Keskustelujen arkisto

KATHY:

I don't know if someone was having trouble finding the "D.U.C.K." in
the first panel of "The Treasury of Creosus", but it's there. However, DON'T
try to find it in the splash panels of parts 2 & 3. It AIN'T there. As for
the COVER on WDC&S #602, that's a reprint of a European cover... and I can't
recall if the dedication is on there or not. I'll need to look for myself
when that issue appears.

Mike Pohjola asked how often the digests are sent out nowadays.
There are two criteria. Whenever there's material that's older than
24 hours it's time to send out a new digest. Also the digests won't
be bigger than 32 Kbytes, so when you all have written a lot the
digests will come more frequently.

(Note that messages can be older than the 24 hours I mentioned, as the
list managing software isn't active when it hasn't anything to do, and
thus won't notice that it's time for a new digest. Just in case it is
alerted once a day even if there are no new messages, so there
eventually will be a digest with the last couple of messages even when
traffic dies off or some time.)

If anyone thinks that any of the values "24 hours" and "32 Kbytes"
should be changed, just tell me (and why). In particular I chose the
maximum size very arbitrarily, and if some of you have mail software that
has problems with messages larger than a particular size I'd like to
hear that.
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: (Email removed)
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"

I didn't know which attachment went to which subject, so this reply
will not have the original text.

Originally, someone asked about a character named Wing Ding who talked in
symbols (?), and if there was a connection to a Microsoft font titled Wing
Ding.

Well, in printing parlance, dingbats are symbols used either to identify
text (pointing finger, bullet), or to separate text blocks (curlicues).
Dingbats are usually sold as a seperate typeface, and to my knowledge,
there are no Sans Serif Dingbats, or Times Dingbat fonts. When I used
Microsoft Word for Macintosh, there was a font titled Zapf Dingbat, which
meant that it was a dingbat typeface created by the Zapf Corporation (and
possibly by Mr. Zapf as well).

I do not have the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition handy, or else I
would post an etymology about the word "dingbat".

I prefer Bembo Roman or Bookman.

Torsten Adair (Email removed) Omaha, NE, USA

Per, what happens to mail that gets sent to the old digest address?

I don't know, but I don't think that Gladstone has access to any files
with credits from Western. I think they have to do as the rest of us
have to do -- learn to differentiate between the different artists by
learning to recognizing their styles, and probably by using sources
such as Becattini's Dell Disney index.

At least during its first run Gladstone did a remarkably bad job of
this, often failing to recognize, or even miscrediting, artists whom
it's sort of common knowledge to recognize at least here among people
who care about that sort of stuff.
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: (Email removed)
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"

I bought an issue (#29) of the Dutch Donald Duck magazine last summer. The
middle spread featuted stickers for the Duck Family tree and descriptions
of all the charecters pictured. The strange thing was that even the
characters in the stickers had the same poses as in those pictures drawn by
Don Rosa they weren't the same illustrations! Does anyone know why?

--
Henri Sivonen
(Email removed) WWW:
Fax: +358-0-479387 http://www.clinet.fi/~henris

Jyrki:

"the signed edition had sold surprisingly well -
there were only three copies left. Way to go!"

Does Don or anyone else besides the dealer get revenue for this? This kind
of thing only impresses me when a portion of the proceeds support a
charitable cause.

-- Wes

JYRKI:
That signed, limited-edition leather-bound version of my Finnish
hardback -- yeah, it IS expensive, eh? I never asked them what it would sell
for, and I never found out until I returned home from my visit there, and
someone mentioned it to me in private mail. One of the first 20 was $350...
is that right? And #21-100 were, I forget, $250? Or $150? In American
dollars, of course, and since the dollar is weak, that might not be a full
$350 "equivalent" in Finnish bucks... but it would STILL be a mess o' marks,
and I could see why someone might "cough" at the mention.
Yes, they tell me the book in general has sold quite well, passing
the "million mark" ... mark... very early. Surely Christmas time helped.

MIKE (AND ALL OTHER FINNS):
Back on the subject of Uncle $crooge toys: there have never been
many sold in America... probably less than 10 through all the years prior to
about 10 years ago when the appearance of both MICKEY'S XMAS CAROL and
DUCKTALES put a boost to public awareness of $crooge (even though it was a
bogus $crooge in both cases). But as for toys or items based on the TRUE
Dell $crooge, there were never more than a handful -- but I can now add one
$crooge toy to the American roster. And it's the Finnish bank-giveaway
$crooge-sitting-on-a-chest! I never knew that that item was distributed in
America, but at a big local New Year "flea market" here in Louisville, I
chanced to spot one half-hidden on a dealer table. It was exactly like the
ones I've gotten from Finland... even stamped "made in Finland" on the
bottom... but on the back was a neat painted logo for the "South Carolina
National Bank". So that makes it an official American $crooge item.
Another reason I mention it is that it was in real good shape except
that it's glasses were missing. Would there be any spare pairs of these lil'
glasses in any Finnish collections?

