Keskustelujen arkisto

JAMES:
You mention a Mickey story in which "the artwork appeared
gothic, and it dealt with a mystery girl who turned out to be evil,
and was also immortal. The story closed with a house in flames, and
the girl in it..."
This excellent story is "The House of Mystery" by Bill Walsh
and Floyd Gottfredson, a real corker from 1944. In the United States,
this newspaper strip story was reprinted in WDC&S 72-74 and (more
recently) MICKEY AND DONALD 18 (1990).
The "mystery girl," also a mad scientist, is named Drusilla.
Only real problem with the story is that it never explains how
Drusilla made the ghosts appear in the house toward the start of the
story, it only points out that she was (somehow) behind it. They
certainly seem to be "real" ghosts when we see them early on.

David Gerstein
<96dag at williams.edu>

AUGIE:
What you so miraculously happened to see on that Italian TV station
seems to be something sweeping Italy just now. I wasn't going to mention it
on here (in case anyone ever noticed, I have a tendancy to only answer
questions, however elaborately, and never interject new topics for my own
purposes)... but thanks to some articles written by some loyal Italian Duck
fans, the interest of the Italian press and populace seems to have been
piqued in my "Lo$" series and my use of such characters as Donald and
$crooge's parents, and so forth. I just never can get used to how popular
Barks' Ducks are everywhere else but here! Anyway, a Duck fan wrote a nice
article about me and the Barks Ducks and my upcoming visit to Italy (based
on an interview we did here on the Internet), and this article appeared in
several regional newspapers in Italy about 2 weeks ago. This started a chain
of events which lead to the same article appearing on the front page of
Italy's biggest newspaper (so I'm told), which caught everyone's attention,
and now I'm being swamped by Italian reporters asking me about the "Lo$" and
my visit to Lucca. Yesterday I did three long phone interviews with American
correspondents of Italian news agencies, and they were saying that the info
in the article has now been picked up by Italian TV (which you saw). When I
arrive for the Lucca show, I believe I have to appear in several press
conferences and go on national TV, and no telling what else. This is fun,
but rather nerve-wracking for someone who stays home all the time like a
shut-in. How utterly strange to live in a country where these comics are so
totally ignored, and visit countries where the same characters are national
heroes!!!
But this leads up to the fact that this will be my last posting on
here for nearly 3 weeks. I leave in a few hours for Italy, then to Norway,
then to Finland. I won't return home until mid-November. And I'm sure I'll
have a pile of interesting Digests to wade through by then... but excuse me
if I don't answer any questions put to me until such time as I return. And
I'll have a lot of lost work-time to catch up on (which is impossible, since
I always work at top speed). I'm still way short of a full ten Avatars in
this current project.
Arrivederci, baby!

unsubscribe

Please put me on your mailing list.John David Cook II, gscook at mercury.ef.dcccd.edu

Disney comics in it, I saw some when I visted last time. This Museum
is called Words and Pictures Museum owned by Kevin Eastman the Creator
of the Ninja Turtles. If you would like to know more about this Comic
book Museum please E-mail me at <miki3 at ix.netcom.com>.

Michele Ivey

Jorgen:

You point out several important questions when you refer to the
translation of the Plastic-Mickey story. The space is limited, and
even if you want to put the language as close to the original as
possible, the space-limitation makes this difficult. Word-plays are
of course a night-mare to translate.

The readers in Norway are supposed to be younger than the readers
of the Gladstone-magazines. You try to make the language easy to
read, but it must not be "simple", as you said it was. Actually, a
few years ago a magazine for teachers in Norway looked at the
language in the Norwegian DD weekly, and found it quite complex. For
the older readers, we try to translate names that have been used one
time the same way when the person appears again. This is quite a job,
and takes a lot of time!

Ole "Roc":

Danish editorial on background of LCoC was first written for Norway.
The two crooks order Brutopian caviar from room-service, and Barks
used Brutopia twice in his stories: In "Swamp of no return yoy find
the thief of the camera going out of the Brutopian embassy once. In
"A cold Bargain", Brutopia tried to get hold of the ice ball.

Erik Horthe

Address egil at telepost.no

--- Inkommet fr}n VD.POL2 031-667632 95-10-29 14:40
-> IN=disney-comics(a)Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE

Hiya, everyone!
Now I'm back again with some nice answers (I hope) for you. I can't answer
all the messages I get at the time they reach my mailbox nowadays, now I
only have about half an hour each day to look at the daily income of mail.
This mean that some days I only can read mail, and other days only answer
mail. Too bad.

DANIEL:

> I don't believe that Ludwig is HDL's father. But if there is no
> evidence that he simply *can't* be their father, everyone is free to
> believe that he is. (of course)

Well, it's up to you to believe wheither he's HDL's father or not. I'm
just trying to answer Erik Pettersson's question "Who is HDL's father"
through my re-searching experience of this question. I have searched for
the answer to that question for some time too, see. Do you have any
suggestion who might be the father of HDL if it isn't Ludwig?

BTW., Don, what do you think about Ludwig being the father of HDL? I
believe you have made re-searches on that topic too, haven't you?

> I don't think tha a cartoon can prove how things are.

Oh. I suppose this also goes for Donald as being Daisy's boyfriend, and
HDL as being Donald's nephews, and Black Pete as being an enemy of MM's?

