Keskustelujen arkisto

Daniel:
> It's rather traditional in the Disney-universum that there are no parents.
Wes:
> This is a very interesting observation. Is it accurate?

At least Li'l Bad Wolf and Hiawatha have fathers. And Li'l
Wolf's cousin Izzy has a father (Zeke's brother, whose
English name I don't know - Dutch is Stef).

--Harry.
((Email removed))

Harry:
> I'm sure Daniel was only responding to your request
> "You can comment on them, so I can make them clearer and better."

Yes, I know. Sorry, Daniel. I'll try to be clearer now: Most of the
stuff in the welcome messages is there because I think *some* new
subscribers are helped by it. I realize everyone isn't interested in
everything there, but if I get questions from say twenty people about
something (or have to tell them about it without them asking), then I
think I might as well mention it to everyone on the list when they
join it.

> In fact, I was _missing_ one thing: people should not send binary
> files to the list, since a lot of people cannot decode them.

Hm, maybe that should be mentioned. But every time that has happened
I think it's just been a mistake, so then it wouldn't matter anyway.

> Can you give us any indication how much work you had to put in this list?
> Several hours a day?

I don't know really, but more than an hour a day.

/Per

Hello Don,

Thanks for responding...

> MELANIE:
> I guess it would be me who was supposed to respond to your message
> about Hortense and Matilda. I think I recall seeing that query in some past
> Digest, and if I didn't answer it it could only be that I failed to make a
> note to do so, or I failed to see the note I'd made...

I put the question out in a general way, hoping for several responses
actually. I thought it was of universal interest and I suppose I was
greatly mistaken in that assumption. So it's nobody's fault really except
mine.

or the question was
> asked during one of my recent lengthy absences, which would make it even
> more likely that I'd miss the question while trying to skim through several
> dozen Digests. I sit and write out notes to myself while reading these piles
> of messages, and I'm sure I mess up now and then.

It is a lot of mail to answer, in any case.

> Anyway -- will I ever use Hortense and-slash-or Matilda again? The
> answer to that is... I don't know. I didn't "introduce" these characters
> (who were created, at least in name, by Barks 40+/- years ago) with the
> intention of making them permanent additions to the "modern" era $crooge
> stories. I only needed them for stories of $crooge's early life.

If I said "introduced" then I am wrong and sorry I said it. What I meant
to say is that you gave these previously-referenced personalities a life,
a characterization, something they didn't have before. In that I saw
possibilities for future use and possible new directions for the Duck
"universe." I see now that it was a bit of hubris on my part even to
consider tampering with Duck canon :-(

Obviously,
> they have been gone from Duckburg and $crooge's life for so long that I had
> to make up a hokey reason for them to be staying away, and to bring them
> back would mean wtiting a story that would somehow CHANGE the status-quo of
> the Duck Universe. Some people think I was trying to change the Duck
> Universe with the "Lo$", while I felt certain that I was doing the opposite
> -- showing how the Duck Universe came to be as it is, and furthur
> solidifying it as such by showing all the (possible) history for it being
> that way. But I don't know what I'll decide might be a good idea someday.

To put it very baldly, I loved "Lo$" in large part BECAUSE it so enlarged
and illuminated the Duck Universe, something nobody else had the courage
(or the talent) to do. I jumped ahead a step from that to see more
possibilities, and am somewhat disappointed to discover how rigid the
canon really is.

> If you want stronger female characters in Duck comics, I think there
> are still lotsa possibilities. It would be nice to do a Daisy and Donald
> adventure where Daisy saves the day... but even saying the words "Daisy and
> Donald" makes me think of those decades of Daisy's Diary stories and all
> that junk that would be difficult to get out of my head in order to take
> Daisy seriously as a decent character.

Well, I think Daisy is a waste of time. She is too severely
handicapped as a whining, nagging stereotype, as are so many female
characters of ancient origin. I don't see that Daisy is materially
different in character from say, Minnie Mouse. Barks fell into this trap a
lot. Too often, strong females are depicted as shrieking shrews or galvanized
viragos. That story of the Jr Woodchucks v. the Chickadees building a
bridge comes vividly to mind. I am happy that you took Goldie, who Barks did
make a strong and sympathetic character, and develop her personality more.

The characterizations as well as the art make your stories most memorable.

If I tried to make an interesting
> character out of her, I'd have a voice constantly telling me that this was
> NOT Daisy Duck I was using since it's been established in decades of Gold
> Key comics what a boring character she has been. It would be difficult to
> maintain my interest knowing I was using a character I had no respect for.

