Keskustelujen arkisto

| I'll try to take a closer look at the whole database system

Harry sent us (the indexers) a file which explained it a while ago.
I haven't got it here at the moment (I did have a copy here, of course,
but the administration here at Ifi suddenly got very keen on cleaning
up. A lot of files that shouldn't have been erased got -- erased. I'll
get them back, though).

| what have you indexed so far?

Not very much... the last half of the sixties, a little from the beginning
of the eighties, and soon most of the nineties.

| But I could help you with a conversion method from your format to
| Harry's,

Good :-)

| We should perhaps take this to personal mail?

That's not the first time that question is brought up. So far I don't
think there has been too much database talk on the list. As long as
we don't send big index files to the list there shouldn't be any problems.

Jorgen

Well, I'm back! Although the header may actually say that I'm
Larry Gerstein, that's just because I'm using my family account now (which
is under my dad's name). It's me, David Gerstein. I had a fine visit to
Germany where I had some great visits with my one-time exchange partners,
enjoyed some philosophical discussions and lots of magnificent food. Yep,
a great holiday. And among other things,

JANET AND MICHAEL
have German copies of both that Birthday story (printed without a
code in Germany) and "Hail the Conquering Duck" (which took some doing to
find, but I found it!) waiting for them! What's your address, guys?
You'll have 'em in the blink of an eye!

DANIEL:
> I would also like to know if there's Barks-material in CBLinC that is not in
> the conventional CBL. Is there?
Yes. There are some storyboards for never-produced cartoons in the
CBLiC albums which are not in the hardback CBL, namely "Lost Prospectors"
and "Night Watchman Donald." (There are much smaller fragments of these in
the hardbacks, but that doesn't really count.)
"Scrooge McDuck and Money" is frequently shown on the Disney
Channel these days. There's a must-see episode of their "Quack Attack"
half-hour show that pairs it, complete, with "Donald in Mathmagic Land".

JAKOB:
> I have searched for the answer to that question (who is HDL's
> father) since I was a duckling. And my theory is that he is
> Ludwig von Drake. In the cartoon "Donald's Diary" he is looking
> up from below a chair when Donald enters Daisy's (or whoever it
> is) house. And he looks just the same as Ludwig von Drake, but he
> is introduced as the father of HDL.
Careful! This is one of those weird cartoons with everyone playing
roles! This same cartoon shows HDL as being _DAISY'S BROTHERS_ -- the Von
Drake-like character is Daisy's father! So I don't think this is
canonical.
This is the first time Von Drake ever appeared anywhere, by the
way. He doesn't actually have a name or any dialogue in the cartoon and
didn't reappear until a 1961 TV appearance (for which he was slightly
cleaned-up in appearance and given his classic voice and mannerisms).

DANIEL AGAIN:
> Maybe you notice, that this subject ("lost art") really frustrates
> me sometimes. If I remember well, David has been in the Archives. But
> I can't recall exactly what he said about it...
All I know is that Disney has some proofs to comic stories in the
Disney Archives which don't exist (as proofs, I mean) anywhere else.
Disney Comics Inc. had access to them, but they didn't really know what was
in there because the indexing system wasn't very methodical at the time.
(The Archives have a proof to WDC 42's cover, but when Bob Foster wanted to
reprint it in 1992, he had to have it reinked because he wasn't told about
the proof. On the other hand, he was able to print "The Hard Loser" from
original 1943 proof pages in 1990, which is the only time it was reprinted
in its original quality.)
When it comes to unpublished stories, I know that it was the Disney
Archives which managed to save the Milkman story in English, but I'm
reasonably sure that they don't have any other lost stories.

HARRY:
> I know David is working on an English script for one of [the great Dutch Wolf
>> stories]: the "egg" story.
Part II of all this is that I sent it to Gladstone prior to
departing for Scotland a few months ago. This morning I talked to them to
find that MY PACKAGE WAS LOST IN THE MAIL and so they have never seen the
story! So it won't be appearing in WDC&S 601 as we had once planned;
maybe (I'm only guessing now) a few issues later. I'll see if John would
like to use it in the back of the GIANT series (formerly COLLECTORY).
I researched 1950, one of the finest years for Gil Turner's wolf
stories, and created a dictionary of Zeke Wolf dialect which came in handy
for this story, which I titled "Musical Eggs." Whenever we end up seeing
it, I think it should go over very well.