> That's why I don't think that one cartoon in which Ludwig incidental
> is their father, simply proves that he is also their father in his
> "real" live.

So who is the father of HDL in *their* real lifes? As David mentioned this
is the first cartoon in which Ludwig is used. And I think that since he
first became introduced as the father of HDL, this must be the way it is.
Don't you?

> Also, *if* this cartoon shows how live really is, then it would mean
> that the Duckgirl introduces Donald tho his own *sister* (the
> mother). This makes the Duckgirl being Donald's *niece*. This is
> another reason for me to say that his cartoon is only a roleplay.

Of course it's a roleplay! We already considered that months ago! But
since this *is* Ludwig's debute-cartoon... (well, read the above)

> and the cartoons in which Goofy is a father and even married.

I never thought these cartoons as being roleplays! They're not stated as
that, I believe either. Has anyone else the feeling that these are role-
plays? I think that in a regular Goofy-cartoon Goofy met a nice girl in
the end. Then there where a few more Goofy-cartoons before he "got
married" with this girl. And then they had a kid called "Junior". Nowadays
Goofy is divorced and his kid is called Max (in the Goof Troop-programs).
I think this makes the cartoons you mention as not-being roleplays. Then
there still is some Goofy-cartoons in which he is a car-driver, a smoker,
and so on. But I think these are meant as the humans "Goofiest
experiences". Not as roleplays. We all know how Goofy is.

Thanks for telling me what de-flowering means.

> So Jakob, happy? ;-)

Neigh. I think I'm gonna buy myself an Oxford-dictionary up-to-date so I
can tell you what the words mean nowadays. 1974 seems kinda stone-aged
to me. ( ;-) )

> Is Ludwig HDL's father? #2 (David & Jakob)
> ============================================

I'm a bit startled what's wrong with David answering this himself.

> Second, Barks probably wasn't even thinking of this cartoon while
> making his "baywatch" story. Maybe he even wasn't aware of this
> cartoon at all.

He wasn't. The cartoon was made about 10 years after that comic. But maybe
this comic served as the "this has happened before, to be continued"-
story?

> So, what's the sense of combining this cartoon with this story?

I did that because I don't think that the gal' in "Donald's Diary" is
*not* Daisy, but some other person, to prove that it doesn't have to be
his sister Donald is going to marry in that cartoon.

>> Ludwig von Drake *is* the father of HDL!

Er.. I might have over-reacted here. We're still not sure, are we?

>> Do you have any objection to this now? Does *anybody* have an
>> objection to this now?
>
> Well, at least *I'm* objecting. ;-)

Oh, but of course you are! You *always* object to what *I'm* saying. ;-)

> At the moment Danny isn't a member of our club anymore. :-(

He isn't??! Skee-reech! Yeaooh! Poor us! Yeeeaw! Alas, alas! :-(
I should've guessed it. He doesn't like us anymore. :-(

>> The CD consist of an interview between Carl Barks and Donald Duck
>> (Clarence Nash and Tony Anselmo).
>
> Clarence Nash?

Aye. Clarence 'Ducky* Nash.

> As far as I know this man is *dead*

Aye. Alas. What's yer point?

> I've heard that he died somewhere in the late '80s.

He did. Alas.

> How can his voice being included on the CD? The only possibilities
> are that the CD is recorded before he died, or that they used his
> voice from archives (which I don't think).

I believe it *is* taken from archives. The interview itself is between
Carl and Tony. But sometimes you can hear a different Duck-voice answer
the questions. A Duck-voice that is more like the one from the old
cartoons. The voice of Clarence Nash. Maybe they wanted to have an
interview between Carl and Donald with Nash as Donald? And later on they
added that '60th birthday...' and the voice of Anselmo? But it's Nash's
voice alright. It's even mentioned somewhere in the booklet that follows
the CD.

> How much "cents" does this book cost?

I think I payed about 45 bucks for it. Here in Sweden.

> Was it a limited edition?

Well, I guess so. There was two editions of it, one deluxe edition that
included the CD, and one regular.

> Is Carl Barks telling some new facts on it, or is it just a funny
> "radio play"?

Carl Barks is "just" telling us that "as we know I and Donald worked
together at the Disney-studios for many years" and so on. And he told
Donald to meet him by the fire in his livingroom. And Donald comes with
all his friends and is to put the fire out. With water and everything. And
Donald says that Donald had learned how to control his temper. And Carl
tries to make him frustrated with a lotta stuff, but nothing happens. But
of course Donald gets upset in the end. It's, as you say, a funny radio-
play.

> Can you also tell me more about the book?

Er.. wel.. yes, I suppose so. But I believe somone already did. It's a
book written on the 40s about Donald, his birth, growing up and how he
became as he is now. I guess that both Strobl and Rota took ideas from
this book to their "Life of Donald"-stories. I haven't compared them yet,
but some scenes are very much alike.

>> Set X??!
> Maybe set "X" sounds very mysterious, but in fact I meant "set 10".

Oh.

KNUT:

> Hei, hei!

Hejsan, Knutte!

> Thanks for the info on the box-set...

Yeah, any time...

> and sometimes Don's stories printed in one issue. Those will normally
> have a cover by Don himself.

Like the first two Lo$-chapters you had published together? I still miss
that one in my collection... since it haven't been published in Sweden
yet, I mean.

