Keskustelujen arkisto

TORSTEN:

Thanks for typing in those circulation figures. I have my Disney books
gathering up on hold at the comic book store by me at school, where I
won't return for another couple of weeks. So I haven't seen any new
issues since just before Christmas.

But I've got to tell you -those figures so far are pretty good. 71,000
copies circulated in this market is damn good. Especially considering
Gladstone doesn't have to pay royalties on all the things they reprint.
Circulation is down all over. Marvel's Captain America is at an
_all-time_ low according to an article in the Comics Buyer's Guide
#1154. (Cap. America sold only 82,000 copies on average per month in
the last year.) That is not Marvel's lowest circulated book, either.
(Well, it might be now that Marvel announced plans to cancel half their
line.)

I can't wait to see circulation figures for Uncle $crooge and, rather
curiously, the most recent issue of WDC&S. (Since the revamp, I'll have
to assume the circulation has dropped. So the avergae won't be as
telling as the "Most Recent Issue to Date" column will be against that
average.)

-Augie
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Augie De Blieck Jr.
(Email removed)
(Email removed)

FIRST:
THE BLOT'S SYMBOL MUST BE THE SYMBOL OF THE DISNEY COMICS
WWW-PAGES! I say it HAS to be! Hooo-hoo-hohohohohaaa!

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*** SPOILER WARNING! ***

TORSTEN:
"I wonder if the fake stones will actually create a visible
image? Somehow, I don't think the Beagles are that creative."
According to Scarpa they are. Just wait 'til you see how that
statue ends up looking.
"The translation is clever in places, although I groaned at
the "egg" pun."
Do you mean the simple fact that the stones look like the
square eggs, or that I (sigh) used the phrase "Plain Awful" in the
panel, too? You'll have to live with the puns, I can't stop myself
from making them! ;-)

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

"Also, Mr. Gerstein, how did you discover the postal code for
Duckburg?"
I don't remember what I did, now. I may have just come up
with something randomly from a few friends' zip codes, but I think I
used codes from around the northern-California area where Duckburg
supposedly is, to make it seem more authentic. Most California zips
begin with a 9, as did Gyro's.
Gyro's house-number is "140" because he first appeared in
WDC&S 140, of course.
IMHO, "Colossus of the Nile" is Scarpa's BEST Duck story. I'm
just delighted every time I read it. For many years this was not
available to Gladstone or Disney because some of the original page
proofs had gone missing. Last year it was restored, though, so after
six years since Gladstone first noted it in some article (and after
about six letters asking for it, a record for a foreign story), it's
here, and I felt it a great privilege to be able to help in its
preparation.
FABIO, I hope you're also as pleased! Thanks again for
working on it with me!

David Gerstein
<(Email removed)>
"Oh, that the name of Duck should ever sink so low!"

JAMES:
I don't wish to rudely ignore your Superman questions, but I'll be
brief in order to get the subject back to Disney comics.
I've been asked to work on many different projects over the years by
one publisher or another, but one of the only requests I took was that of
being a consultant on the Superman book, partly since I'm such a Superman
fan and partly because it just took a few minutes of time. I simply sent in
my suggestions for the best Superman stories, and the suggestions of best
stories I used to receive from the readers of my old fanzine q&a articles. I
recall the #1 choice was easy -- "The Death of Superman" was a comic story
that I'd set up next to some of Barks' best... and in fact, the writer,
Jerry Siegel, actually wrote some Duck comics. (There! A Disney-comics
tie-in after all!)
That was about 8 years ago -- I can't recall all the nominations I
sent in or which stories were actually in the book.
The Alan Moore story was too new to have been included I should
think -- but it WAS one of the greats. It was what we old Superman fans know
was NOT an "imaginary story", but which was the true end of the Superman
legend; everything that's been in Superman comics since then has been
"imaginary stories". And it was amazing that Alan Moore, who usually writes
such dark and sordid stuff, could write such a great tale that dealt so
respectfully and sentimentally with the legend of Superman, even though
those were some of the most "uplifting and fun" comics there ever were,
something rather different than the grim vigilantes which now populate
American comics... but which (if anyone here listens to industry news) may
be crumbling gradually into ruin as the market collapses. We'll see.
Now then -- enough about Superman.

