Keskustelujen arkisto

Having finally found a job a couple of weeks ago, I now have the
opportunity to catch up on those Disney Comics I could't afford but one
month ago. And I merrily comment as I go:

Spoilers head:

Uncle $crooge Adventures #34 (The $1.95 Gladstone variety)

I liked Money Counting Machine, although its basic premise does unnerve
me a it. $crooge getting tired from counting his money? I though that
was one of his pure joys in life, along with swimming around in it.
However, his new found adamance (is that a word?) towards counting it in
the end works well. After that plot point, I liked the story very much.
$crooge seeing that they had stolen a quarter and being so enraged really
cracked me up. Especially the looks on the policemen when an enraged
$crooge tells them that "they stole a quarter!". Great stuff. Good
Branca art, too.

Vic Lockman's backup story: Haven't read it yet. Can't get past those
awful drawings. Maybe when I'm really bored. And this guy has an ad this
issue offering to teach people how to draw?

-Augie
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Hello all. In response to a question Don posed some time ago (sorry for
the delay, but I wanted to be sure) about whether we have Disney comics
here in Japan.
No. No sir. Scarce as hen's teeth. Nowhere to be seen. Not a one.

As Don said, comics are very popular in Japan. Huge numbers are
printed every week in books thicker than the phone book of the town in
which I live (320 000 people). These cost about $4~5 US. But, I haven't
been able to find _one_ Disney comic. I was very surprised. Disney
mechandise is everywhere and Tokyo Disneyland (trivia: it's not in Tokyo,
but in the neighbouring prefecture of Chiba) is still popular.

I can honestly say that the only Disney comics I have seen in
Japan were the ones that my girlfriend brought from the USA.

Furthermore from Cdoberman at aol.com

=I posted a letter about how
= WDG#1 came out the same week that NPR broadcast a story that the Canadian
= Mounties had sold Disney the liscensing rights to their "image." I thought
= it was great that your story portrayed the Mounties exactly as they were
= hoping you wouldn't -- well-intentioned goody-goodies. I wondered if Disney
= was embarrassed by this little stroke of Great Timing. Not one person
= commented on my letter. I guess they had SOMETHING ELSE ON THEIR MINDS,
= while I can't imagine what.

Well, I must confess I didn't see the comic or hear the story on NPR
(naturally), but as a Canadian I have an opinion, but I thought nobody
would be interested in hearing it on a comics list, but since you felt
snubbed...=-)

The ignorance exhibited by Americans about Canada is astounding. And
after hearing it 50 or more times from the Americans I work with here that
"Canada is the 51st state" (thank God it isn't; I'd rather be dead ;-))
I've given up on teaching the ignorant about it. Now don't get me wrong,
my girlfriend is from the US and is cool as are some other friends here.

Anyway...the RCMP image has been used by every conceivable manufacturer to
produce numerous cheap and trashy souveniers which are passed off as
legitimate symbols of Canada. Even worse is that it is _all_ that some
foreigners know about Canada. I assume the RCMP thought that if they must
represent our nation abroad (particulary to the South) they didn't want to
look like idiots.

A secondary consideration might be that Disney has a reputation for being
really tight-assed with their characters and keeping everything squeaky
clean with their properties. Considering some of the scandals that the
RCMP have been mixed up in, maybe they want to see that such things don't
leak out again ;-)

Having said all that, I think the story may have been funny. I like Dudley
Do-Right too. It's one thing for a work of fiction that is obviously a
spoof to poke fun at people, but quite another when it's in real life.

Sorry to go on so much, especially on a tangent, but you asked for it...

Bill

DON:

Ouch! Muddy xeroxes? I just thought it was bad color separation.
Whatta loss. =( (I'd go look at it now, but I loaned it out to a friend.)

While I'm here:

Walt Disney Giant #1: Scrooge McDuck In The Yukon

I liked it, needless to say. My favorite scene has to be that of $crooge
in the bar waiting for Steele when that big ogre-like guy comes in.
Scrooge never blinks! I love it. A close runner-up would be the
half-page panel with Goldy's long shadow dancing across the bar. It was,
IMHO, very cinematic. I could picture that at the high point of the
movie, when the music suddenly cuts out and all you hear for those brief
tense seconds is the crackling of the fire all around.

I also liked the way you didn't hit us over the head with Jack London's
character. You didn't come right out and say it until the end. It lets me
feel smart for picking up on it earlier. (Speaking of which, has anyone
seen Kevin Costner's WaterWorld yet? There's something similar to this
in there which only myself and a guy sitting two seats next to me got.
Sheesh.)

