that you specifically note
> continuation stories. (Or do you have a proposed standard for that and I
> just missed it, Harry?)

The new - improved! - version of the index (soon to be reviwed!) includes
a '[part N]' tag in those cases. Just like in the Western index, btw.

> The extras may be a bit of a problem, but Anders
> should face the same sooner or later. How do you handle that, Anders?

Extras? Like those facsimiles of old issues that have been included
occasionally? In those cases I just added a bit of text, e.g.
'91-48 was delivered with a facsimile of 48-03'.

> Anders:
> How do you currently handle Swedish characters?

With a, a and o. Which means titles can't *automatically* be converted to
Latin-1...

> We should see about
> fixing up a standard for this and like I have mentioned before, I would
> be willing to "correct" those entries that currently consist of a, a and
> o respectively just as soon as we have settled for something.

You are aware that this means quite a lot of work, right? That's the un-
fortunate consequence of me starting to index before such a standard
was settled. Sorry 'bout that.

> Desciding on the standard first, I see two possible alternatives.
>
> 1) Using }{|][\. This is what Ole is currently using. It conforms to some
> ISO standard, but I forget which. It simplifies handling a lot but
> generally looks extremely ugly since today few terminals actually convert
> these to the proper characters.

I hate to admit it, but I'm actually old enough to have learnt reading text
with these characters...

> 2) Latin-1. There is very little problem with submissions being according
> to alternative 1 and then convert them to alternative 2.

Little problem indeed. I therefore suggest we start with alt. 1. A minor
drawback is that '[' and ']' are used to delimit comments, which would make
the conversion program a little trickier. This may also make the ASCII
version trickier to read.

> Are there other sensible alternatives?

Don't think so.

Anders Engwall Email: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se
ELLEMTEL Utvecklings AB Voice: +46 8 727 3893
[lvsj|, Sweden Fax: +46 8 727 42 20
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