> and I think also the one with that cabbage-prof. and the BBs.

Do you mean "Cash Flow"? Are you saying that Norway published CASH FLOW??!
That's bad. Why doesn't Sweden publish such great stories?! I'm jealous...

> I reread "TtX" and "SotS" yesterday. IS there any D.U.C.K in the
> "SotS" or hadn't he started with that yet?

Oh yes, he started with that at once. In the Swedish version if "SotS"
there is a very clear, white D.U.C.K in the last pannel, instead of
"The End". But I think that Sweden are unique at that point (and also the
only time when we're unique) that we published Don's absolutely original
version of "SotS", not even Gladstone did!

>> Why's that? I don't think that was a spoiler!
>
> Well, I mean, you discussed a story most of the people on the list
> haven't had a chance to see yet.

So? When the same guys discuss Rosa-stories *they* just read *I* won't
read it until about 2 months after that! Sweet revenge... ;-)

>> What is "Citizen Kane"?
>
> A movie considered to be one of the best ever made (depending whom
> you ask, of course, but I mean among people who study movies like we
> study comics :-).

Suddenly I feel like I've got the brain of a shrimp! I asked my father
about it and he said the same thing! I'm so ashamed! I'll go to my local
video.store this week and hire it. Then I can tell you *my* opinions about
it. Er.. maybe not. This is a *Disney-comics* mailing-list, right?

DON:

> As we've said here, that WALT DISNEY GIANT #1 cover wasn't printed
> just as we'd hoped, but may yet still be shown as intended on some
> album next year.

Yeah, let's hope so.

> Yesm it was based on the cover for my "Last Sled to Dawson" story on
> UNCLE $CROOGE ADVENTURES #5 from 1988, and the reason I was anxious
> to try the cover again was the fact that even back then it hadn't
> come close to the way I'd intended (notice, for one thing, that there
> was no Northern Lights in the first version, though it had been on my
> artwork).

Yes, but wasn't that just because they should fill in the "Uncle $crooge
Adventures"-logo? The Northern Lights wouldn't make much sense then...
On the other hand yer original drawing was published in the letter-column
of the same issue.

> The Northern Lights and stary sky was done BEAUTIFULLY by Susan
> Daigle-Leach on the new version, but there were some unplanned
> obstructions like the indicia box, and the midnight sun was still
> behind the figures as I'd planned.

Yes, it looks very beautiful. But the "glossy" version I have doesn't look
the same as that published version we're discussing. I saw that recently.
Among other things you can see the hair-clasp of Glittering Goldie's isn't
the same. Now, since you've made *two* almost looking the same covers for
that issue you wouldn't mind selling me one of them for 200 bucks, would
ya? ;-)

> Anyway, it wasn't a matter of enlarging the figure on the old cover,
> if you imply doing it by some mechanical means.

No, I didn't mean that. But I thought that you looked at the U$A-cover and
then drew the same $crooge, just bigger. That's what I meant. You didn't
work from memory, did ya?

> I simply redrew that $crooge pose -- but you can plainly see hundreds
> of tiny differences that would show that it's not the same drawing,
> right?

Right. Just as I thought then.

> The WD COMICS IN COLOR albums #1-7 that I did covers for cost $20
> each!

So they do.

> They were simply rebound issues of those earlier Gladstone albums. At
> $20 they would be a bargain buy of the 3 or 4 albums inside... but if
> you already had the original albums, DON'T waste $20 each just to get
> my covers!

Sorry, but I haven't got those albums. They seem to be very rare nowadays.
But if you think I *won't* buy those WDCiC-albums although I would have
had those earlier Gladstone-issues, you don't know *me*! My, there are
*Rosa*-covers on them, didn't you know??! ;-)

> One or two of those covers weren't so bad, but most of them were
> pretty awful, if not downright CREEPY looking!

Another reason for me to buy them when I see them. *Rosa*-covers looking
*bad*!! There's very few of those, I must agree... I *must* have them!

> And even the good'ns sure aren't worth $20! But I don't think you'll
> find them anywhere, they didn't sell to well, so I hope your money is
> safe.

No they're not! If they didn't sell too well they will become even more
rare in the future! Just look at those old Barks Giveaways...
If I don't get those albums *now* I'll have to pay at least $5000 for them
in about 40 years! Aaaargh!

> That quote you (Knut) used... what brought that up?

It wasn't Knut, it was *me* using that quote. I like it, and so I used it
here as my signature. *You* could have much use of a good signature too,
Don! Chose an old Barks-quote and make it to yer signature...

> But I think I used that line in the 1987 "Return to Plain Awful".

Is "RtPA" from 1987?! Eek! I thought it was from the beginning of the 90s!
Can you (or somebody else) tell me the chronological order of your (Don's)
stories untill 1990, BTW.?

DAVID:

OK, maybe that *is* Daisy, I just tried to point out that there *is* a lot
of such stuff where you cannot be sure who is the other. As with our
friend Ludwig von Drake here.

> Barks' statement that his use of her in 1940 (first in an unproduced
> desert prospector cartoon with Gus Goose, then in "Mr. Duck Steps
> Out") was the first is simply wrong.

Er.. does Barks have anything to do with the makings of "Mr. Duck Steps
Out"? I didn't know that. Has he?

