Keskustelujen arkisto

HARRY FLUKS:
Yes, I did write the Mickey Mouse/Goofy gag "Something Fishy." I
have no idea how David Gerstein figured out I was the author based on the way
Mickey and Goofy talked. I like to think that my writing is distinct, but
this was just a one-page gag. If it went over well then I'm extremely
pleased. Frankly it was the first time I'd ever used Mickey or Goofy in a
story. (Well, it's the first one that I've completed and sold anyway. I've
got several Mickey stories plotted out and partially scripted that I was
going to do for Disney Comics before it went down the tubes.)

I did two other short Mickey/Goofy pieces for Egmont--"Hocus Pocus Hypnosis"
and "Peek-a-boo Bunny." Noel Van Horn illustrated each of them. I don't know
how interesting this is to everyone, but these three stories have a rather
unusual genesis. The scripts were originally intended for Gladstone, but were
nixed when they were sent on to Disney for approval. Each was turned down for
a different reason. The fishing gag was turned down because Disney apparently
won't allow anyone to refer to Mickey as a mouse. "Peek-a-boo Bunny" was
rejected because it had "a little too much 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' zaniness in
it for Disney." (Do you folks in Europe know who Rocky and Bullwinkle are? If
not, trust me. It's one of the funniest cartoon series of all time--although
I'm not sure how well the deliberately corny puns and various in-jokes will
translate.)

Hocus Pocus Hypnosis was originally a three-page gag which involved Mickey
hypnotising Goofy into thinking he was a bird. In the original draft Goofy
actually starts flapping his arms and flies off. Mickey then has to get Goofy
down and unhypnotise him. I was told by Disney that I couldn't do this
because "Mickey and Goofy obey the same natural laws the rest of us do. That
includes the law of gravity. The only time Goofy flies is when he's Super
Goof. The rest of the time he's earthbound."

Disney's right, of course--up to a point, but I sort of think that Goofy is
the one character in the Disney universe who might be able to do something
that's clearly impossible--but only as long as Goofy doesn't know it's
impossible. It's sort of like the Coyote chasing the Road Runner off a cliff.
The Coyote keeps on running and doing just fine--until he notices he's
running on thin-air. Then he drops like a rock.

I did these three stories because I'd been wanting to do something with
Mickey for a long time. I also wanted something of mine appearing in America.
The checks from Egmont are great. But it's nice to see some of my stuff
printed in my own country.

I submitted the three rejected Mickey stories to Egmont and was astonished to
have all three accepted. I was astonished, because I didn't think that
"Something Fishy"would translate at all. The English version depends entirely
on the fact that in America we call a certain type of fish a "catfish" and
another type a "dogfish."

Harry, I'd be really like to know how the German translation got around this.
You don't have to give me the full translation, but I would like to know how
it was handled. Do you even have "catfish" and "dogfish" in Germany? If not
how did this joke make any sense?

Actually, selling that gag was rather liberating for me. It wasn't the
greatest joke in the world, but it helped me to stop worrying about whether a
bit of verbal nonsense would translate or not. I figured if I could get away
with that gag I could get away with any kind of wordplay I wanted.

(By the way, Egmont agreed with Disney that Goofy couldn't really fly. This
turned out OK I think. Based on a suggestion by my Editor Byron Erickson I
expanded the story and changed it so that Goofy didn't actually fly. He just
thought he could. (Personally, I still think Goofy could've flown--if Mickey
just hadn't stopped him.)

Harry, sorry to ramble on like this. All you did was ask me one little
question about a one-page gag. Imagine what would've happened if you asked me
about a whole ten-page story!

JANET GILBERT:
Welcome to the mailing list. It sounds like you had a fun time at
the Carl Barks ceremony in Oregon recently. I wish I could have gone too.

Janet, although you're apparently to modest to draw attention to yourself,
the folks out there should know that you and your husband (Michael T.
Gilbert) are also scripters for Egmont. Michael's worked on an incredible
number of projects through the years, but he's probably best known as the
creator, artist and writer of MR. MONSTER--a decidedly non-Disney, but very
funny comic book series here in the United States. Michael also wrote some
Mickey Mouse stories during the start of Disney Comics' brief run. Let's see,
what else? You've both done stories for the DISNEY ADVENTURES digest. (This
digest put out by Disney has a comics section that usually features
characters from the Disney Afternoon TV shows such as Goof Troop, Aladdin,
Darkwing Duck, etc. I've been saying for years that I'd like to write
something for this publication and I've never gotten around to submitting
anything--which is too bad because it sells far more issues than any other
Disney comics in the U.S. For many kids it'll be their first and perhaps only
exposure to Disney comics.)

