Keskustelujen arkisto

I was surprised to see that Mickey Mouse in Color was as expensive as it was.
In 1993, I found it at a resellers in Cincinnati, Ohio, for $14.99, unread.
(Although it was not the edition that included the record and autographs.)
I tried to talk the dealer into giving it to me for $10, but nothing doing.

Regarding Goofy King Arthur:

I do not enjoy these Goofy "movies" as they've been called. I would rather
see Mickey and Goofy as Mickey and Goofy. Yes, I might enjoy them more in a
larger format, but they are not for me. DM is the one Gladstone title I only
rarely buy, while I always buy the rest. As a rather recent convert to
Disney comics, I thoroughly enjoy Carl Barks (every story is new to me!) and
Floyd Gottfredson (who introduced me to the heroic potential of MM). I am
also enjoying Don Rosa's stuff quite a lot (this may not be the complement I
intend it to be, Don, but your art somehow appeals to me the way Mad
Magazine's art appealed to me as a kid in the seventies -- rich with humorous
details). And Van Horn -- who sometimes gets too carried away with
cartoonish violence -- tells some fun stories.

So, cheers to the artists and tellers of tales.

Wes

"But, Mickey, it's SUICIDE! We'll be KILLED! How'll we ever land without
wheels?" -- Captain Doberman

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Re: "Good Canoes and Bad Canoes" in DD 290:
>HDL&L have a squirrel that is named "Sidney" but whenever the "Sidney"
>name appears, it is in a different handwriting than the rest of the
>lettering and has a lot of white space around it - an obvious
>alteration.
That's Mark Semich at work. Don't worry, the story isn't altered
-- from its original publication, that is. On the other hand, that
original publication WAS certainly altered, and not by Barks. Why?
In WDC&S 168 (published a short time before this story made its
first appearance) the story "Cheltenham's Choice" (also reprinted
recently by Gladstone) appeared. The supporting player is a chipmunk
called Cheltenham. In "Good Canoes and Bad Canoes" Barks seems to have
used Cheltenham again, but accidentally made him a squirrel rather than
a chipmunk. Dell's editors noticed the mistake, and changed it as best
they could by giving the animal a new name. The BIG space around the
name "Sidney" wherever it appears fits "Cheltenham" exactly.
The original editor at Dell is also responsible for the other
changes, for what they're worth, although I have no possible
explanations for why they were made.

I don't have DD 290 yet (it was delayed a week at my local shop),
so I can only wonder:
A) The cover (which I saw in PREVIEWS) is from the poster to the
cartoon "Donald's Penguin", in which DD is sent a penguin parcel-post by
the obscure Admiral Byrd, which causes chaos around his house.
B) The earlier AT strips in this comic are the story "Polar
Trapper" -- adapted from a different cartoon, "Polar Trappers" (which
also included Goofy, absent here).
So do some of the later AT strips in DD 290 adapt "Donald's
Penguin" -- or is the poster to that cartoon being used to illustrate
the adaptation of a different one?

The two strips taken out, were left in when "Polar Trapper" (the
comic strip) was reprinted earlier, in a summer-1988 issue (I don't have
the number handy) of DD. I don't have DD 290, but it would seem that
the censored strips would be the ones where DD chases a penguin with an
axe (and succeeds in catching nothing). The explanation for dropping
the strips is IMPLIED violence of a completely unrealistic kind (no one
is actually injured). This is perhaps the least-warranted cut of ANY
Disney has made. HOW the hell can a kid imitate this?
This is basically the weakest reason Disney has given for
censoring anything, "War of the Wendigo" included. Even animal-rights
protesters would enjoy this sequence, because DD not only fails in his
penguin-axing attempt, but in the end all the animals gang up on trapper
DD and chase him home.
The strips I thought might be deleted were simply some that I
THOUGHT might be part of an adaptation of "Donald's Penguin." In that
cartoon, DD threatens the penguin with a gun, a scene that has been
scissored from the Disney Channel's version of the film. Does DD 290
have anything to do with the cartoon "Donald's Penguin", aside from
using its poster on the cover?

Diamond's PREVIEWS for May's issues:

DDA 33 contains Barks' "The Golden Helmet" with a new Van Horn
cover. It's 64-page issue. There's also a new Egmont/Vicar Junior
Woodchuck story written by John Lustig, but I can't imagine that's ALL
-- they've probably got one of the European stories I rewrote in 1992 in
the back somewhere.
The CBLWDC having printed a given ten-pager clearly doesn't stop
that same ten-pager from being reprinted in DD or DM. If a fan buys DD
290, he might still want the album that includes "Good Canoes and Bad
Canoes" because it contains four additional stories which he may not
have. But since many CBLDD albums include only one or two stories,
Gladstone clearly feels that a given story appearing in CBLDD will make
a comic book reprint impossible to sell in future. Hence "The Golden
Helmet" showing up in DDA 33, about four months (I think) before it will
appear again in CBLDD.