A long time ago in a
digest far far away you wrote:

> I haven't heard from you since I got to Massachussetts, and since my
> other E-mails from you are back in California, I don't have your
> E-mail address available. Haven't you got mine from the digests?

Yes, I have. And I have also sent you a whole bunch of letters to yer
William's-account asking a lot of important stuff. Why haven't you
answered those? My address was in them! Maybe you don't have time to read
more than the digests?

> I'm wondering what's happened with our project...

What has happened so far is that I've almost finished the pencils (I only
have 2 pannels left to draw!). I've asked you for ideas and explanations
for those, but you haven't asnwered... But please do that now when you've
got my E-mail address again. Send me a private message so we can talk
business...

GEIR:

> All the the norvegian Rosa covers have been published in the U.S.
> exept: the "from Duckburc to Lillehammer" and the "treasure of
> Croesus" cover. I think that DD&co #42 (the "extra-issue") whith
> "the lost charts of Colombus" story will have a Rosa cover. I THINK
> this cover is drawn for the norvegian issue.

Do you think you can get me those "LCoC" and "ToC"-issues?

> Perhaps Don or Erik Hoerte can give an answer.

Well, Don and/ or Erik, what's *yer* respond to this?

HARRY:

> Jakob So/=derbaum is talking in riddles:

Oh, sorry. Do you want to have a translation of the phrase or just my
apologies?

> My point was, that Ludwig Von Drake can't possibly be HDL's father,
> because they call him "uncle".

I can see yer point. But I don't think that's a heavy evidence. Who do
*you* think is the father of HDL then? Do you have any better idea than
Ludwig?

> But there is no usual name for "granmother's brother". At least not
> in English or Dutch. Maybe in Swedish? "farmorbror" or so?

Nope. But $crooge usually call HDL his "brorsoner", nephews, too. What's
yer explanation of *that*?

> Thanks for the translation. But this article didn't contain anything
> we did not already know.

Well, at least Daniel didn't know about it. And I translated the article
for his sake. He wanted to know. Maybe I shouldn't have done that?

>> And I can also tell you, Daniel, that Jippes IS to re-ink every
>> single one of those Junior Woodchucks-stories!
>
> Now where did you get that information?

I read it some while ago in some Swedish fanzine. Maybe it was "Bild &
Bubbla".

Good bye for this time! See ya again in some while!
---

Jack Soderbaum
-------------------------------------------------------
"I have only one soda left, senor... But I think it has
been FLAT since the Great War!
Ever since World War TWO?!
CARAMBA! There was ANOTHER one?"
-------------------------------------------------------

DON-807:

>I think that's enough... after all, I see my 3-parters as ONE-parters that
>have been torn into three sections, but will someday be printed as they
were
>intended... that's why I do extra art for them to help them "heal" their
wounds.

In Italian Disney comics, stories that are longer than about 30 pages are
practically always split into sections. Authors know this and tend to end a
section on a suspence situation, with a small text block saying things to
the effect of "What's going to happen now? You'll know in seven days!".
These stories are later reprinted in the CWD (Classici di Walt Disney) and
similar series, which we mentioned recently. When they are reprinted, this
text block is edited so as to smooth out the transition ("What's going to
happen now? Turn the page to find out!") and the splash panel of the next
page is removed. But there are worse cases. Sometimes they act even more
drastically, especially when the second section starts with a splash panel
of less than one page: they then cut out the last panels of the first
section and the first ones of the next, joining them with some Perego-style
connection that pretends to restore the missing bits. I hate this! I wish
they'd reprint stories faithfully. Is it really that bad to have another
title panel in the middle of a story? I would actually LIKE to see the
second installment's opening panel, with its new title and its tiny summary
of the previous section, highlighting what the author(s) thought were the
crucial points of the story so far. (This is, of course, assuming that the
story was CONCEIVED around its two-section structure. It's like saying that
I want to read Gottfredson's stories in 1x4 strip form, and not in
reformatted 3x2 or 4x2 album format. Because the authors KNEW that there
would be a break after every strip, and they conceived the strips on a
rythm that takes advantage of this, with a "punch line" or a suspence
ending or a gag at the end of every strip.) But I guess I am (we are) in a
minority here, and editors are driven by their target population of
hundreds of thousands of "kids". Poor "kids": why should we assume by
default that they would not like their comics to be given proper
philological treatment? OK, they may be too young to know better, but why
should they be annoyed by faithful and accurate reprints?

In your case, Don, from what you say the thing seems to go the other way
round: the story as you'd like to produce it is a very long 40-50 page
adventure, the sort of stuff that in the French and Belgian tradition would
be published in a self-contained album like Asterix; instead, editorial
requirements force you to split it into sections, and you long for the day
when, thanks to another publisher, it will see the light in one long
episode. My comments still apply. What I'd like is to see the story as its
author(s) intended it to be, without bits added or removed to fit in with
the requirements of a different publication than the one it was originally
planned for. What I mean is this: I don't think that asking an author to
produce a story as daily strips, or as installments < 20 pages, or as any
other imaginable BUT WELL-DEFINED format is in any way a limitation; I
liken it to the "constraint" of writing in hendecasyllabic verses, which
does not prevent a poet from producing a masterpiece. Form can stylise
contents without constraining it. What I do object to, however, is CHANGING
that form afterwards in reprints, behind the back of the authors, when the
contents has already been moulded into the originally requested form. This,
I think, is a literary crime. It would be like reprinting that poem using
octosyllabic verses because the new magazine has narrower text columns.