Anyway, I just wanted to welcome Janet (and Michael.) Geez! We must have at
least half the U.S. contingent of Disney comics people on this mailing list!

PER:
I sent a message recently to the list responding to people who welcomed
me. The message got bounced back, but I think it finally went through. If it
did go through then you don't need to do anything. If it didn't go through
then let me know.

>EVEN:
What physical law did I break at the end of "The Universal Solvent"?
I don't doubt I did, it's just that it's been over a year since I did the
story and I don't recall.
Highway tunnels below rivers and such must always have emergency
escape exits which lead to a separate corridor with a separate air supply.
The corridor, especially when in an underwater tunnel, would simply follow
alongside the main tunnel.
In my script, the Universal Solvent had a brand-name, and each time
the name was used it was supposed to be accompanied by a gag "trademark" or
"copyright" symbol... (a 'c' in a 'O'). And the name was the same I used for
the Solvent in the 1978 version -- "Omnisolve" (dissolves all).

HARRY:
The sign on the sandwiches was supposed to say "free lunch" which is
what salloons did in those days for their customers. Why was it changed?
Rather than waste time worrying about that, I have my hands full wondering
about the countries where the sign (as are many signs in poorly editted
editions) was simply left BLANK, with $crooge doing a "take" while looking
at a blank sign, as if he's thinking "What the -- why is this sign blank?!",
same as me. Why was it changed to 30c? Perhaps the editor never heard of
free lunch salloons and didn't know why the food was free? No -- here's a
"Disney" type reason -- $crooge was taking advantage of the free food by
stocking up, so he's a crook. Eh?

MARK:
From what I've heard, the U$ issues with the "Lo$" all sell out
immediately everywhere. We were discussing that here last week. That's why
price guides list the #285 for $15 and even the latest issue at $5. American
stores simply don't take Disneys seriously and never increase their orders
even though they sell out the previous month. When a super-hero comic sells
out, they increase the order a few issues the next month, which makes sense.
When a Gladstone sells out, they just think "Whew! What luck I'm not stuck
with more of those!"

RICK:
Yes, the Rosa lithographs will always be "cheap". Hamilton knows
that I want none of that whole phony "collectibles" racket where he charges
$400 for posters or $800 for the same poster with a gold stripe around it.
You know what a "lithograph" is, right? A comic book is a whole book of
lithographs. A soup can label is a lithograph. "Lithograph" is the word you
use when you want to charge extra for a poster. You're not paying for the
product -- you're paying for the investment potential, the signature, etc.
This shouldn't suggest that there's that sort of market for my
stuff, anyway. Not for another 30 years or so, if ever. But Hamilton has
known me for 25 years and knows that I am the antithesis of greed. That's
why the Weasel Group hate and fear me. They know I'll always be opposed to
their philosophy, and my uncooperative existance is very bad for their business.
(There's a good quote to be reported to Weasel Central.)

>
> Harry wrote:
> >The Beagle Boys were introduced in a Barks story in WDC 134. He made that
> >story in 1951. I have no idea why the numbering is that way. But on
> >several occasions, Barks showed more than 6 Beagles, so there must have
> >been other numbers than permutations of 176.
>
> With 167-176 there can be up to 36 Beagle Boys:
> 176-176 176-167 176-716 176-761 176-617 176-671
> 167-176 167-167 167-716 167-761 167-617 167-671
> 716-176 716-167 716-716 716-761 716-617 716-671
> 761-176 761-167 761-716 761-761 761-617 761-671
> 617-176 617-167 617-716 617-761 617-617 617-671
> 671-176 671-167 671-716 671-761 671-617 671-671
>
> Not that I've seen them all :-) but I think I've seen more than 6 beagle boys
> in the same Barks
> story.
>
By this point in time, I'm sure nobody cares, but just for those who do,
in "Webby's Field Trip" by Janet Gilbert (pencils and inks by G. Dalla
Santa, lettering by L. Lois Buhalis, coloring by Luana Ballarani) which
appeared in Disney Adventures, Feb '93 (not exactly Barks canon, I know!)
Babyface Beagle's number is just 7.
joel

>HARRY:
> The sign on the sandwiches was supposed to say "free lunch" which is
>what salloons did in those days for their customers. Why was it changed?
>Rather than waste time worrying about that, I have my hands full wondering
>about the countries where the sign (as are many signs in poorly editted
>editions) was simply left BLANK, with $crooge doing a "take" while looking
>at a blank sign, as if he's thinking "What the -- why is this sign blank?!",
>same as me. Why was it changed to 30c? Perhaps the editor never heard of
>free lunch salloons and didn't know why the food was free? No -- here's a
>"Disney" type reason -- $crooge was taking advantage of the free food by
>stocking up, so he's a crook. Eh?