WDC&S 598 contains a Van Horn story (PREVIEWS doesn't give any
information as to its title or content), part six of "Monarch of
Medioka," and a "brand-new feature revealing the true origin and first
appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse." Sounds like that disputed
first-drawing-ever of MM IS going to accompany "Plane Crazy"'s
storyboards, if you ask me. I'm not missing this. Oh, and a new Van
Horn cover.

US 293 contains LO$ 9 plus Barks/Jippes JW story, "Gold of the
49ers" (you hear that, Harry? ;-) Please note that LO$ is indeed by DON
ROSA. Why do I note this here? It's simple, really...

DON: Gladstone solicited LO$ part 9 as being by Van Horn (!!!),
who is mentioned several times as being reponsible for the story in the
summary of the issue! The fact that the name appears more than once
suggests that PREVIEWS didn't make this mistake themselves). What an
infuriating boner. Is it this way in ADVANCE COMICS as well? (And
might ADVANCE COMICS name the Van Horn offering in WDC&S -- or supply a
third story in DDA 33?)

That's about all for now, folks.

David Gerstein
"Sturm und Drang will be my CREDO from now on, duck!"
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>

I've been lurking here too long without saying anything, but I have to
respond to Don Rosa's Remarks.
When I first saw Rosa's Duck stories a few years ago, I was really taken
aback. I thought what a hideous tragedy to befall the ducks. I even
wrote a semi-scathing letter to Gladstone.

The thing about Don Rosa is that he breaks tradition in a way that's
hard to appreciate immediately. His stuff kind of grows on you. Now I
look forward to seeing a new Rosa story. I think he has captured a view
of the ducks from a previously unknown perspective. (Whatever that
means.)

His current saga of the history and biography of Scrooge is as good as
comics will ever be.

The story of the JW Guide being all that's left of the Library of
Alexandria is one of the best Duck things I've read.

My apologies for not recognising Don's genius in the first place.

Richard Novak

RICHARD AND MIKE:
What interesting remarks I find in the Digest tonight! When I started
doing Duck comics in 1987 I never expected to be regarded as highly as I now
seem to be in some quarters... but neither di I ever expect there would be some
readers who might think my stories were the worst Duck stories ever... and after
that sinking in, I would then never expect that some of that latter group would
join the former group. This is why I have such trouble understanding what I'm
doing or why people react to it in the ways they do.
My questions to the two of you from whatever perspectives you might have
-- what was it about those older (or the current) stories that causes some
readers to think my stories are the (good phrase) the worst tragedy to ever
befall the Ducks? I suspect it's just the unhappy looking, un-Disney looking
art, eh? Or was there something about the actual stories as well?

MIKE:
HERO ILLUSTRATED?
When American comic books began to become less (or virtually NOT) a
popular medium with readers and became a "collectible" item for speculators, two
monied groups decided to move in and wrest control of the minds of the core
group of maleable 10-14 year olds away from the comic companies and
old-fan-writers. The first group came from the failing sports-card collecting
hobby, and the biggest card moguls formed WIZARD magazine, a hyper-flashy MTV
generation magazine that concentrates on violent super-hero comics and their
investment and resale values, rather than any aesthetic values of art or plot,
and also strongly promoted trading cards so that soon American collecting and
card collecting became the SAME hobby as they are today. Obviously this magazine
was designed and destined to be a smash hit in the American comics market, and
was. So soon thereafter a video-game mogul moved in and sponsored HERO
ILLUSTRATED, a clone of the vapid, visually flashy WIZARD, and had as their
promotional gimmick sideline video games rather than cards. These American kids
aren't bright enough to recognize blatant market manipulation and crowd control,
and they fall right in step to do and buy whatever they are told.
HERO differed slightly from WIZARD in that it isn't QUITE as vapid... I
have met the editors of HERO on several occassions and they are just old fans
acting out roles to fit their publisher/backers' desires. They are (as are ALL
old fans) Duck fans at heart, and do sometimes sneak in mentions of Duck comics
here and there. WIZARD on the other hand NEVER mentions Disney/Ducks, as if the
best-selling comics in American history and still in the world don't even exist.
But sadly, even when HERO mentions Duck comics, their American kid-readers read
past it like "huh? whatzis -- a gag right?" since they have been taught that
everyone in the world reads the comics they read and think just like they do
(i.e.: letting promotional directors do it for them).
I've still yet to determine whether the HERO article will be just about
Barks' Ducks or about all comic book Ducks in general, lumping Donald and
$crooge in with Baby Huey, Count Duckula, Daffy and the ilk. This would indicate
a deep misconception about the differences in these characters... but we'll see.

On Fri, 24 Feb 1995, Knut Hunstad wrote, about Goofy History stories:
> I would actually like to see more of them! Where can I find a list over how
> many of them have been produced? I have a german album with Goofy as: "The
> invisible man" which I think is quite good.

When this topic was up for discussion about the summer of '93 (somebody
correct me if I'm wrong) someone (was that you, Harry?) sent a list of
all the titles he knew of, to which I later added a couple. This list is
certainly not complete. The Invisible Man, which you mention, was not
among them, for instance. I suggest you do some digging in the old
messages at the FTP archive.

/F

So, what's this all about?
Kellie