Keskustelujen arkisto

AUGUST:
I should have mentioned that I asked a HERO representative and found that
the "HERO FILE" in question is truly concerned with strictly the Barks/Dell
Ducks. Ten pages of that would make it the widest coverage Ducks have ever had
in any such publication. Of course, as I said, part of that is a "price guide",
but that goes with that territory over there.

Not "nattering detail". "Needless and irritating detail".

And I wonder what the "Miss" wants to know about the "program"?

I have no real knowledge of Disney Comics, butwould like to discuss Disney in g
eneral. Does anyone have the address to a list that does this for either disney
or LooneyTunes? Please help.

Although I haven't bought it yet, I did some research in the
recent Russell Merritt/J. B. Kaufman book WALT IN WONDERLAND (1993)
for more about the earliest Pegleg Pete appearances.

We'd had Pete down as being in 11 pre-MM cartoons -- as
reported by John Grant, who only had access to the films that
actually existed and copyright summaries (which didn't exist for many
Alice films). Merritt and Kaufman, by contrast, dug up the
original story synopses in the Disney Archives.
Merritt and Kaufman list Pete as appearing in a whopping 29
pre-Mickey cartoons! He adopted such nicknames as "Putrid Pete,"
"Bootleg Pete," "One-Eyed Pete" (with two good eyes), and "Pistol
Pete" as well as the later-standard "Pegleg Pete" (a monicker that
was first used in 1926).
Pete appeared as a bear until the Mickey series began, at which
time he got a long tail and whiskers and became a cat.

Now for some other information which I've observed, but which
isn't in any book that I've noticed:
Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising left Disney after the Oswald
series stopped to go work on more Oswald cartoons (the 1928-29
season) for Universal -- and Pete continued to appear in their
Oswald cartoons! When Oswald became Walter Lantz's property,
Pete appeared in those cartoons too... and Harman and Ising, who went
off to found the Warner cartoon studio, used bear-Pete there as well
in Bosko's "Big Man from the North" and "The Dumb Patrol" (both
1931). "Big Man" is largely a remake of 1928's "Ozzie of the
Mounted," and from what I can tell, Pete looks EXACTLY the same from
one to the other!
Paul Terry didn't have the excuse of having once worked for
Disney, but he did release a film (which I haven't seen) titled "Peg
Leg Pete" (1932). One can only wonder what his version of the
character looked like.
Those who've talked about early '30s MM plagiarisms don't seem
to have noticed how when Disney's Oswald team disbanded, Pete wound
up at three different studios... with his name and physique basically
intact. One can only wonder if Van Beuren's court injunction
vis-a-vis Mickey dupes was also the reason why other studios
stopped using Pete!

David Gerstein

<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
"If it weren't for the help o' Hard-Haid Moe/I woulda married a
long time ago!/Where did you come from -- where did you grow?/
Where did you come from, Hard-Haid Moe?"

DARREN:
"If children are duped [by advertising], then are are 3 possiblities that
I see: 1) The parents chose to forsake their responsibility to protect and
educate their children..."
Maybe because they were away from home, because they had to
spend all their time working at a minimum wage job to make ends meet.
Maybe "they" is "she," and the family has only one source of income.
Could be, Mom had had the kid accidentally after not being told about
contraception (it's immoral to tell them, since it makes them wise beyond
their years in other subjects). Mind you, I'm not saying the mother didn't
make a big mistake to conceive the kid. But that's no reason to make
the kid pay for it.
In response to that, you may say that the mom gets enough
welfare to enable her to spend at least SOME time with the kid, but
she wastes the money instead. I'm not saying welfare isn't abused.
But I advocate reform, not abolition, of it.
Even if you're sharper than the sharpies and smarter than the
smarties, you can be pulled out of school and forced to go to work if
your family needs the money. And no, your pop isn't necessarily
being low-down and mean if he makes you leave school in such cases.
I agree that there are some genuinely lazy, Gladstone-like
connoisseurs of the fast buck who get government handouts they don't
need. And I saw many who dropped out from complete laziness or
sloth. I agree that those guys are asking for trouble, and don't
deserve a free handout if they do nothing to better themselves. But
read my comment about welfare above.
In my state, the Republican governor (who's running for
President next year) has cut the school budget again, and again, and
again -- it's the first thing he puts the shears to when the state's having
money trouble. My classes swelled to 40 kids each. Teachers were
forced to teach fewer classes per day because the school couldn't
afford otherwise. Textbooks were not upgraded. New teachers weren't
hired when old ones left. Many of those who stayed were old-timers
who were doing it for a lark. Can you say "lack of motivation"? How
many kids dropped out because they found nothing compelling or
interesting in those courses? You can want to seek out information,
to really LEARN, and be frustrated and stymied in an environment like
that. And that doesn't begin to describe the paralyzing ennui of
inner-city California schools! My town is pretty well off!
Remember "A Christmas for Shacktown"? How some of those
fictional kids "never had any luck at all"? How they weren't poor
because of laziness, but because they had no opportunities? The same
happens in real life!
Would you praise Disney's "survival of the fittest" ethic,
given how they keep so many of us writers and artists (including Don
and myself) struggling to make ends meet when our work is on occasion
quite popular? I'm sure the guys who make the rules over there (I'm
not talking about everyone who works there -- not by a long shot!)
think they're sharper than the sharpies. Actually, they're being
exploitative. If you want to talk about THAT, I suppose we can go on
arguing within the context of the Digest. Otherwise, if you (or others)
want to have a debate, let's go on via private E-mail. I think we're
wasting other people's money if we debate this further on the Digest.
I bet most of the rest of you agree.