Hi, folks. I'll briefly unlurk to answer some old questions, to do some
advertising and to wish all of you a happy New Year.

Let's start with the questions.

Mikko wrote, some time ago, about Italian comics:

> Ahh! Tex Willer, that is a truly classic western comic-book.
> BTW, I heard that Joe Kubert himself is currently working on Tex
> Willer comic books. I think Tex's circulation is over 600.000 in
> Italy alone (correct me if I'm wrong).

Well, that's almost true. Each month there are a new episode and two
reprints, so that the total is a little more than that. But in these days
the best seller is Dylan Dog (the publisher is the same, Bonelli), with a
total of more than 700.000 for the new episode and the two reprints each
month.
Of course, the winner is Topolino, since it sell around 400.000 each week
(not to mention all the other publications: there is more or less a new
issue of a Disney comics every two days), with some peak of 1 million
during summer, when Topolino is sold together with some gadgets like a
``watch'' or a ``walkie-talkie''.

Frank Staiano (hello, Francesco) asked for some information about Rota's
stories. I'll tell you more in private mail about the Italian editions of
the Danish stories (I know it will be too late to be useful, but...). As
for now, let me say that Gaudenzio Capelli has almost anything to do with
the writing of ``The Money Sea'' (despite what's written in the book
``Disney Italiani''): a complete index of all Marco Rota production
(including the non-Disney stuff) has been compiled by Alberto Becattini. I
gave it to Marco Rota in a recent visit I paid to him in Milan, and he
promised to send me back a revised edition. I hope to post it to Harry for
the database in not so long time... (but you remember that ``readiness'' is
not my first name, Harry, right?).
And about the Perego fillers: it is a pity to see what they have done to
the original art in order to publish these stories in the Classici series.
In a recent convention I saw a guy selling part of the art that was cut out
of Paperino Don Chisciotte (by Martina and Lorenzo De Vita): this guy had
all those panels laid on a table, and was selling them for quite an
expensive ``ransom'' (together with many Cavazzano's, Carpi's and Scarpa's
pages). I myself have the ending page of Paperin Fracassa by Scarpa: the
text in the bottom of the page has been replaced by a new panel, drawn by
Scarpa himself, that I think (I never checked it out) is cut from the
initial page of the second part.

To David (and all the others): I have not seen yet the Colossus of the Nile
(appeared in USA 36). How about the final version? Did Gladstone decide to
publish the full version of it, with the correct splitting?)

Let me say that to have a taste of politically correctness was funny, at
least for me. And about Disney comics written (or drawn) by women: there
are some in Italy, and the percentage is higher than in the mainstream
comics. In particular, I really like Silvia Ziche: her style is
Cavazzano-like, but really nice. A pity that her other jobs (she is a
satirical cartoonist) are better paid. Furthermore, as David remarked some
time ago, most of the editorial board of Topolino is made up of women.
That's terrible: we absolutely should get rid of them... :-)

Torsten wrote:
>Also, I thumb through the French Disney titles looking for Don Rosa
>stories, and I can't help but notice that there seems to be a European
>style for the paperback collections. It is more loose (unconnected art
>lines, more cartoony), and usually uses Fethry (is he the one with the
>sailor's cap?). Is this a house style, and if so, when was it started?

Well, maybe the guy with the sailor's cap is Moby Duck (the one hunting
whales, right?), and in that case most of the stories are from the Studio's
production of the mid-seventies. And about the style: too many different
kind of styles
has been used in Italy in these years. Why not to look at the numbers of
rows per page? Three rows is surely Italian...

Frank Fabian asked for the Becattini Index about the newspaper: the
publisher should have some more copies. I can easily check it, if you like.
Or you can write to Alberto Becattini. Now, let me open the advertising
section. Granata Press, the publisher of ``I Disney Italiani'', closed shop
this year, and they are selling the remaining copies of their volumes for
half price. ``Disney Italiani'' should cost around 10-15 dollars (I do not
remember the correct price): it is written by Boschi-Gori-Sani (with an
index about the authors by Becattini) and it is an almost definitive
history of the Disney school in Italy. Moreover, a month ago Comic Art
published ``Disney nel mondo'' (or something similar), a very good history
of the Disney publications in the whole world, written by Alberto
Becattini. It is a great book, and should cost around 25 dollars.
Unfortunately, both the books are in Italian. But if you are interested,
write me: I can figure out the correct prices (with the mail expenses), and
send them to you. Or try to contact Alberto Becattini (I'll ask him if I
can send his address to the list).

Ok, that's all for now. I hope you do not pay the mail by byte, because I'm
sending you my warmest wishes of a

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Fabio

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End of dcomics Digest V95 Issue #33
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