Keskustelujen arkisto

DON M.:
> New Orleans straddles the river just as Duckburg straddles the
> Tulebug, and is in fact the only city in all the world to do so

I'm not sure I understand what you're writing here. You mean it's
unique to the world that New Orleans is on both sides of a river?
What's different from London? Paris? Rotterdam? 's-Hertogenbosch?

> is there any clear indication that Calisota is
> part of the U.S.?

I wouldn't know for sure, because I only know most Barks stories
from their Dutch translations (in which "Duckstad" is *never* in the USA).
But I would expect that Barks made references in several stories
about Duckburg being in the USA.

--Harry.

(Email removed)
"Wie ben ik? Wat doe ik hier? Waar is mijn Roddelflop?"

I have a couple of VERY esoteric questions for you Barks worshipers out there
(I'm one myself, so don't take offense). Both regard Barks' pre-1953
lettering. First: What size was it pre-reduction? I'm guessing 3/16 inch.
Second: What kind of pen did he use? I know Barks held his own lettering
in low regard, but I find it as enchanting as his drawing.

Robert DeV.

Augie:

Any word on what's coming up in May? Has somebody already posted this
information and I missed it?

-- Wes

TO DON ROSA:
I have always been fond of your immaculate attention to historic and =
geographic details in your stories.(readers can actually learn something =
from your stories - rather than getting confused by things like Cubic =
Acres). Nevertheless you amazed me with your historic and geographic =
accuracy in The Treasury of Croesus, WDC&S # 601&602. Assuming that =
you read about all that in books, how could you know that people around =
the Selcuk area are called "Yuruk's". That is not "book" knowledge. =
Unless you've actually been there?? Have you??.

Another one of these digest-less days, sigh.

Maybe it's partly because Harry and I have taken our indexing confer-
ence to private mail; now I'm afraid I keep him too busy for his usual high
quota of contributions to the list. I must most humbly apologize.

Jorgen's descriptions of Norwegian issues has also ceased, but I can
make up for that, since the Danish are identical. Don't worry - I'll just give
an account of the most interesting stories in the first quarter of this year.
I threw in a few from the Swedish issues that haven't appeared here yet.

First a number of Carl Barks classics have appeared, for somewhere
between the second and fifth time in 50 years: WDC 164 "Ms. Pennywise", WDC 258
"10 c Valentine", US 36 "The Midas Touch" and WDC 159 "Wispy Willy".

David asked for good Mickey stories, and there have been a couple -
and I don't mean the ZOOM stories - but Ferioli's "Information-Highway-
Robbery" (D 93500, 16 p.), "The Ghost of Gothic Manor" (D 93212, 10 p.),
"Secrets of the Rainforest" (D 94133, 16 p.), "A Goofy Cure for Cold" (D 93208,
3 p. - who drew this?), Noel Van Horn's "The Gohitherdither Diggers" (D 93497,
8 p.) and "Dimb Driving" (D 93035, 4 p.) - a wild story about Goofy driving
home with his eyes closed.

David's own "Abbot 'Moe' McGoon" (95060, 12 p.), then "He Who Digs a
Hole for a Wolf..." (D 94110, 10 p.) both illustrated by Vicar appeared too.
(I'm not a big Vicar fan, and so preciously little of David's word equilibrism
survives the translation into grade school Danish, but the latter was visual
enough to make me think of a Warner 'toon.)

The Three Second-best current duck artists each have had one story
published; William Van Horn: "Imsomaniac" (D 95080, 10 p.), Daniel Branca:
"The Ponderer of Paris" (D 94238, 10 p.) and Marco Rota: "The Sheep of Szigli-
furtok" (D 94240, 14 p.). Also Don Rosa only had "When Hearts of Ice Thaw..."
(D 95044, 24 p.) out this year; for once AFTER the first publishing in the U.S.
And yes, I've made up all the English titles, even where I know better.

Another interesting note is that in "The Trial of Big Beak Ben"
(D 95031, 16 p.) the writer and the artist clearly indicate that they have
read Don Rosa's "Life of $crooge"; Scrooge is accused being the leader of "The
Hole-in-the-Head" gang who attempted a bank robbery on April 12.th 1905, and
Scrooge can't prove where he was on that date ("I don't remember! There's a gap
in my diary during the spring of 1905! In February I was drilling for oil in
the Caucasus, and in June I found a six pound diamond in Transvaal! ["The Star
of the World" from U$ 27?] In between, nothing!")
This falls well within the 1902-09 gap in the Lo$, where Don Rosa has
Scrooge "travelling the globe for seven years, prospecting for minerals and
establishing businesses", but without exact dates.

As it turns out Scrooge was actually in "Odesskaja/Ovissa" a.k.a.
Odessa, Ukraine, 'on the day in question' where he stopped a runaway pram with
his head ("The Untouchables" spring to mind) and suffered amnesia. A movie reel
shows him in the act, dressed in his Klondike summer outfit: 'baseball' cap,
not Junior Woodchucks style coonskin cap. He was looked after by the grateful
parents for three months in Sibiria, close to the Bering's Strait, before he
heard of the diamond bonanza in south Africa, and packed his suitcases.
The impact of Don's magnus opus on other writers is beginning to show,
and I doubt if any writer dares to clash with the facts as we now know them.
Egmont's attitude of this being the official version also makes it unlikely.
Not that I mind, but it's nice to see there's still plenty of room left.

To round of this prose index I'll just add that old Gottfredson Mickey
Mouse Sunday pages have also begun to appear, so with a little luck the real
MM may be in for a revival after the '68 cultural revolution, that practically
banned him from publishing in Denmark. Why else would Ferioli an the others
be told to draw him in the old style?