DON-809:

>I don't know if my original script said "man" or "duck", or what the
>official script said... [...] I think it would sound odd to say
>"richest mammal in the world" [...]
^^^^^^
...especially because $crooge wouldn't be in! ;-)

JORGEN-809:

[on Rota stories]
>they have probably been published in Norwegian, Swedish,
>Finnish, Danish, Icelandic, German, and at least some of them in English

Sadly I'm too ignorant to be able to read any of these except English. I'd
like to track down the English editions, but I haven't seen much of a
market in used (or new, for that matter) Disney comics around here so I
don't know how successful I can hope to be. Thanks anyway.

DON-810:

[possibility of Egmont reusing Gladstone's colouring efforts]
>Still no go, because Gladstone has SHRUNK all my word
>balloons as well as colored in sound effects and signage and so forth. If
a
>SINGLE thing needs to be changed on that film, the entire film is useless,

This basically puts the colouring at the same level (of detachment) as the
translation, whereas semantically it would seem to me that it belongs with
the writing and drawing... Technology artifacts getting in the way!

>they do their own coloring? I NEVER interfere in that part of their
>business... I don't see it as my place.

I disagree here: you're the author of the story, the final outcome makes
your work look better or worse, you SHOULD have your say, and advise the
colourist as to what effect you intend to achieve here or there. Of course
I realise that there may be etiquette rules to follow, and also that you
may just not share my opinion.

> To make a photostat of a comic, all you need to do is lay it open
on
>the machine doohickey. Gravity holds it down. It would seem unlikely that
an
>old comic would have so much "body" left that the spine would refuse to
open
>nice and smoothly, but I guess a piece of glass could be gently placed
over

You're talking of the US-style comics here. This wouldn't apply to the
Italian ones which have a square back. Try to lay an "old" one flat on a
photocopier and you'll see the owner's face go funny colours for fear that
the glued pages might crack!

>the thing, but not so as to crush it. But I was truly curious -- what does
a
>"scanner" do? Do you feed stuff in, or does it work like this photostat
thingie?

I've got a scanner on my desk at work (HP Scanjet 3c for anyone who's
interested in these things). It works like a photocopier, except slower and
with a LOT more controls on exposure, resolution and so on. Put the
document on the glass window, reasonably flat, and go ahead. You may take
the lid of the scanner off (you couldn't with the previous one I had, the
Scanjet IIcx) if you have to scan in things from a book, which I did to get
high quality, high resolution bitmaps of Carl Barks's oil paintings for the
desktop of my workstations. So no problem here (it's just that it's boring
to scan pages in individually, what with precise alignment, having to enter
file names and all that stuff; it's nowhere near as fast as "photocopying
into the computer"; but it gives pretty good results). But I understand
that, though the scanner I have is rather good in its class, it's not the
same sort of equipment as that which is used in the typography business
("drum" scanners and the like). I was told (by the art director of the Carl
Barks oils book, btw) that to use such scanners you have to cut the pages
off the original book. I've never seen a drum scanner myself, except in a
DTP book, and I don't know how much better they are with respect to the
desktop scanners like the one I have. I suspect that they're still a step
ahead but the desktop ones are catching up fast, especially as they move in
the office/consumer market and so they start selling in large volumes.

> You drastically misunderstand Gladstone's situation as regards the
>hardback CBL. When that license expired, they had to stop producing new
>volumes, stop selling any old volumes, and (I'm told) destroy all unsold
>volumes. This is not something you should hold against them in the least.

Thanks for explaining things that I was not aware of. My misunderstanding,
and mistaken assumption that Gladstone was doing this because they liked it
that way, came from an extrapolation of the following facts: (1) that I was
offered the CBL at three times its RRP only a few years after their own
advert offered it at <$1000; (2) that in the same mail I received a
catalogue of "collector's" comics at several hundred $ a piece; (3) that
they generally seem to like to fan and exploit this collecting crazy e.g.
by giving out trading cards (sic!) with their albums. I didn't know about
this licencing business. Well, I guess I should feel a bit less ripped off
now...
In all fairness I retract what I said and after all I'm glad of this
rehabiliation of Gladstone because they do produce good comics and it's a
good thing that they exist.

DAVID-810:

> The FORBIDDEN PLANET in Edinburgh refused to order Gladstones
>for me, too. They said they legally weren't allowed to order them,
>because Fleetway's license covers direct sales in Britain, too.

Ok, so why can't I buy these Gladstones from Fleetway, whoever they are?
:-) Or are you maybe saying that Fleetway are _publishers_ who've secured a
no-competition licence which ensures that no one else other than them will
sell Disney comics in this country (even if they don't take much advantage
of this state of affairs)?

> When the hardback CBL first went out of print, it was because
>in 1990 Disney decided that the banned Barks stories should not even
>be reprinted with changes, and that the CBL was thus dangerous for
>young minds... so it had to go.
> Later Gladstone convinced them to turn-around, but figured
>that if they printed the whole works in a NEW format, they could then
>sell it to a lot of people who already had the bw CBL, too.