RoC:
Yes, the way you imagine a conversation between my editors and me is
pretty much how it goes. One of the publishing branches might pass on a
request like "how about a sequel to so and so", but usually I just ask Byron
what length of story he needs, with what character, then I'll say, "how
about one dealing with this" or "people have asked for a sequel to that, and
I have an angle", and then I act on their directions. It's all very casual
and un-businesslike. It's like FUN. That's why I never see myself as a
professional writer/artist. I feel like Byron and I are two Duck fans who
have been given a chance to play with our childhood friends.
And yes! Sorry not to have mentioned it, but I did get the CB&Co.
you sent. Thanks!!! I had also meant to ask you why you sent that Rota
issue. I get copies of those issues sent to me, so I see that stuff. But
thanks, anyway. I'd hate to miss a Rota story -- he's my current hero.
And I was certainly not implying that YOU had mistranslated any part
of that Danish article! I know very well that there are all sorts of
newspaper writers... good, bad and unscrupulous. I know that WELL!

Dear DON:

My thanks, and it is appreciated.

James

DON:

I have to agree with you about that Alan Moore Superman story that ended the
Julie Schwartz-edited run on the book. It was a pleasure for me to letter,
too.

AUGIE:

There is lots of speculation about why sales have taken such a nosedive over
on Compuserve, with some wondering why Gladstone figures didn't seem to fall
as far down as some of the other publishers (!). Don offered one suggestion:
that Gladstone sells a good number of its books to the European market. Do
any of you folks from Europe think that could be it? Do you see a lot of
Gladstone books for sale in your countries?
Just wondering. Note that the loss of the Marvel distribution deal
undoubtedly made for a big loss of US distribution. It's much harder to find
Gladstone titles here now.

On Jan 17, 7:58am, (Email removed) wrote:
> Subject: Re: Disney comics Digest V96 #14
> Do you see a lot of
> Gladstone books for sale in your countries?

I've seen imported English-language, American edition
copies of Gladstone's Disney albums in European bookstores:
not just comic shops but even mainstream bookstores (which
often have extensive comics sections for book-format
albums). Since I seldom see the Carl Barks in Color/
Donald Duck Adventures albums here (I buy one copy of
each and that's half of what my comics shop gets in),
I've wondered if European sales are what keep those
series going.

Which, incidentally, are pretty darned good series.
Just putting all the ten-pagers into print over a
nearly five-year period was amazing, but now they're
about to start on the Scrooge issues at some amazing
schedule -- 16 albums the first year, and I believe
20 for each of the following two years. That's a lot
of ten-dollar or so books to be cramming down the
constricted gullet of the American market in such a
short time, so I'm inclined to think they must be
moving a large portion overseas.

--Dwight Decker

Don wrote:
> Somebody stop Matt Cox before he does that again!!!

Sorry about that! The list software is supposed to divert messages
that seem to be requests but are sent to the wrong address, but this
time it unfortunately didn't succeed with that.

I'll try to insert some general
look-out-for-whole-digests-being-included-in-messages stuff,
to avoid something like that happening again.
-- "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: (Email removed)
"Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!"

--------------------------------
End of dcomics Digest V96 Issue #15
***********************************

MIKE:
I just double-checked, and in "How Green Was My Lettuce", it does
not say that $crooge used pigeons on Wall Street. It just says he used
"birds". But he is showing HD&L his pigeons at the time, and that's the
obvious assumption. Of course, what I was mainly trying to do with the
cormorants is establish links between the various "Barksian facts" I was
dealing with in that cluttered chapter XI. And besides, I didn't say that
$crooge didn't ALSO use pigeons on Wall Street.
The "old lady" whatsername that was used in that DD 10-pager about
him selling McDuck flour -- we discussed her here once before as regards the
"Lo$". The off-hand comment in that story that she holds some "paper" that
could destroy $crooge never sat well with me -- it's a rather gratuitous way
to have that one sale of flour so abnormally important to $crooge. I didn't
really want to shoehorn that into the "Lo$" along with everything else --
but I didn't really need to worry about it. Whatever that deal was, I'll say
it happened AFTER 1947, so I can ignore it.
And SURE, I would very much like to have a pair of glasses from one
of those spare $crooge banks, if that's what you're offering. Certainly
remove the glasses (how?) and send them alone -- that would be vastly
simpler than sending the entire bank which I don't need anyway. You could
stick the specks inside a little fold of thin cardboard and slip 'em into a
normal envelope.