FREDRIK:
> ["Donald's Special Capabilities"] sounds very much like the one published in
> Swedish Kalle Ankas Pocket 4. Does it include Donald and the nephews going to
>> sea with the Beagle Boys and Scrooge respectively?
I've read this story in German, too. It's by Romano Scarpa.
Actually, I thought it was one of the worst "classic-era" Scarpa stories
I'd ever read, but each person has their own favorites.

DON:
Good to have you back! I too looked for the TEMPO issue, and
didn't manage to find it. I DID, however, find a comic catalog from Ehapa.
A catalog that included images of the covers of the Rosa Library.
Including a cover which appears to never have actually made it onto
any published edition, although the catalog portrays it as a cover for Rosa
Library album #4.
The cover I'm referring to is one you drew illustrating LO$ 6. It
shows Scrooge riding a giraffe and twirling a lasso. It's a beautiful
cover, but it was quite obviously drawn under the supposition that LO$ 6
was to be the cover story of Album 4, while it ended up being the backup in
Album 3. (For those who haven't seen it, the cover of Album 3 illustrated
LO$ 5, only natural.)
Who incorrectly told you that LO$ 6 was to headline one of the albums? And
what will happen to this magnificent cover? If you wouldn't mind sending
me a copy of the art, I'll use it in the brochure for this year's Comic Con
panel.
I, too, read the COMICS JOURNAL review, when I saw it in the shops
yesterday. I agree that the review was good. If you want to refer them,
though, to an example of what the LO$ might have been like had Disney
produced it, I think you ought to refer them to "A Dime in Time" in Disney
Comics DUCKTALES #17-18, which stated that Scrooge's time in the Klondike
had him living in the fictional town of Uppa Creek! One of the weirdest
traits of the Disney Comics regime under Len Wein was that they seemed to
consciously discourage naming any actual places in their Duck and Mouse
tales.
It's JAIME Diaz, not HAIME, by the way.
Was anything changed in Gladstone's printing of LO$ 9? I noticed
that Scrooge's limerick about the gold miner would have included the word
"home" at the end of two lines, if the final line indeed ended "struck
home" (as I believe you said it did). Also, there was a blank space below
Goldie's photo on the newspaper in the opening panel. In the German
edition, the caption "Kidnapped?" appeared there, and I'd imagine that your
original version was supposed to have it there as well.
How old is Scottie supposed to be in this chapter? He looks like
he's only about 12.

PER:
The title of the Gladstone series WALT DISNEY'S COLLECTORY has
indeed become WALT DISNEY GIANT. Please change it on our WWW page,
including on the "Disney Comics in the U. S." article, when you can. Issue
one comes out any time now!

DONALD DUCK 292
is in the shops now. Beautiful cover made from AT art. There's
the 1958 Barks story "Noble Porpoises" -- quite honestly, it's a pretty
good story but I imagine Gladstone will take some flak for printing a story
about DD hunting dolphins. The AT strips filling the rest of the issue
include the complete "Don on the Farm" (with Gus Goose) and the conclusion
of "Flubbity Dubbity Duffer", as well as some miscellaneous gags. Nothing
has been censored or cut. Also, there's a 2-page feature showing how AT
revised a partially-completed daily strip in mid-1938 for better comic
effect; the "rough draft" of the strip was discovered this year and it's
very interesting to see it and read about how the changes were made. This
is what Gladstone does best.
As usual, there are no NEW stories in this comic, and I'm
disappointed that AT hogs ALL this space, and now the comic is on newsprint
paper again (albeit with good printing), but still, it's definitely worth
buying. The cover is worth framing!