And they even picked a back up story which went with the theme of the
Giant. That was nice.

-Augie
"Bacon?"
"That's the rumor."

First of all, let me say that there have been many Gladstone Comics that I
have hated worse than U$A34. But this one has many typicalf Gladstone
strengths and weaknesses that it's a good one to dissect.

"The Money Counting Machine" has a cute plot, and the Gerstein translation is
a great example of a translator making the best use of his material.
That said, I think that it is also painfully obvious that the story, like so
much of the Gladstone material, is padded to the point of boredom. Is there
anyone out there that believes that this story had to be eight pages long?
Why not eliminate page 2, panels 6 and 7 and page 3, panel 1, and just show
the Beagles getting ready to ambush the accountants' van, then arriving at
$crooge's money bin in disguise? Is it really necessary to show the actual
ambush? I think not. It adds nothing to the story, nor does it demand
anything of the reader's imagination. Why a long panel showing a (very
simple) diagram of the machine? Why not just eliminate that panel entirely
and skip to the actual demonstration of the machine? Panels 1 and 2 on page
4 could have been combined by having Scrooge say something like "Modern
technology! It's going to add years to this old duck's life!" as he walks
away. Panels 5 and 6 could easily have been combined, also, and Panel 7
hardly had to be double-sized. Page 6, panels 3 and 6 and page 7, panel 4
could have been eliminated entirely, and panels 5 and 6 on page 7 could have
been combined by having $crooge say "I've been robbed! They stole a
quarter!" On page 8, we would have had a much more satisfying conclusion by
eliminating panel 6 and skipping from $Scrooge screaming "That's mine!! I've
been fleeced!" to the scene of him happily counting his money once again.

Then there's the artwork. I like Branca's very professional brushwork and
his use of black, but he really does need to put a LOT more variety in his
facial expressions and postures. At times, it looks as if he used a rubber
stamp. For the first five pages of the story, ALL of the Beagles have the
exact same evil grin, without variation.

I suspect that one of the reasons Disney comics haven't cut it in the U.S. of
late is because the writers and artists have forgotten that comics is
primarily a VISUAL medium. The guys that put together superhero comics seem
to understand that their customers are in large part a bunch of dumb kids
that can enjoy a comic without having to read it, just like I enjoyed the
Dell Disney Comics back in the fifties before I could read very well. The
writing should enhance the pictures, not take the place of them. Barks once
said something about how there should be some kind of visual grabber on every
page, something that will make a kid want to read for more detail. When you
add meaningless verbiage and resort to cookie-cutter art, you are defeating
this purpose.

Hello everyone:

With all the discussion of the database and archives, I've been
wondering if it's possible to send a command and have the files mailed
to you. FTPing takes quite a bit of time I find and I'm still not too
good at navigating the site. What I'd like in particular is a way to
get the database in one (or a few) big piece and use it at my leisure.

Also, the Washington Post (8/6/95) had an article on Disney's taking
over the universe which discussed Dorfmann's book a little and
actually contacted him at the end. He's a teacher in North Carolina
now; so much for radicalism. It's a big article, about a page and a
half, but only glances at comics.

Mike Rhode

>DAVID:
If you want folks to stop calling you "Larry", you should stop
calling Barry "Sharon". Silly boy.

DANNY C.:
I'm sure I'm beating a dead horse... but I'm still wondering just
what the Barksian facts are that I'm changing in the "Lo$"? As I point out
in my text in the new issue, Barks himself decided that the Money Bin was 70
years old after he'd used it for a few years. There's no Bin age I could
have given that would have agreed with Barks. But tell me what other "facts"
are that I've changed (other than the couple that I myself mention in the
texts)... if I've accidentally changed something I'm unaware of, tell me
what it is and I can correct it in time for the reprint albums.

AUGIE:
I'm glad you liked the "Hearts of the Yukon" story. But I didn't
think I was trying to be too subtle with the identity of Jack London. I
introduced him into the story by having everyone calling for the "writer
fellow" named "London".

DANIEL:
Though Barks resents my "Lo$" and the sequels I do to his stories
(and he has, as I've always said, every right to do so), his Duck stories
are Disney property by his choice... and it's Egmont who asks me for those
sequels (which I DO love to do). But I can easilly decline to muck about
with sticking Don Rosa panels directly into old Barks stories. I did that
once at Gladstone's request with "How Green Was My Lettuce", but I have no
reason or desire to do it anymore. Besides, if anybody wants something like
that, Daan Jippes is vastly better suited to be doing it -- he's a much
better artist and can mimic Barks' style to boot. I would think it would be
rather JOLTING to be reading a comic drawn by someone else and suddenly be
inflicted by a Rosa half-page carnage scene with no prior warning -- that
could be hazardous to one's mental health.

