Keskustelujen arkisto

Don gave his trip schedule for Germany and added that "perhaps Per can
take this section and stick it somewhere that it can be referred to by
other members of this group for the next few months."

Yes, I have an "upcoming events" section on the WWW pages which is
just for that kind of information. Please return with the information
on your American con appearances when you have your calendar in front
of you!

Speaking of the WWW there is a special WWW page for the San Diego
Comic-Con, but there is no information there on what I want to know:
is there a special Disney comics panel there this year like I know
there have been other years in the past?
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"

Yes, Don, Chapter 8 is out now in the States, and it's a great read.
The cover, I thought, looked good with the special coloring on the Goose
Egg Nugget and the title. They also used some sort of effect on the cover
to force everything else into the background. Uncle $crooge really stands
out in front.
I also happened to be rereading His Majesty, McDuck, which as I've said
countless times before is my favorite, when I noticed that $crooge has kept
the nugget intact along with a piece of Goldie McGilt's hair in a box in
his office or basement. (I forget which at the moment.) So is this truly
the final fate of the nugget - locked in a box somewhere? And will you
make reference to that anywhere in the Lo$ later on?
I also happened to have enough time the other day to reread Barks'
"Back to the Klondike" right after reading chapter 8 of Lo$. They
complement each other well, actually.

-Augie

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Augie De Blieck Jr. - "I've seen the rats lie down on Broadway..."
Drew University - -Billy Joel, "Miami 2017"
ADEBLIEC at drew.edu - And, hey, who hasn't?

On earth, there are but few who can withstand the torment of mankind

>AUGIE AND ANYONE ELSE WITH SOME SPARE TIME:
Thank you for the kind words about chapter 8. It's one I was looking
forward to seeing in America since I am quite partial to telling tales of
$crooge's Yukon days. Actually, I'd already seen it in English since they
printed the "Lo$" 2 years ago in England, but the Gladstone version is
always the best, even with Disney's interference (which the foreign editions
don't have).
I finally went out and bought a copy of that issue myself. There
were several lil' surprises inside for me... things that were changed by
more of those inexplicable Disney whims -- sorta like "we gotta have 'em
change something so it'll be this and this, so nyaah". And some odd goofs in
the lettering which is otherwise superb, being by the county's foremost
funnybook letterer Todd Klein.
Just in case you're curious or otherwise desparately bored, I'll
tell you what I saw when I read this issue...
My very first reaction was my usual repulsion at my art; in
particular, about the time I drew this tale (about 3 years ago) I seem to
have been drawing every last Duck head too small. $crooge's head is too tiny
for his beak in every single panel in this comic!!! After drawing episode 9
is when I looked back and realized that I was drifting in this odd
direction, and whited out and redrew most Duck heads in that 9th chapter. I
still have the problem now, but I think (I hope) I catch myself more often.
My distress started with the splash panel where I see they left the
"The" out of the title "THE King of the Klondike". This is a bigger deal
than it seems only because all the titles of these 12 chapters are supposed
to fit the form of "The - of the --".
My next "HUH?" came at the bottom of page 2 where $crooge is
bragging about his past exploits and the fearsome names he's been given, and
the dialogue has him saying "...and several other scary (but not quite
accurate) names!" I don't know why this change was made -- I guess it was
just a goof -- but, obviously, he should be saying "but quite accurate", not
"NOT quite accurate".
Page 3 - panel 2: "Hog dang"? What is "Hog dang"? I think my script
had "hot dang". In panel 4 is a Disney-change that I'd been forewarned of:
my script had Wyatt Earp saying "you cheap gunny", not "sonny". You can
sorta tell Todd Klein's lettering has been tampered with. It seems that
somebody at Disney had the vague idea that "gunny" meant feces. I've never
heard of that myself, but... well, I used the same word in part 7 and no one
objected at Disney and there wasn't an outcry from enraged readers. This is
what I mean by these Disney-changes seeming to be made by throwing darts at
a comic hung on a wall.
Page 4 - panel 2: there is supposed to be a bullet hole in the
forehead of the guy in the picture on the wall -- you can see him looking up
at it in disgust. Another Disney-change. This careless gag would obviously
have caused children to try to shoot themselves between the eyes then pose
for photographs. I'll never understand why Disney has such incredibly low
regard for comic book readers! Their own animated cartoons which are watched
by far younger children (and don't even require the intellegence to read)
still don't treat their audience as being the sub-cretins they seem to think
are reading "their" comics. (Maybe it's that it's not "their" comics is what
they resent?) Bah.
Now I'll leap all the way to page 6. Page 5 was okay! You see in
panel one where the guy is kicking $crooge. And $crooge apparently socks him
in panel two. But... the "KICK" sound effect is stuck in with the "SOCK"
sound effect. How odd.
Page 8 has a mistake all my own. That's Casey Coot $crooge is
talking to. That's Grandma Duck's brother, Cornelius Coot's grandson, and
the guy I showed $crooge buying the deed for Killmotor Hill from all the way
back in my "Last Sled to Dawson" in 1988. But he's supposed to have
"Gladstone Gander" type eyes. I drew him with the wrong shape eyes! (He
shows up again in that new "Hearts of the Yukon" story I just did for
Gladstone's SCROOGE MCDUCK IN THE YUKON #1 on sale in 2 1/2 months.)(With
the RIGHT eyes.)
Oh, Augie asked about that Whitehorse bank safety deposit box that I
show $crooge keeping that Killmotor Hill deed and his Goose Egg Nugget in in
my "His Majesty McDuck" story. You'll see $crooge get that box out to show
his family the contents in chapter 9 of the "Lo$", and I mention it in my
text piece for that issue. Everything ties together. I never forget details.
Except the shapes of characters' eyes. I forget that.
Oh, I've lost track of the page numbers, but they didn't show Todd
Klein the correct lettering for the sign on the Black Jack Ballroom. But I
lettered the sign myself in "Hearts of the Yukon".
That half-page panel with $crooge walking down the main street in
Dawson City. Disney's dart didn't stick in the stuff in that page, like the
dead body with the arrow in it or the hideous gun-to-nose motif.
But somebody caught my dialogue on the next page where I had $crooge
climbing out a window in a hotel and telling the occupants of the darkened
room "Sorry folks! Just passing through! Carry on!" and changed it to "Go
back to sleep". Was it so obvious that I was implying they weren't sleeping?
There. What a grand waste of Internet space this has been, eh?