THE MOST RECENT GLADSTONE ALBUMS
(CBLWDC 40-41 and CBLDDA 16) came while I was away, too. Sadly the
printing in them is muddy and terrible, with misaligned colors rendering
outlines fuzzy and panel-borders hairy. I may gripe about the problem when
it crops up in an occasional $2 comic, but it's really not a big deal if it
doesn't happen continously. But the problem is just inexcusable in an
album for which I've paid $9! Do other people's copies of these recent
albums have the same problem? Is anyone else actually buying them?
All this said, "The Village Blacksmith" (WDC 242) is one that I
hadn't actually read before and which struck me as quite a classic,
especially as it came in such a late period.

David Gerstein
<gerstein at math.ucsb.edu>
"Have a chestnut, boys! -- OW!"

gerstein at math.ucsb.edu

>BILL:
You're in Japan? I've always wondered if they have Disney comic
books in Japan, where comics sell better than anywhere on the planet. I have
never seen or heard of a Japanese Disney comic, so I'm suspecting there are
none. If there are, what are they using? Reprints of the Dell/Barks style
stuff from Dell, Egmont, Oberon and Gladstone? Or that Italian-style stuff?

DAVID:
Yes, the German "Rosa Library" album publisher (Ehapa) accidentally
asked me to do a cover based on the "Lo$" part 6 even though they didn't
need that cover. As nice as it is to see that series, and as nice as the
Ehapa people are to me, I'm afraid that what little work they put into that
series is riddled with errors. All they have to worry about is assembling
the already-(poorly)-colored stories into the album under a new cover, but
they make careless goofs like leaving signage lettering off the cover, or
coloring it worse than the interior art. On #4, with the cover similar to
Gladstone's "$CROOGE MCDUCK IN THE YUKON" cover, they totally ignored my
coloring requests. On #5 they gave the Rough Riders bright GREEN cavalry
hats and holsters, colored the Beagle Boys naked hands WHITE, and put bright
YELLOW hulls on the battleships, colored the coins all GOLD, gave $crooge
GREEN spats, etc., etc. I have no control over this stuff since I have no
shred of ownership in any aspect of my own work, so I just try to bear up
under seeing poor production on work that I'm very proud of. But I'm
helpless -- I never say much since I might be seen as a "prima donna" or
something. Besides, I just keep in mind that Gladstone will eventually give
my stories literally award-winning production values!
Speaking of Gladstone's version of chapter 9: I guess there was
supposed to be a "Kidnapped?" under Goldie's picture, but it wasn't really
needed. I didn't even notice it wasn't there. And I would never have told
you that the limerick was supposed to end with "struck home" since I
designed the balloons and script so that the last words would be "hidden"
under the lady-judges' "!!!" balloon. I pictured the final words to be some
sort of gross obsenity.
And I don't know how old Scottie is supposed to be in that story.
Why? Obviously, he's just a kid, sure. He's not a midget or something! 12? Okay.

KNUT:

> I've been looking at the Disney comics database at the web-server a little
> According to the description there should be a zip-file somewhere

Yes, I put a line in the file "legend" about a subdirectory "..index/zip",
but I didn't tell Per about it, and Per didn't read the "legend" file.
So the zip-files aren't there. Per, would you put them there, or send
Knut a copy of sweden.zip, stories.zip, src.zip and root.zip?

> how would I find out what story code a story has in the magazines
> that where printed before the story codes where in the first panel?

One way that hasn't been mentioned is to look at ALL the stories
available. Part of the Database are files with stories, ordered by
story code. When you know the page count, artist, description and
maybe country of origin, you could do a 'grep' or 'search' on the
"stories" files, and see which stories fit. This is what I have been
doing a lot, trying to find the story codes of the Dutch reprints
from the 50s and 60s.

> Dreams, dreams...

Yes, I have been dreaming things like that, too. Maybe some of them
become a reality sooner than we think...

PER said:
> No, there are no Norwegian references as of now.

In fact, there is *one* Norwegian title in the Database ("No:Maretitt").
I happen to have the Norwegian issue that contains that story. 8-)

> Well, I'm interested in having indexes of *any* Disney comics.
> And I think index coordinator Harry mostly agrees with that.