And nobody would take her seriously for two seconds, myself included. You
have to use somebody with credibility (like Goldie) who doesn't bring
along all the stereotyped baggage.

> This is somewhat the same as why I will never do a Mickey Mouse story --
> certainly it's a character with vast potential, but I have never been
> inspired to be interested in MM, so I can't find any excitement in me to do
> a MM story.

I asked myself the same question, what is it about Mickey that's hard to
like? Mickey is like Lincoln or Jesus, an icon, a monument. He's just
too good to be true; you can't imagine him overparking a meter, taking
an extra deduction or even leaving the toilet seat up. It's now almost
impossible to peel away the layers of mythology and find the true
personality behind the legend. Characters have to have faults to be real,
and Mickey can't have any now without affecting the stock market or the
Gross Domestic Product. Nothing there to work with.

> What IS a much better possibility is in my future "Lo$" stories. I
> can always do more stories of $crooge and Hortense and Matilda in 1880 or
> 1890 or 1910 or something. There is a slight problem in that I've stated
> that $crooge's sisters never shared his adventures with him, but I could
> wiggle around that.

They could have their own adventures of the past which don't always tie to
$, except peripherally. Or you could do something out-of-continuity, but
Disney might nix that. (Gee, maybe I should write my own Duck stories).

> Another great strong female would be Grandma Duck. I would really
> love to do a "Lo$" story with $crooge meeting Elvira Coot (GD) in the Gay
> 90s. In fact, I have already written a story of GD owning a hashhouse in
> Dawson City when $crooge struck gold, and having her in a barroom brawl with
> Glittering Goldie straight out of "DESTRY RIDES AGAIN". But this was the
> first version of the 8th chapter of the "Lo$" which was rejected by Byron as
> being "not ROUGH enough"... so I can still use that same story for a future
> episode addition. But since GD was a pioneer girl, she would be a GREAT
> female Duck character.

I think so too, and you have less risk of fighting uphill against existing
stereotypes since GD hasn't been used quite as much. There are also still
story possibilities with Goldie, who has more character built-in than the
other female ducks.

> Hortense and Matilda would be a great team in their own stories if
> that were ever possible. Hortense is sortuva combination of $crooge and
> Donald (hot-tempered and tough), and Matilda is sortuva combination of Daisy
> and HDL (sensitive but intelligent).

This is precisely what I saw in their small roles, especially for
Hortense. She does have continuity with $, and could be developed with a
career separate from his. That she shares much personality with him, a
gritty temperamental determination...means that she could be ahead of her
time in breaking domestic stereotypes.

> So... does that answer your question?

Yes, and thanks again for responding. Sorry if the question annoyed you and
everybody else.

Regards,

Melanie

Barry:

| I do not understand why there is so much complaining going on. I
| really like | this group and would be disappointed if it did not exist.
| I do not write messages too often nor have I been on that long, but I
| do not have any problem understanding what is going on.

Melanie:

| That isn't necessarily true for newbies, though. Cut some of us some
| slack, please.

Could someone please tell med what's going on? No, I'm not that gone.
I've read every message to the list the last weeks, but still, what's
going on here (neither do I understand what "cut some slack" means)?

Is there a clique in this group? Well, we do get to know each other
somehow, and knowing each other, we do get an idea about which level
to talk to each other. That doesn't have anything to do with any
secret internal languages. If anyone have problems understanding it --
just ask.

| I don't see why any questions about the comics or about stories should be
| censored in any way. If someone out there has an answer, he/she should be
| free to express it. I doubt that Gladstone is trying to hide anything.

Agree, but I don't really think that's a problem at all (or it wouldn't
be if there didn't exist any stupid journalists). The reason why you
don't get any responses to some letters is simply that people don't
want to waste time or bandwith telling you they don't know the answer, or
aren't interested in the matter. I haven't written a single line in the
discussion about the father of HDL (Huey, Louie and Dewey), f.ex.

| If this group is to grow, to improve, to serve its subscribers, it must
| hear of its problems as well as its strong points. If you don't address
| complaints constructively, you'll lose subscribers. By and large, I've
| received a positive and helpful response to my criticisms about the group.

Er... grow? improve? From what? Into what? Of course we want people
interested in Disney comics on this list. As many as possible. And
if there are problems, we want to hear about it. But, this isn't a
service that anyone is paying for. It would be quite ridiculous if
anyone started to demand answers to their questions. Everyone on this
list are here simply because of their interest in Disney comics.
Some people, like Per and Harry must be especially interested, judging
from the work they put into the list and the database. I can't help
but being really impressed by people who put such an amount of work
into things just of interest for the matter, and for the benefit of
other people.
If the list lose subscribers it's mostly because they aren't interested
enough. Sad, but it's their choice (and as long as the unsubscri_e
(misspelled by purpose ;-) messages don't reach the list, it doesn't
really bother me).

