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DON:
<but they didn't show Todd Klein the correct lettering for the sign on the
Black Jack Ballroom>
It looks like 3 panels later (where Scrooge is buying the nails), the
lettering on the sign - which is faded - is as Carl Bark's designed it in
"Back to the Yukon." Did you do this one?

< I think the cover for $CROOGE MCDUCK IN THE YUKON #1 will top this one >
I saw it in that ad Bruce Hamilton sent out with all his little thousand doll
ar posters and dolls (and the explanation of why he's taking the cover off of
one of my favorite titles: DD), and it looks gorgeous!

Also, in your essay on The Making of Lof$ ch. 8, you wrote: "The route into
the Klondike was from the town of Skagway over the White Pass, or from the
town of Dyea over the Chilkoot Pass. But who's ever heard of Dyea or the
White Pass? Therefore I mixed and matched."
Didn't Barks do the same thing in 'Back to the Klondike'?

Wes

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

>WES:
That was just a mock-up of the cover of that first issue of that new
Gladstone. In other words, it was all faked. The title, as you now know,
won't be UNCLE WALT'S COLLECTORY / UNCLE $CROOGE IN THE YUKON; Disney wants
WALT DISNEY'S COLLECTORY / $CROOGE McDUCK IN THE YUKON. And the art you see
there is actually a xerox I sent them of the cover of the 4th issue of the
German "DON ROSA LIBRARY" they publish over there. The actual cover of the
Gladstone issue will have a different cover, far less cross-hatchety
detailing since I know I can depend on Gladstone to color it correctly with
the midnight sun backlighting the figures and the aurora b. dancing in the
starry sky. They never bother with "artsy" coloring like that in Europe
since they know that extra effort doesn't sell extra Duck comics.
...Which is funny when you think about it. Well, actually pathetic.
It might seem pointless for Gladstone to put extra work into stuff since it
won't increase sales much since American comic-collectors won't buy the Duck
comics no matter what. There's no sense in putting extra work into the
European issues since it won't increase sales any since European comic
readers won't NOT buy the Duck comics no matter what. In other words, they
can't do much to make them sell better there. Wotta difference. Wotta world.
(Wotta country.)
Anyway, you haven't really seen the cover yet.
And who is "cdoberman"?
HARRY:
Can you send me your address again? I have something to mail to you
which involves somebody selling something to somebody along some river
somewhere. Breezes - $25. Gales - market price.

MATTIAS:
I just sent Stefan a FAX last night asking him what happened to you.>

HARRY F:
A thousand pardons. I'm still new to this whole Internet scene and it hasn't
fully sunk in how international all this is. Even so, it was a stupid mistake
to assume that just because you're reading a German-language comic that
you're German. (Not that there's anything wrong with being German. As near as
I can tell I'm a quarter German myself.) Anyway, Harry, I sincerely hope I
didn't offend you.

DAVE R.:
"Peace in Pieces" is the name of my story that's coming up soon. It's not
appearing in Donald Duck #31. It'll be in Donald Duck Adventures #33. It's
not as flashy as "Stampede and Deliver," but I think it came out OK. It's a
Neighbor Jones story--although I gather Neighbor Jones will be called
something else. (Apparently Vicar wasn't used to drawing Jones and so Jones
came out looking considerably different than the Barks version.) John Clark
at Gladstone told me that a small change in the script was being made to
indicate that this isn't Jones. Instead, it's just some guy who's renting out
Jones' house. Or something like that. The script's so old and it's been so
long since I talked to John about it that I can't remember exactly how it's
being handled.

Thanks for the info about the review copy you sent to Comics Buyer's Guide. I
do have a copy of "Peace in Pieces" as printed in Britain, but frankly the
"English" version of my "American English" script was quite watered down.
Much of the color was taken out of the language and the story just didn't
have a lot of zip. So I've been reluctant to send that version out for
review.

By the way, the reason I had to revamp my Disney Comics stories from three
tiers to four tiers is that Van Horn was drawing all his stories three tier
at the time. Actually, now that I think of it, I only revamped "Peace in
Pieces." Van Horn did the revamping and trimming to get "Stampede and
Deliver" down to the size and format that Egmont needed. He cleared all the
cuts and changes with me. The only really major cut was a scene where the guy
in the helicopter announced on the radio something to the affect that Donald
was giving away free pizzas. People then came streaming out of their houses
and a huge mob started chasing Donald--who promptly does a U-turn and tries
to elude them by driving through a car wash. Anyway, Bill wasn't all that hot
to draw all those zillions of stampeding people and we had to get the page
count down--so the scene was cut. (Without that scene, though, I suppose the
title "Stampede and Deliver" doesn't make quite as much sense. Oh, well...