Aha! So it's still Gladstone's fault after all, at least in part... They
could have reprinted the CBL but didn't. I wouldn't complain as much if
they included all the critical essays from the bw CBL, but the leaflet I
got said they were only putting in a bit of it, so the colour CBL, when
it's finished, still won't contain all the material in the original CBL.

JORGEN-810:

[celebration issue]
>- Donald Duck (should have been Scrooge McDuck, IMHO),
>I/AT 9/58, 25 pages. Romano Scarpa.
> A really good story dealing with Scrooge's personality.

That story is "Paperino e la fondazione De'Paperoni", which was published
by Gladstone as "Uncle Scrooge (in) The McDuck Foundation" in U$ 241, Feb
1990, with a dedicated front cover drawn by Scarpa for Gladstone.
(NB: This story belongs to Scarpa's "Ancient" period, great plots but
"harsh" art, according to the classification I gave in digest 775.)

DWIGHT-810:

>I've done six languages: German, Dutch, French, Danish, Swedish, and
>Italian into English. It's amazing what you can do with a dictionary...
>(fortunately, Disney comics aren't exactly rocket science).

I disagree entirely! It's a lot harder to properly translate a comic story
than a newspaper, a technical article or a random bit of prose. Comics are
full of puns and gags based on linguistics (though this is not the
specialty of DISNEY comics-- Achille Talon or Asterix would be better
examples) but also on national traditions, current events and so on, which
would be just lost if the translator were not aware of the customs,
traditions etc of the country of origin. I'm thinking for example of some
Italian stories from the 70's and 80's which poked fun at popular TV
presenters and celebrities. So I think that, if you rate yourself as a good
translator, you're being way too modest with respect to your work when you
say that most of it comes out of the dictionary...

TOMMY-810-811-etc:

I liked your paper. Well done to your teacher for the open-mindedness of
giving students the freedom to choose such a subject, and to you for taking
up the challenge so well! I found the essay interesting, well researched
(except perhaps for a Magica de Spell from Crete... :-) ) and entertaining.
What did your fellow students say?

TODD-814:

Interesting stuff about lettering (don't call it boring!) Question: why
would a good calligrapher want to use computer lettering? Maybe to make it
easier to perform corrections? Or because it's much faster? I thought the
letterer would tend to prefer hand lettering every time, as the only true
way of making a genuine, inimitable work.

ARTHUR-815:

> Does anyone know, if there are MORE movies that contain scenes,
>being based on Disney-comic-stories?

Well, I have seen several quotes to the effect that Steven Spielberg was
inspired by the idol-triggered trap in "The Seven Cities of Cibola" for the
corresponding Indiana Jones scene.

EGIL-817:

[your booklet]
>I don=B4t have the book here, but I can translate some of it
>on the list if there are others interested.

Please do (unless you've already done it in one of the successive digests
that I still have to browse through...)

DANIEL-818:

>Of course there are some very interesting post-Barks Magica-stories,
>I think that Don's "On a Silver Platter" is a good example, and also a
>long (Rota?) story which was called "The Money Sea" in it's Dutch
>publication (KJUO43/I-A-215).

That wonderful story ("Zio Paperone e il deposito oceanico") was one of the
few written by Gaudenzio Capelli, the recently retired director of the
Italian line of Disney comics. The art is Marco Rota's, as you rightly say.
I remember that comic very well (it had a blue cover by Rota depicting the
story, with the ducks in the middle of a money-sea storm) because when I
received it (1974) I was ill in bed with one of these infantile diseases,
probably chickenpox; so was my little sister, too. I was amazed at the idea
that Scrooge had so much money that he actually had A NUMBER of money bins!
And that to put all that money in one single bin would have forced him to
build one so big as to have a horizon! That sense of immensity (as in the
opening chapter of Asimov's "Foundation", where the spaceport was so big
that clouds formed inside the building) and of "breaking the rules"
(because I was sure that "in reality" Scrooge only had one comparatively
small money bin), together with the beautiful art, always made that story
special for me.

DON-820:

[the colour of money]
> Yes, in Holland and ALL through Europe they have always colored
the
>coins in $crooge's Bin to be all GOLD. I think I've often pointed out that
>this (to me) is a major misinterpretation of what's in the Money Bin. The
>Bin is supposed to be full of common pocket-change... pennies and nickels
[...]
>I don't want to muck with peoples' traditions. (But still, those coins
AREN'T
>gold!)

Having been brought up on European comics (or American stories recoloured
in Europe) I can tell you what my model of the world was: the explanation
was that money is like that (gold for coins and green for banknotes) IN
DUCKBURG, even if in "real life" things are different. I had never seen
gold coins in my life, nor green banknotes for that matter, but it was ok
for me to assume that that was what they looked like in Duckburg. Of course
your perspective is different because you've known what real US money looks
like even for longer than you've known Disney comics! But having all these
coins pictured as gold fits in very well with Scrooge's almost physical
lust for gold itself, even besides its monetary value.

I was trying to quote a few stories where Scrooge's lust for gold as gold
itself is dominant, but most of those I thought of were Italian, so they
could not be used as an argument in this discussion. I'm sure there must be
some Barks ones, but they don't come to mind right now. It'd be interesting
to see any first printings of comic books from Barks's times. What colour
were the coins then?