But one last thing -- I usually don't care much for my art, but now
and then I do... and this cover on U$ #292 might be the best I've done since
"Last Sled to Dawson". Maybe I just love these Yukon $crooge scenes. But I
think the cover for $CROOGE MCDUCK IN THE YUKON #1 will top this one -- it's
a revamp of that "Last Sled" cover, but finally with the Northern Lights
which were SUPPOSED to have been on that 1989 cover but weren't, with the
proper starry sky and the midnight sun shining behind $crooge, and
Glittering Goldie on his arm. I look forward to seeing that one! And plans
are to release it as a special computer-colored "junior" lithograph, though
I don't know for how much (but it'll be pretty cheap, I'm sure).

Don!

My complements on the Universal Solvent story - it was on of your best.
And like all you stories it deserves rereading and rereading to get all
the gags and details - throhoughly enjoyable. The gags are great,
especially at the center of the Earth. Also following the minor
antics of Gyros assistant - that alone required a separate reading.

But this story should not have been told in segments. The pacing and
telling of the the story is so fluid that it should be read in one
sitting to get the flow and impact. Reading it way they presented it
was like listening to symphony by Beethoven played with one
movement each week. Not a good way to do it. The opening allegro
must be immediately followed by the andante and the andante of the
middle of the story must be immediately followed by the furioso of
the finale, otherwise all looses its impact. Presenting those parts
days apart - good grief.

This must be one of the most Jules Vernian duck stories I have
read. Here the antagonists are not villains or magical powers, but
the laws nature and physics. That surprised me a bit, after the
first installment I expected some plot twist with encounters with
mysterious beings. I did not think you could carry a whole story
just battling the forces of nature - was I wrong!

Which brings me to the one minor letdown - the final page about how
Scrooge could not make a profit of this venture. The gag was great
and the (dare I use the word Moral? No - forget I wrote that.. eh
.. lesson? .. eh .. something ..) of the story is necesarry, but it
depends upon a point of physics that just ain't so. Since you made
a point of having the physics consistent I wish you had thought of
something else. OTOH it is a satisfying ending and conclusion. I
agree fully with your sentiment that facts never should get in the
way of a good gag!

One point puzzles me. In the tunnel under the river there is a door
marked Exit. Now - where does that door lead??

One more thing - did you give the solvent a brand name? In Norway
they named it Skrueloes (oe=o with /) which is an excellent play on
several words:
1) Scrooges Norwegian name, Skrue
2) Loesningsmiddel wich is Norwegian for solvent
3) Skrue loes (two words) means a loose screw or gear -
sligtly crazy. Indeed Gyros Gearloose's name when he first
appeared in Norwegian DD back in the 50ties was Goggen
Skrueloes. For unknown reasons it was later changed to
Petter Smart.

So this time the translateors did something right.

Even Flood
Reference Librarian "Come, and take choice of
Norwegian DIANE Center all my library, and so
Technical University Library of Norway beguile thy sorrow."
N 7034 Trondheim, Norway (Shakespeare)
Phone: +47 73 59 51 62, Fax +47 73 59 51 03
even.flood at ntub.unit.no

Alright!

Gladstone/Another Rainbow is going to produce a Don Rosa
Lithograph. Its about time! I always thought that this concept
could work if somebody gave it a chance. I'd love to have such a
lithograph framed on my wall, and Don would get some money and
additional stature.

Its good that Gladstone is starting to think along these lines.
I've always loved their Carl Barks lithographs/figurine series,
but have been unable to afford them. Gladstone should start
thinking about alternatives, especially since their contract
with Barks will expire soon. It is possible to produce high
quality prints/figures for reasonable prices. There
should be more products for people who love Scrooge, and less
for the collectable market.

Frank

The reasons are not clear, but Lo$ part 8 sold out in Toronto in less than
a week. It was released on a Tuesday and by Friday was sold out of the
two main comics shops in town. I got the last copy at the fourth comics
shop I went to, and that was 4 days after it came out.

One shop owner told me that he thought he received fewer copies than
he ordered. Another shop owner told me he thought it was due to Don Rosa
and the subject matter, and it was definitely the first time he had
ever sold out of Uncle Scrooge so soon.

Has anybody else noticed anything similar in North America?
___________________________________________________________________
Mark Mayerson Catapult Productions
Internet: mayerson at sidefx.com Toronto, Ontario, Canada
(416) 504-9876