PER:
I'd like to receive the mailing list in its digest form. I gather I get
everything that's sent to the list, but it's just packed together in one
piece of mail every day for convienence sake. Thanks.

KNUT H:
I received your message. It looks like you sent it directly to me rather than
to the mailing list. Consequently I'm sending a message directly to your
personal e-mail address. At least I hope so. I'm new to all this and my
message to you will be the first personal mail I've sent--so if it doesn't
arrive please let me know.

I don't think that I'll be real happy about this pulp cover
business. I'm willing to keep an open mind, but i agree
with David: less pages or a price hike. Would it be possible
for Gladstone to sell a few more ads to help them out? I
don't mind a few tasteful ads, and if they're done right,
they can make a comic more enjoyable. David Gerstein's list
of which comics will have a pulp cover seems different from
what the list Don gave us and that I read in the latest
Gladstone catalog. Am i right, or had i deluded myself?

As for what value overstreet puts on the disney comics:
its nice to see them get high valuations, since this would
mean that disney comics are getting well deserved respect,
but who would ever sell them?

Frank

Hi, gang! Glad to be back.

I've just read all the recent Digests. Remarkably, I don't
have a whole lot of comments on them. Great to read them, of course,
but I don't have the urge to start adding things to many of the
conversations which seem to be over.

There WILL be a Disney discussion panel at the San Diego Con as
of right now, titled "Disney Comics: What's All The Quacking About?"
I'll be moderating it, and Don, John Clark, Ron Fernandez, and Pat
Block will be talking there. I'd also like to get others, so please,
any writers or historians who are interested (including folks with
names like Rawson, Lustig, Ault, and Ingersoll) should report to me
via E-Mail right away.

While in Santa Barbara I did a LOT of Disney work. I
translated a few short Dutch stories for Gladstone, including Daan
Jippes' first Donald tale (a 3-pager, "Banquet Behind Bars") and a
7-page Jippes Li'l Bad Wolf tentatively planned for WDC&S 601 or 602.
The story is titled "Musical Eggs" (you'll know which one that is,
Harry!). I think it's the BEST Wolf story since 1950.
I also sold three stories to Egmont. "Donald Duck's
Double-Dealt Deal" involves insurance-salesman DD trying to convince
Hard-Haid Moe that the forest is an extremely dangerous place to
live. To this end, DD stirs up the local fauna by a variety of
mischievous means, only to have things backfire chaotically.
"Reputation At Stake" was my first Br'er Rabbit story. BR
becomes a pariah when the settlement's elders decide his raffish
manners, mischievous pranks and unsophistication offend them.
Of course, BR finds a way prove that "it's how you is on the inside,
not bein' correct on th' outside, what counts."
"A Mouse Against the World" is about how Mickey becomes a
famous author and then a public enemy, both by accident. I think it
emphasizes how I'm basically trying to adapt the Barks 10-pager
format to Mickey's distinctive personality.
A medium-length article done for Egmont's in-house journal,
analyzing Mickey's personality and tragic flaws and emphasizing the
great potential inherent in the character, rounded out my workload.

The Gladstone comics which will lose their letter columns and
cover stock will be DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES, UNCLE SCROOGE, and DONALD
AND MICKEY. The first two are, I believe, Gladstone's most
successful titles, so there seems to be no real logic to which series
were chosen for the experiment. Sadly, I think this move -- which
will result in very dull colors, given the less-than-brilliant ink
used by Gladstone's printers these days -- will severely hurt the
comics. And imagine -- no letters about the LO$ or about the
upcoming Pat Block stories! I'd rather pay $2 for a comic with a
real cover on it, thanks. Or $1.50 for a comic with 26 pages of
comics and a lettercol, not 27 pages (as is usually the case now) and
no lettercol.
COLLECTERY will also have pulp covers, although I have no idea
if there will be a letter column. Sadly, I think that the "Northern
lights" motif, Don, will be sorely hurt by the duller colors.

JOHN LUSTIG: To get Gladstone to publish your stories, you
simply need to tell them to do so, over and over. Time has shown me
that. Sadly, I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to my own stories
being printed, because in 1993-94 I translated a whole slew of Egmont
and Oberon stories which Gladstone lettered and colored right away
and then stockpiled for future use; and now, Gladstone has to give
'em priority over my ORIGINAL Egmont stories, because they've
already done the production work on the translations. My originals
will appear in 1996, but not before.