Anyway, rationally, I have to agree with you -- most of them have to be
common coins, and because they're (fractions of) dollars, they ought to
look like the real thing.

WILMER-820:

[Europe colours coins in gold]
>Do they make any effort, in any published editorial or letter column,
>to reconcile this coloring scheme with Barks's paintings of the money
>bin, which clearly show that this is wrong?

Oh-ho! That's an interesting observation! I hadn't thought of the PAINTINGS
while replying to Don. But it looks to me that your argument is
self-defeating: if I look at the Barks oils, ALL those that show coins have
gold as their dominant colour; some have gold coins only, most have a
majority of gold coins with some silver coins, and none (of those that are
printed in my book) have silver coins only. Maybe we should ask Carl too?
Probably gold symbolises wealth much better than silver, let alone other
token substitutes... "Lake of Gold" sounds good, "Lake of Nickel" surely
wouldn't have the same appeal.

The following research was performed on an Italian 2-volume edition of the
Barks oils that reproduces 94 paintings of the 122 the master made. I have
omitted "repeat" paintings and paintings with no coins.

Legend:
GGG = all coins are gold
GGS = most coins are gold, some silver
SSS = all coins are silver (never happens)

1971 Money Lake GGS
1971 Blue Composition of Ducks GGS
1972 Pleasure in the Treasure GGS, almost GGG
1972 Money Bin Memories GGS
1973 Secret Safe GGS, almost GGG
1973 What's In There? GGS, almost GGG
1973 Menace Out of the Myths GGG
1973 Visitor From Underground GGS, almost GGG
1973 Time Out For Fun GGS
1973 Much Ado About a Dime GGS
1973 Time Out For Therapy GGS
1973 This Dollar Saved My Life at Whitehorse GGS
1973 Spoiling the concert GGS, almost GGG
1974 Sport of Tycoons GGS, almost GGG
1974 Danger, Tycoon at Play GGS, almost GGG
1974 A Binful of Fun GGS
1975 Miser's Hangup GGG
1975 Time Wasters GGS
1975 Hands Off My Playthings GGS
1975 Lake of Gold GGS
1976 Business As Usual GGS, almost GGG

HARRY-820:

Thanks a lot for your Dutch author "guide"; I saved it in a separate file
so that I can easily refer to it later. As you may see I'm a bit behind on
Disney-list stuff (catching up with 3 weeks worth of messages in one go) so
I haven't tried your database yet... shame on me! BTW, I'll have to get
back to you on that subject at some point.

DON-822:

>I see Duck-time as being frozen
>somewhere back in the 50s, otherwise all the Duckburg characters would be
>old and gray (or dead). And I like seeing Duckburg as the same town in the

There is one thing that is peculiar in your model of the world, which is
that you make comics characters grow OLD! This is normal for real people,
but is rather exceptional for comics characters -- Huey, Dewey and Louie
should be out of school by now otherwise. So it must be noted that your
"Life of $crooge" series is attractive and striking not only because of the
interesting storytelling and the almost hypertextual cross-references which
are a delight for connoisseurs, but also because it violates -- no, this
sounds negative; I shall instead say "transcends" -- this basic paradigm of
(Disney and other non-realistic) comics that puts characters in a special
temporal dimension where they never age. They may have memory of past
events, if the events were memorable (these are then the internal
references where a story recalls an earlier one), but the characters don't
grow older for that. And I think you still hold to this paradigm in your
non-Lo$ stories, only to take the liberty to transcend it in your
masterpiece.

There are several such untold paradigms in our comic world, and most of the
time we don't notice them; one has been mentioned recently, the paradox of
nakedness; another one might be the fact that HDL look like three ducks but
are in fact A SINGLE CHARACTER, and so are the Beagle Boys etc.; and in
fact another striking story was one where one of the nephews (which one?
does it make sense to ask?) acted differently from the others, namely by
falling in love (TL 1688, "Qui Quo Qua e il tempo delle mele", art by
Massimo De Vita). But once in a while, in a great story like your Lo$, the
author can afford to be daring and break one of the paradigms; and this
makes the reader realise, even if subliminally, that "something special" is
happening.

LASSE-826:

[auto-unsubscribing]
> I also suggest a restriction on the word '*ncle':)

I didn't get that joke -- can you explain it to me please?

Thanks for rating me a "man with the right stuff", but I'm no Englishman--
instead, I'm Italian (which *perhaps* explains why my Disney knowledge
concentrates on Italian comics). I'm glad you liked my Scarpa periods
guide. I too would like to see it on the Web, where it belongs, together
with lots more stuff I always plan to write. Promises, promises... Let's
catch up with this list in the meantime!

> My least popular of the pre-1960's Italian artists must be Giorgio
>Bordini, Giancarlo Gatti and Giulio Chierchini. And that's not even

I agree with the negative judgment on Gatti, though he's hardly a pre-1960:
his first Disney story, "Zio Paperone e il miliardario in quarantena", is
from 1973 (TL 897). I disagree with the other two judgments-- Bordini in
particular is an artist I like a lot! Perhaps I should back this statement
with a few good stories: the one with "Spack Doblon", for example, the
pirate who breaks gold coins in two with his sword; or the one with the
"trombe di Eustachio" (Eustachian tubes, but also trumpets).