Just a guess here; perhaps the Dutch (or was this in Germany) phrase for
"Free Lunch" would not fit in the sign, and instead of redrawing the panel
with a bigger sign, they used a shorter phrase? I have done some work with
translating computer screens from English to French and German. The French
and German versions require a lot more real estate to say the same things as
the English versions.

Do they need larger word and thought balloons for the overseas versions?
Or am I way off base here?

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> I have done some work with
> translating computer screens from English to French and German. The French
> and German versions require a lot more real estate to say the same things as
> the English versions.
>
> Do they need larger word and thought balloons for the overseas versions?
> Or am I way off base here?
>

From my experience with translating comics, word balloon size is seldom
changed. Part of the reason is that the color separations are often supplied
along with the artwork, and would have to be redone at great expense if the
artwork is changed. For some editions, comics are printed for several
countries at a time to reduce unit costs, and they just change the black
plate every so often to go from one language to another (which can lead to
problems of another sort: I have a German Disney pocket/digest book of
comics in which a signature of Dutch pages was accidentally bound in).
In general, I'd say dialogue tends to get chopped down in translation:
colorful slang and colloquialisms are blanderized, panel word count is
reduced -- as a rule (there are exceptions: the German translator of
Barks stories, Dr. Erika Fuchs, is widely considered as canonical as
the Old Duck Man himself). I'm sure the Eurofans on this list can answer
more authoritatively. But one of the strangest examples I've come across
was comparing the French and Dutch editions of a comic album published
by Dupuis of Belgium: the original language of the scripter was French,
but the Dutch translation was done in house and published by the same
company -- yet the two editions were noticeably different. The color
and spirit of the French was gone, and the Dutch translation was dry
and perfunctory. The Dutch version was condensed compared to the French,
with the text reduced to the barest possible minimum to convey the story
at the expense of characterization and flavor. The word count was reduced
considerably and many balloons looked gapingly empty, but it just wasn't
the same story. And this was done by the same company that published the
original!

--Dwight Decker

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Harry Fluks wrote:

> My car licence plate is "GG-VL-36". I realise
> now that it means Gladstone Gander, Very Lucky. But what does the 36 mean?

Easy, 36 is the maximum number of Beagle Boys if you allow the first
triplet of their number to be *any* permutation of 1, 7 and 6.

Harry replied to Joel:

> In the Dell/Gold Key universe,
> there were three child Beagles, the "Beagle Brats", numbered 1, 2 and 3.
[...]
> The brats also appeared in a story called "Uncle 001", where a Beagle carries
> the number 001 because he was the first inhabitant of his prison. Again
> drawn by Strobl. USA publication unknown.

Apparently the BB's have several more or less distant relatives that
are not members of the BB's, but are BB's nevertheless (eh, was that
understandable?) -- like this Uncle 001, for instance. I recall other
stories featuring "external" BB's of this kind, most drawn by Strobl.

The ones I can remember offhand are

The gentleman crook
The explosives expert
The intellectual
The stool pigeon

A peculiar one was the cousin or whatever that had exceptionally good
hearing and wound up in a padded cell, where he finally found the silence
he wanted.

There are/were probably lots more, esp. if you include Italian stories.

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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Don Rosa wrote:
> particularly Finnish which the rest of Europe even makes fun of
> for its extensive word lengths.

Actually i don't think Finnish words and sentences are remarakably
longer than in, say, German. The reason why text demands so much space
in Finland is the way it is translated in "Aku Ankka". Translators
have a tradition there of using as large a vocabulary as possible and
try to fill text with their own gags. This makes the language of Aku
Ankka somewhat artificial, which distubs me at least in classic
stories, most of new ones are so poor, that almost nothing can make
them worse. Yet, Beagle Boys and HD&L speaking like lawyers or
bureucrats...

--
loppu