Jorgen

Welcome, Christer!

Good to see another Norwegian on the list :-)

There is no easy way to find out who has made the stories. At least
I haven't found any. The best way, IMHO, is to examine stories, to
learn to be able to see the differences in the style, and then try
to find out who made one of them. You can usually be quite sure that
this person also drew the other stories with the same style.

Since you mostly read new Norwegian Disney comics, you'll probably
find that some artists are more frequent than others, and there-
fore easier to recognize. If you have read any of my reviews, which
I hope I'll soon get time to write again, you might have gotten some
ideas. If I recognize, or think that I recognize, the artist, I
usually include that information.

As I said, the best, and probably the only, way to learn to recognize
an artist, is to read stories drawn by that artist. With Barks that
should be quite easy. His stories are easy to find, and you are usually
told that they are done by the master.

Vicar is also easy to recognize, mostly because he's the most frequent
of the "Danish" Duck artists. His stories are usually put first in the
weeklies. I think there is a Vicar story first in the latest one.

Strobl isn't seen very often nowadays, but he has drawn _a_lot_ of
stories, so he's not difficult to find. Gladstone quite often publish
one-pagers drawn by him. Strobl's style is usually very clean.

Rota is IMHO one of the best Disney artists ever. Maybe _the_ best.
You might remember the eggshell story which was made to Donald's
50th anniversary, and the first part of the time machine story. They
were both drawn by Marco Rota.

Well, that were the ones you mentioned. I could also add that some
artists have "pupils" who are trying to copy their style. This can
make some artists difficult to recognize. In two recent DD&Cos there
are lead stories drawn by someone who obviously likes Vicar's style,
but its not Vicar.

Not a very informative answer maybe. If you have any questions, which
I'm sure you have, just ask!

Jorgen

HARRY:
> I was talking about comics in general, not just YOUR comic stories.
> It is rare in comics to have two versions like that, and VERY rare in
> Disney comics. Your stories are the only ones I know of.

The Dutch story, "Diamond of Duncan McDuck", that appeared in Uncle Scrooge
Adventures #36, was printed in two parts in the Dutch Donald Duck weekly.
In the Gladstone-version they removed the first panel of the second part
of the Dutch version (where a short explanation of what happened in the
first part is summed) and made an all-new panel. So that story now has
two versions. :)
___
C:\>aR|HUr

Hello Daniel,

> MELANIE (about Hortensia and Matilda):
>

> > Nothing is "not possible" if you use your imagination (Rosa
> > obviously has). Your stereotyped ideas about female characters,
> > though, seem to undermine the sincerity of your last statement here.
>
> The fact that I disagree with you about re-using Matilda and Hortensia
> as regular characters, doesn't mean that I don't like *any* duck-
> woman appearing as a regular character! You really misunderstood me
> here.

Ok, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. You had mentioned
that using H & M would create three Grandma Ducks. I was attempting to
point out that this isn't necessarily the case; you're assuming they would
all three have exactly the same personality, experiences and aspirations.
That's not true in real life, why should it be for the Ducks? I'd like to
know more about why you object to using these particular characters. And
beyond that, what possibilities could you see for a younger female
Duck--existing already in canon, or new?

> So, I'm *not* undermining the sincerity of my statement, I only gave my
> opinion on two specific duck-characters (who coincidentaly both happen
> to be women).

And both are older. Don't laugh too hard at the inference, but isn't it
interesting how older actresses (but not actors) have a tough time finding
roles. They get to play domestic Grandmas, because everybody is
comfortable with that; nobody's feathers are ruffled (if you'll
pardon the expression ;-) Also, only a few women are writing
comics (Dale Messick, Trina, Shary Flenniken, Lee Marrs, Lynn Johnson come to
mind). Backstage, Hortense and Matilda!

The implication still remains that female Ducks, especially older ones,
have only a limited role in the Duck Universe. That role traditionally
has been one of spoiler or complication in the Ducks' adventures. Which
isn't necessarily Disney's fault; it is pervasive in the comics' world in
general.

> My "stereotyped ideas about female characters" is a statement *you*
> concluded out of my words and I can tell you: Your conclusion is wrong!

It was easy to draw the conclusion from your "three Grandmas" remark. I
await your detailed rebuttal.

Regards,

Melanie