--Ole 'RoC' Reichstein Nielsen
["The name is McDuck... Scrooge McDuck!"]

I have a question regarding the "fourth" nephew that appears in a Vicar
story panel. Here's the setup...one of the nephews is sitting on a chair
holding an object with both hands while the other three are looking at it
in amazement. Donald is off to the right with what looks like a turban on
his head. In the background to the left is a table with two chairs.

The nephew on the chair is saying the following:

Jeg fandt denne her i sofaen! Lattergas! Og den er helt tom!

My question is: What country; what story; what comic?

I'll trade anyone the latest Comic Book Marketplace featuring Barks
articles for a copy of the comic book and a general translation of the
story! Any takers?

FAIK:
Why would you think Yuruks being in Selcuk could not be book-information?
Must be, since that's where I found it in my research.
Glad you like my attempts at accuracy, though you don't even realize how far
I carry that, since a great deal of it is done just for my own private
amusement, and readers never know many of the picayune details I put great
amounts of work into just for fun. Just one example -- right now I'm working
on a new episode of the Life of $crooge which deals with Pizen Bluff in
1890. I knew that one famous Arizonian was in a certain area in late 1890 (I
can't say more than that since that gives away a plot twist)... so I knew
when the story was to take place. But I had an idea that would allow me to
work Buffalo Bill and P.T.Barnum into the plot. But, I had to know where
they were in 1890! I couldn't put them somewhere they weren't -- it's like
cheating! So, I was distressed to find that Buffalo Bill was on his famous
European tour with his Wild West beginning in 1888. Oh, no. When did he
return? Search book after book! Aha -- he came home in September, 1890! Perfect!
But then I needed to check on P.T.Barnum. I knew he died in early 1891 after
a long illness. Maybe he was bedridden through all of '90! I made a trip to
a special bookstore for a biography of Barnum last Saturday. Read, read. In
the summer of '90 Barnum was so ill that he was wishing all his friends and
staff farewell since he'd never see them again. Uh-oh. He wasting away all
through the summer. Hey -- in October he suddenly decides he feels great and
takes the tour of the WEST that he's always wanted to take! And that he was
"feeling like a 16-year-old again" he was so healthy and active. He has a
stroke in November -- but he was out west and active JUST when I needed him
there! It's like the guardian angel of historians and Duckfans is watching
over me.
That's why research is so much fun!

RoC:
"When Hearts of Ice Melt" was the title they gave my "Hearts of the Yukon"?
Wow -- that's a better title!

I saw that "Trial of Big Beak Ben" in the issues I get in the mail, and
though I couldn't read it, it did look very interesting! I could tell that
it was just the sort of story I'd love. I even asked Byron who had written
it, but he couldn't tell me at the moment I called. But... I don't think
Egmont is telling anyone that my "Lo$" is any sort of "official" version of
anything, and I never expected or intended that they should. I think this
"Big Beak Ben" story could simply jive with my stuff by coincidence, don't
you think? Still, my series was designed so that other writers would be free
to add their own chapters inside the framework if they wished. I just hope
no one beats me to any good story possibilities!

JAMES:
Glad you liked the ending of the Croesus story. But I wish Disney had
allowed more of the "Lydia" lyrics to be printed. There was MUCH more in the
original script, and the parts they didn't allow are really funny stuff!

After an inexplicable delay with my magazine pusher, otherwise
nice and reliable Fantask in Copenhagen, I finally recieved a bunch of
Gladstones. Again I'm impressed with the excellent selection of material.
My posting of yesterday describing Danish publications in a comparable
period of time may give the impression that Danish issues are up to the
same high quality, but those stories listed only made up about one tenth
of the total output, most of which is fairly forgettable.

American issues are on the other hand composed, well almost,
entirely of high grade art and stories, and has interesting background
informations for collectors and historians alike. The new WDC format is
very attractive and IMHO worth the high price tag. A shame how all the
other titles are degraded to discount format.

Glad to see my long time favorite, Ferioli, starting his regular
appearances in American comic books with such gems as "A [shouldn't it be
"One"?] Mouse and his Dog" and "Fantasy Island". But why am I the last to
get to know his first name, Caesar!?

I may have mentioned this, but it appears to be missing in my
dcdigest collection: the Fethry story in Giant #5 is actually coded I 1108-A,
not -B, and the writer is Giorgio Pezzin. Just because Gary Gabner cut 11
pages and completely changed the premise of the story doesn't mean he can
hog all the credit! In the Danish version the machine put a diamond into
one in 100,000 boxes, but suddenly decided to fill a box with 200 diamonds
and one piece of chocolate. All but one were sent out, and Donald makes a
check on the box, and finds the one piece of chocolate.

So it's not so much a story of Gladstone's super luck, but more one
about Donald's super BAD luck! I find it a bit annoying when the 'new'
Italian wave is introduced like this - it almost reminds me of the dark ages
of Egmont's censorship of Barks stories in Europe 25 years ago, even if the
excuse is cost efficiency instead of cultural politics.
"O tempora, o mores!", as Cicero put it - "The times they are a-changing,
but people them never will." transmogrified into Americanic. ;)

Did I also mention that in Dutch DD last week Mau Heymans had Donald
hypnotized into believing he was Gladstone, just to prove it's all in the mind?
"Een, twee... drie! Wie bent u?" - "Guus Geluk!"

That's all for now; I've got a big card game in the jungle...

--Ole 'RoC' Nielsen

"Wat doe ik hier? Waar zijn mijn kleren?"