I am willing to include any Disney comics index in the database.
Personally, I once drew a line at stories I found absolute garbage
(like the Italian stuff we get in pocket books, or the Al Hubbard
Fethry stories). But then, there is always someone else that likes
those stories, and most of the time I can be convinced that some of
the "garbage" is actually quite good.
So as long as it's Disney, and as long as it's comics, it is welcome
in the Database.

JO/RGEN said:
> It shouldn't come as a surprise that I've been working on a Norwegian
> index for a while, but so far only in my own format. The main reason
> for this is that I don't like lines of more than 80 characters.
> It should be quite easy, though, to convert it to Harry's format.

Well, it's not that easy if you want to do it right. The layout (which
field in which column) is the *easiest* part. The difficulty is the
story codes. Each story that has a code is listed in the Database
in the story files. When a story is reprinted, the story code should
be exactly like the one in the stories files, so the database programs
can make the connection. For instance, your example entry:

> 1967-20 b WDC313 4 Mim Superselgersken

This story is known in the database under the code "W WDC 313-?1".
The database programs can add extra interesting information to this
entry, like the artist (TS), original title (in this case not known),
and which characters appear in the story (Goofy, the Big Wolf, Scrooge).

No program can transfer the code WDC313 to W WDC 313-?1, because there
is also a W WDC 313-?2 and so on. This would be a lot of manual work
(of course with a lot of help from the computer).

BTW: if the story code is not "correct", this doesn't mean the entry
can't be listed in the database. It just gets a '@' to indicate that
the story is of unknown origin, and you'll miss all kinds of cross
references and additional information.

> The main problem with this format is that
> there are only room for three creators, and not four as in Harry's.

This is only a minor problem.
We only have to write a little program to convert your format into
mine (and vice versa). You don't like lines longer than 80 characters?
OK, write a program that produces short lines. The biggest problem here
is to define a readable format, that contains all the information we
want. Spreading things over more lines doesn't make it more readable,
at least that's what I think.

> A couple of differences from Harry's format is that I have the letters
> that show the "location" of the story in an own column

This is a good idea; I plan to do this in the Database as well (some day).

KNUT again:
> But I could help you with a conversion method
> from your format to Harry's, if you like (I have studied computing science
> and work as a programmer).

I prefer a conversion to the "internal" database format. I have C routines
to write an internal struct to that format, so only routines have to be
made to read the Bangor format.

JO/RGEN:
> Harry sent us (the indexers) a file which explained [the formats] a while
> ago.

This file is also in the ftp directory. It's called "format.legend".
I'll send you (Knut) a copy in private mail.

Of course, as always: any remarks, critique, improvements, are very welcome!

--Harry.

ERRATA CORRIGE - ATTENTION, PLEASE.
I sent you, a few days ago, the *new* URL of the Anonima Fumetti - Italian
Cartoonists Society.
Sorry: our service provider made a little change in it. Please change it in
your list.
It is no more "http://monviso2.alpcom.it/fumetti/anonima.htm"

Now it is:
http://monviso2.alpcom.it/fumetti/

Thank you for your patience!
gg.
Gianfranco Goria, cartoonist and comics divulger: goria at inrete.alpcom.it
president of Anonima Fumetti - Italian cartoonists society
http://www.alpcom.it/fumetti/
--

> To: disney-comics at minsk.docs.uu.se
> From: goria at inrete.alpcom.it (Gianfranco Goria - etcetera)
> Subject: Problems in mail Delivery... sorry.

> Sorry: the system returned me some mail with subject "mail failure"

In these cases, the best action is to contact the list administrator,

disney-comics-request at minsk.docs.uu.se

He can determine what went wrong. In most cases, only one or two members
of the List didn't get your message, so there would be no need to resend it.

> anyway, please, send me a reply to THIS message

I at least received your message both times.

--Harry.

Hello,
I am totally new here (but listening for a while). It
seems that I finally found some real Disney fans.

I am still looking for some older Uncle Scrooge issues,
which I am unable to find here in Bonn. I missed the issues
286, 287 and 288. Where can I get them or do I have to
order from Gladstone?

Thanks
Ulli

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ulrich Wisser, Am Roemerkastell 22, D-53111 Bonn, Germany
email: Ulrich at donald.dinoco.de