Which reminds me: there is much talk of artists, because they're easier to
recognise. One of the things I'd like to do as a follow-up to the Scarpa
periods thing is something to do with the lesser-known Italian WRITERS
which I think deserve some credit, in particular my heroes Rodolfo Cimino
and Giorgio Pezzin.

>mentioning Luciano Capitanio, Pier Lorenzo de Vita and Guiseppe Perego.

I too don't like Capitanio very much: too angular and without proportions.
I've given my opinion on PL de Vita and Perego before.

> Favorites are Luciano Gatto and, it goes without saying, Romano Scarpa.

Gatto IMHO had its best period in the 60's and early 70's. Those old
stories of him I like very very much. His later ones, instead, including
the contemporary ones, don't excite me as much.

I'm amazed you don't mention Cavazzano, in many ways the most innovative of
the Italian Disney artists. Of course, this may be because he isn't a
pre-1960. BTW, now that I think of it (and recheck), not even Bordini is a
pre-1960: his first story (which I don't have) appears to be one of 1963.
Maybe you meant pre-1970?

>I recall that the Norwegian Donaldists lumped all
>Italian stories into a category named "brutalism" (examplified by the one
>and only Guiseppe Perego), but had 4 or 5 periods in Barks' career.

It is wise of you to recognise this. As we said on several occasions, it's
a case of "everything you don't know looks the same to you".

> Modern Italian Disney is often:
> a) socio-realistic (somewhat italocentric)
I can see which sort of stories you refer to here.

> b) space-opera (*VERY* unscientific)
What are those? Do you think this is a complete genre? Can you give me a
few examples?

> c) time-travel (MM and prof. Einmug)
In fact this is not prof Einmug but two new scientists, whose original
names are Zapotec and Marlin. Originally created by Giorgio Pezzin (1986)
(actually Zapotec was created earlier, but it's only in 1986 that the time
machine makes its appearance, in "Topolino e gli enigmi del tempo" TL 1576)
with art by the great Massimo De Vita, they've started a stream of stories
to which many other authors have subsequently contributed.

> d) ethnographical (Wild West, Backwardistan)
What's this one? Maybe the "Indiana Pipps" saga?

> e) parodic (world litterature classics)
This is a "house specialty", but I don't like them too much. Pier Lorenzo
De Vita and Luciano Bottaro used to draw many of these and Guido Martina,
with his solid classical culture (he was a professor of literature after
all) had a virtual monopoly on the scripts. They're now reprinting them in
album form, with new colouring. The albums were sort of ok a couple of
years ago, although I've always objected to the "reformatting" and the
editings of the dialogs, but now they're DRAMATICALLY overpriced at 15000
Lit per story (used to be around 5000 until last year). The only change is
a hard cover, which hardly justifies this price rise. Maybe it's one of
these "let's go for the collector market" evil plots again? Or am I too
paranoid?

I think that, without attempting to be exhaustive, there are a few other
"streams" worth mentioning:

* treasure-quest adventures by U$ with nephews using strange machines
(classical Cimino stuff, some of my preferred stories here)

* detective stories with Mickey, Goofy and O'Hara

* Beagle Boys attacks to the Money Bin

* Fantasy
This was started by a wonderful trilogy (Trilogia della spada di
ghiaccio) by Massimo De Vita in the 80s
and later became inflation-ridden with inferior stories by
others like Ubezio.

What definitely seems to be missing from the Italian palette of stories is
(among other things) the sort of Barksian short stories where Donald has
new and creative occupations like barber, wrecker, glass surgeon etc. The
Italian Donald is lazy and his main occupation is sleeping. I think this
characterisation comes mostly from the late Guido Martina, "father of all
Italian scripts" (he authored some 1200 stories if I remember right).

AUGIE-827:

Didn't see the show (I don't get Italian TV and even if I did I don't watch
TV anyway, just buffer films up with the VCR from time to time, so I would
have missed it) but at least I can confirm that birthday is "compleanno".

JAMES-827:

>Question: Can someone help me identify this Mickey Mouse story, and in
>which comic it last appeared. It looked like it was written in the
>thirties or forties. The artwork appeared gothic, and it dealt with a
>mystery girl who turned out to be evil, and was also immortal. The story
>closed with a house in flames, and the girl in it.

The "frightening" story you mention (sometimes referred to as "The House of
Mystery") is a series of daily strips that originally ran from 13 NOV 1944
to 27 JAN 1945. Script by Bill Walsh, pencils by Floyd Gottfredson and Dick
Moores, inks by Dick Moores and Paul Murry. Unfortunately I don't have any
info on subsequent US reprints, but I hope that this info may help you
track it down.

DON-828:

>How utterly strange to live in a country where these comics are so
>totally ignored, and visit countries where the same characters are
national
>heroes!!!

How utterly disappointing to live in a country (UK) where these comics are
not only ignored, they're not even SOLD, whereas in my own country they've
now got so many comics conventions and stuff that people like Don go there
on purpose! Sigh...

MARCO-828:

[Italian press and media on Don]
Could you post some of these articles to the list? I've got an OCR if
anyone cares to send me a readable photocopy. Could we have them on a web
site -- maybe Gianfranco's? Maybe Leonardo could even send in his interview
directly in digital form? Since we're all here...

Frank (Filologo Disneyano)