David Gerstein
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
"If it weren't for the help o' Hard-Haid Moe/I woulda married a
long time ago!/Where did you come from -- where did you grow?/
Where did you come from, Hard-Haid Moe?"

The Goofy stories
-----------------
Me:
> - Isn't that Beethoven's son?
> - No, that's Steinway's son.

Knut:
>In the norwegian version (was that the one you read?) I'm quite sure the
>answer is: "No, that's a Steinway & Son". I haven't read it for many years,
>though, so I may be wrong...

Yes, I've only read the Norwegian. You could very well be right -- I
haven't read it for some years either, but would that be a funny answer
in a Norwegian version? Isn't the piano factory called "Steinway & Sons",
BTW? I think that's what it says on the one in our living room.

Knut:
>I can't imagine them without, that art more or less _is_ the point with
>those stories!

Agree. No wonder why a lot of people compare them to the stories in Goofy
Adventures. These stories deserve better.

Swedish Disney magazines
------------------------
I did some shopping in Sweden a few days ago (The Swedish Krone is getting
weaker, and the Norwegian Krone is getting stronger ;-) , and I did, of
course, check the local Disney magazines, as I use to. So now I have a
couple of questions for the Swedes out there.
In Kalle Anka #9 there is a contest where people are supposed to call
a number and tell what story they liked best. Is this the first time this
is done? If not, do they publish the results of this? Nice idea, but who
wants to pay for giving Egmont information they want?
The Musse Pigg #3 has 68 pages. Is this usual? The Norwegian Mikke
Mus has only 33 pages.

Mickey Mystery
--------------
Dave R:
>Also, Mickey Mystery digest #3 contained my story "The Stamp Act".

The #3 hasn't come out yet in Norway. I'm expecting it on Tuesday next
week.

Jorgen

DAVE:
Sorry I overlooked the Da Vinci title. I have this nasty habit of
looking through PREVIEWS for anything cartoon-related or by Sergio
Aragones, then avoiding everything else... >sigh<

JORGEN:
>And the Norwegian runs one Taliaferro strip each issue.
So does the Danish one -- and it's the same strip each week. I
think what happens is that Egmont prepares and colors a Taliaferro strip
each week and makes it available to every publisher, and some use them
all the time.
Why the British mags prefer Bob Foster's strips -- apparently so
much that they're willing to color them themselves -- is beyond me. But
to be honest, I enjoy Foster's writing more than post-1945 Bob Karp...
At the end of the (school) year, I'll index the year's British
comics. Boy, what a lot of lemons. I've finally realized that they
purposely do not print the more complex stories, unless they're MM
(because the Brits want a MM every week).

>- The Beagle Boys (D93304, 6 pages). Art by Xavi.
Doesn't look like Xavi to me. It doesn't have that same
pseudo-Branca style that Xavi likes -- the Beagle Boys are so darn ugly
here, and Branca makes them into very impudent, lovable rascals. I'm
going from memory -- but maybe this is the same artist of that MM "Art
Attack" story?

>In Kalle Anka #9 there is a contest where people are supposed to call
>a number and tell what story they liked best. Is this the first time
>this is done? >snip<
It's an old tradition in Germany. They call it the "Wunschcomic"
competition ("wish-comic"). But they do it BEFORE the stories are
published! What I mean is, they show a few panels from each of three
stories, and you call and give your opinion of recent stories and as a
reward, you get to cast a vote as to which one of the three gets
published first! And the two that DON'T get chosen aren't printed until
about six months later. Issue 43/1991 (or so) included Don Rosa's
"Incident at McDuck Tower" among the three choices. It won.

David Gerstein
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
"If it weren't for the help o' Hard-Haid Moe/I woulda married a
long time ago!/Where did you come from -- where did you grow?/
Where did you come from, Hard-Haid Moe?"

Hi, folks.

Gilbert Roser sent me the Vicar story with Cousin "Sock".
Anders Engwall sent me some illustrations of Moe.
Jorgen and Tobias both sent me "Pork-Barrel Politics" (in
various foreign languages).

And I promised you guys British weeklies in exchange. Well,
I'm ready to send them now, but no longer have everyone's snail-mail
address. I'm not sure, in fact, whose I actually have! So can the
four of you send me your addresses again, via private E-mail?

Sorry about the delay. I just wanted to wait for a reasonably
GOOD British Disney comic (which comes once in a blue moon).

Best, David
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
"If it weren't for the help o' Hard-Haid Moe/I woulda married a
long time ago!/Where did you come from -- where did you grow?/
Where did you come from, Hard-Haid Moe?"