SHARON:
How about shaving off that moustache, babe?

MIKE and others:
I can tell you where I plan on adding panel-tiers to chapter 12 of
the "Lo$". I'm sticking 2 tiers (1/2 page) in when the Ducks first enter
$crooge's mansion and are walking down a trophy-lined hall to his study. I
am adding a 1/2 page where they are approaching the long-closed Money Bin,
showing the acid moat and drawbridge and cannon-lobby as seen in Barks'
first use of the Bin. I'm sticking 1 1/2 pages into the Beagle Boy chase
sequence, though not all in one lump. And I'm adding 2 tiers to the ending
scene where I try to make a decent try at the "psycho-drama" of $crooge
becoming his final self. And David (Larry)... yes, naturally Gladstone knows
what I'm doing. I have about a month to get the pages to Todd Klein for
lettering, so no sweat.

ALL:
As I have posted, I'm making some scripts for Disney comics because it
was said that the Dutch editor has a lack of stories. Now I begun wondering
if I could send the scripts to Egmont/Gladstone/some other as well. What
are the differences between those companies? Do they pay differently? What
good artists do each have? In what countries do they publish the stories?
I would never have believed that making story-lines into scripts could
be this much trouble. Now I understand why all you writers complain about
the pay...

DON:
The following article was published in Editor's Page at last Aku Ankka
issue of 1991:

[...]
And to leave the best for last, we saved a pile of praise letters which
flowed to editors to cheer the dullness of the polar night. Among others,
Tommi from Tampere and Ullastiina and Mikko from Turku got into praising
"War of the Wendigos", which was published in issues 45-47/91. Behind the
long story lies the old fox Don Rosa - who else, and the story was translated
to Finnish by Jukka Lindfors. The largeness of the translator's work can be
described by saying that the Pygmi Indians spoke with trochaic tetrameter.
[I don't know if I translated that strange word correctly, but the speech was
very Kalevalian, imho equal to 'Longfellowian', the term you used]
This is how Mikko writes: "I'd like to bring out my thanks for the story
"War of the Wendigos". Ah, what harmonic dance of picture and word. I, by no
means, wish to downplay the fully dedicated translator who well reached the
atmosphere of the story. The high-quality language in Aku Ankka is well-known
and appreciated all-over Finland, but the decoration of all that and the
icing on the cake was the ticklingly wonderful translation of the disgressing
speech of the Indians. WOW!"

And not reaching the same enthusiastic tone, here's a letter which
I'm planning to send to the Editor's Page. I'd like you (and everybody else)
to check the facts and statements I say. If there's something you'd like to
add or remove to the letter, let me know and I'll do it.

---
Don Rosa recently won the famous Eisner Award at San Diego Comics
Convention for the best continuing series. This award was given to Don's
work "Life of $crooge", which of ten last episodes have been seen in Finland,
too. Why are you holding the too first? Why was Jake McDuck translated "Ewan"
even if he was "Jack" in Christmas to Shacktown? And speaking of relatives,
although Don didn't put Ludwig Von Drake to the family tree, because of Barks
dislike towards the character, he personally likes to think Ludwig to be husband
of Matilda McDuck. And both, Pintail Duck and Malcolm McDuck took part in Barks
story called [enter name of that story]. In this story Pintail was used a
different name than in the translation of the family tree and the coloring was
different, now making his coat look like Donald's. And adding Fethry Duck to the
family tree Rosa regretted almost immediately after doing it.
This was because he thinks his stories take place in 1955, when hippies
were never heard of. The reason he chose that time to make the stories take
place at was because the Barks stories which inspired him most were also
published at that time and thus he got the opportunity to think his stories
as 're-prints' of the stories he read when he was a kid.
And although many of Don Rosa's stories are based on Barks' stories, it
doesn't mean they would be in any way easier for him or short-cuts. Just the
opposite. In some stories he has had to spend days thinking about how to make
the story to work with Barks norms and still appear new and entertaining. By
the way, Don Rosa can be reached via Internet, as well. His e-mail address is
donrosa at iglou.com. Do the editors of Aku Ankka have an address in the Net?
[ok, so that sounds like guruing..]
Let us know about Don's schedule during his future trip to Finland.

Mikko Pohjola, Naantali
---

Here to the end of the letter I'm going to write that all the things
written here have the approval of Don Rosa himself. (it would make me look
cool in the eyes of the other Finnish Duck fans ;)

--

Mike - The Finnish Trekkie