"Catman Vs. The Masked Marauder" (DDA 32) is not my original
script, although Gladstone unaccountably said it was. Actually, I'm
not insulted that they thought this was my original creation, but no
-- it wasn't, and in fact it dates from 1990, when I was still doing
my own "Monk the Monkey" comics. My own original stories will
begin to appear from Gladstone a YEAR from now. >Sigh< The
bimonthly schedule makes everything so ssssllllooooowwww....
"Catman" is, however, my favorite among the earlier dialogue
jobs I did. Disney altered one panel in which a nephew shot another
nephew with a slingshot; now he just points his finger at him to
mimic a gun. But the villain's Cockney accent is intact. Pat
Block's cover made the package even better!
Professor Pulpheart Clabberhead, by the way, was the
child psychologist who "helped" Donald discipline HDL in WDC&S
92's story "Spoil the Rod" (1948).

The third story in DDA 32, "Nature Park Ranger", was scripted
in English by Dwight Decker. Good job, Dwight -- but did you know
that this is the one you BEAT me to? The one I forgot to ask
Gladstone if they'd already had someone translate, and so had my
finished version thrown back? If anyone (including you, Dwight)
wants to read my own very different version, just write to me and
I'll send the text to them via E-Mail. (It wasn't bought and does
not contain the full name of any Disney character, so it's still
mine.) I called the story "By Hourglass Piqued," because in my
version, the great balancing rock was called Hourglass Peak. (And
the lava spring was "Devil's Glue Pot.")

"The Money-Counting Machine" story to be in USA 34 is another
one of my translations/dialogues. Disguised as "Bill U. Later & Co.,
Accountants," the Beagle Boys rig up a completely ingenious
contraption which (unknown to Scrooge) sends money spurting out the
bin's windows. "Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your cash!" I
actually did this rewrite as long ago as 1991.

US 288 did NOT sell out at MY local comic shop. They moved all
the humor titles to a "children's" section now, and US -- which
usually sells out -- just sat there. Of course, the usual buyers
are looking under "U" in the NORMAL part of the shop, and assuming
it's sold out. $%stlg&stlg$!
Don't get your hopes up about the "value" of this and other recent
issues. No matter what the Comics Values Monthly may say, Overstreet
lists no LO$ issue as being worth over $2 last time I checked. And
HERO did not list ANY UNCLE SCROOGE issues after 1990's #242
in last month's "guide"! That guide was a horrible mess. It even listed
Disney Comics' JWW title twice, under "Junior Woodchucks" and "Walt
Disney's Junior Woodchucks", valuing the issues differently in each
listing. It left out a LOT of Rosa credits and didn't mention any
other modern writers or artists anywhere.

ANDERS: The Beagle cousin with exceptional hearing was created
by Vic Lockman and originally named Supersensitive-666 (I hate it
when Beagles are given names...) This became Supersensitive-176 in a
recent story Lockman did for Gladstone, for obvious reasons.

MATTIAS: NAFSKurien? HOORAY! Send to this address:
Masson House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Rd., Edinburgh
EH16 5AY Scotland.
I'll be glad to see whatever the book is you're sending me,
too. (Don't feel bad about forgetting -- as you can see, even I have
forgotten what book it is we're discussing!)

DAVE: No use keeping an eye out for my Red O' Ruckus story
yet, since I haven't written it. But I'm going to, probably this
summer. I need a 10-page Duck slot, and Egmont only wants 12-page
Duck stories from me these days for some reason.

Well, I'm off for now, folks. As you can see, there's a lot
going on, and I'm always glad to toss my two cents in (although it
always comes to more than that ;-)

David Gerstein
<9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
"The only way for anyone to get ahead of Mickey Mouse -- is to
run in front of him!"

The news that Gladstone won't be publishing any jumbo-sized
comics for the indefinite future makes me wonder what will
happen to that 39-page Mickey Mouse "which-way" story I
translated for them last year. Because it's one of those
choose-your-own-ending things with several decision points
throughout the story, it obviously can't be serialized.
The idea had been to run it in a giant issue of Donald &
Mickey but now it looks like another candidate for the
filing cabinet.

Note to David: I can't exactly say I "beat" you to that
"Nature Park Ranger." It was _sent_ to me with a batch of
other stories by John Clark about two years ago and they
just now got around to running it. That pool of lava in
the story was called "the Eye of Geronimo" in the original
Dutch, and I left it at that, but the editor changed it
to "the Eye of Hephaestus" (or whatever it was); I sense
there's a policy either at Gladstone or at Disney now of
stepping gingerly around references to Native Americans.

--Dwight

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