Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi!

MARKOFF:
> "On the Ball" was interesting as a DD/MM crosover, but the
> plot was a littled clich=E9d and predictable.
First of all, I didn't like the cover of that issue very much. I don't
like it, when they're using computer-graphics on covers of Disney =
comics.
It looks like they bought a piece of software at Gladstone, like Corel
Draw or something, and suddenly want to use computergraphics everywhere,
like the fancy letters they're using on the covers. Personally,
I don't like that.
Secondly, I didn't like "On the Ball" at all! Donald is running for
fifty people, he hides himself in a crate, which is loaded in an =
airplane
after several hours (as if he didn't notice anything). The plane drops =
the
crate in the middle of the jungle, and when Donald gets out of the =
crate,
Mickey is standing in front of him! Errr ... sorry, but I think that's a
little farfetched. The chance of that happening is one in a billion. But
it isn't finished yet. Donald decides to help Mickey, and when they =
enter
an ancient temple, they discover a puzzle, with the faces of Mickey and
Donald on it, as if it were a Disney licensed toy. Donald fixes the =
puzzle
and suddenly they're both tranported to a time, several thousand years
earlier. The story goes on and on, but it doesn't get any better.=20

Bye!

Arthur de Wolf -- Roosendaal, the Netherlands
email: (Email removed)
homepage: www.pi.net/~wolfman/disney

On Jul 26, 11:34pm, Arthur de Wolf wrote:
> Subject: Disney coins
> Hi!
>
> DWIGHT:
> > Somehow I'm reminded of the first issue of the French Scrooge
> > ("Picsou") comic, which I had a long time and had a bogus coin
> > with Scrooge's picture on it glued to the cover

> That was in 1972.

I meant to say I had it a long time AGO. I remember buying that
comic new off the newsstand in Paris, and rather than admit just
how old I am, I didn't mention the year I bought it. Leave it
to a Disney ML expert to know it anyway!

--Dwight Decker

In a message dated 96-07-26 12:43:22 EDT, Elmo writes:

<< Anyway, this is neither here nor there for the Disney Comics list. >>

Probably you're right. I thought though, that if they was a slight chance of
any truth, then the Europeon fans might have heard something. Besides,
Pat implied that WIZARD might run an article on the alleged fraud.

<<Me, I'm just wondering when the next WDC&S is coming out; four pages of
Rosa a month is not enough!>>
You think that's bad, I'm having trouble getting current Disney comics.
I've been going through withdrawl for 6 weeks now. Luckily I've bought some
back issues (including be still my beating heart; 64pp of Ken Hultgren's
Mickey Mouse).
Steven Rowe

I had the great pleasure of meeting Don Rosa on his brief visit to
Copenhagen, Denmark, about a few weeks ago. So at least one of you virtual
list people is for real! And a real nice guy he is too, but that is not
a surprise anymore to the regular readers.

Don had just flown in from Oslo, Norway, where he claimed to have been
treated like a rock'n'roll star - the more the sleepier Denmark must have
appeared to him: during his visit in the famous Fantask comic shop only
a couple of dozen fans had found their way in, but there hadn't really
been much time to advertise and the local 'city slicker' newspaper didn't
mention the celebrity visit. The confined space of Fantask's shop didn't
allow many people anyway, so it only took a handful of Danes to make up
a crowd, though Don was left on his own by Byron Ericson and someone my
cousin identified as a 'bodyguard'.

After just half an hour of signing albums, trading-cards and the just
published Avatar story, Don found the time to walk me back to his hotel
for a Norwegian copy of that story for me, which he had forgotten to bring.
Me and my cousin, who's a resident of these parts of the country, tried
to keep up the pace with him, but for a foreigner in a strange city he
walks with a very confident stride. Still took us almost an hour, which
must have cheated out a couple of fans for drawings, and he still took the
time to draw me a beautiful Scrooge *and* color it afterwards. I was about
to stop him from coloring it, with a handful of eager people behind me
also wanting a sketch, but watching how much it added to the drawing I'm
glad Don took the time for it. The other people had to do with b/w, since
it takes at least half an hour for Don just to draw *one* character - and
he's very strict on that! Of course the way he draws it's just three times
as many lines for HD&L as for just one of them. Other artists I assume uses
varying detail depending on the complexity of the picture.

BTW I allowed the Fantask people to scan my drawing for use in their next
newsletter. I hope it's OK with you, Don; *I* don't mind sharing. I was also
treated with awe when they realized you actually *knew* who I was - I haven't
felt so famous for a long time! Another anonymous celebrity there was Martin
Olsen, whose index has been widely quoted on this list - he didn't seem to be
too anxious about continuing his work, but I referred him to the list in case
he ever got online.

Oh, you may be asking yourselves: why on earth would Don give me a Norwegian
copy of the latest Egmont weekly? The reason is that Don as a favor put my
'initials' RoC in the Avatar story. Or so I thought - I spent four days
reading it backwards and forwards, not to mention upside-down looking for it.
Considering how long it can take to find it in the first panel when you *know*
it's there, imagine searching a full 28 page story. I did however find Don's
own name and Byron Ericson's.

Anyway, he hid it in the cover. As always, he said. And that wasn't published
in Denmark. But a lot of Norwegians are now wondering what a 'ROC' may be.

A real pleasure it was to meet you, Don. How about coming back next year?
Then I'll reserve the townhall square *and* have it filled up for you. :)

For comments on the story I'll wait till I've read it for another 10 weeks.
It's safe to say I like it though, except I miss the Mickey Mouse gag.
And I sure hope that hindus have more sense of humor than some moslems;
this fatwa thing with Salman Rushdie is a bad trend IMHO.

The above was written shortly after my encounter with Don, and in the
meantime his next story about gravity alterations has reached me. It's a
16 page gag story, roughly along the lines of "Journey to the Center of
the Earth" or "The Duck who Fell to Earth", but without too many technical
explanations. I found a single glitch in it, when Scrooge 'falls' through a
lake with Donald on tow behind him. As the water breaks (brakes?) Scrooge's
fall, Donald would quickly overtake him as he's in free fall.
I'm sure Don knew, but allowed the gag anyway...

The code for the story is D 96001 (and a fine code too!) but I have no
idea about the original title. Don has kept it under his hat, and I was
quite surprised to see a Don Rosa story I didn't know all about before.

-- Ole 'RoC' Reichstein Nielsen a.k.a. the 9.th incarnation of Vishnu --
-- <(Email removed)> --

"I wondered for a while if I should call the story 'The Treasure of the most
of the Avatars' or 'The Treasure of the All But Four Avatars'..." - Don Rosa

I recently returned from a scout camp, which has been dubbed as
a "Finnjamboree". This made me wonder whether the connections
between Junior Woodchucks and the actual Boy Scouts have been
discussed here.
Yes, U'I'm aware that Barks himself has said that JW were only
patterned after Boy Scouts (and also a parody of them) but you
can understand that some mistakes are easy to make when I tell
you that Junior Woodchucks actually EXIST in Finland.
The Finnish translation of Junior Woodchucks is SUDENPENNUT.
That means "wolf cubs" and that also happens to be the Finnish
term used for cub scouts (compare to "vargunge" in Swedish).
I'm sure that for this reason many Aku Ankka readers think that
Junior Woodchucks are actual Boy Scouts. I wonder what they
thought about certain Don Rosa stories involving the past of
the JW organization and there was no mention about sir Robert
Baden-Powell!

I can't help mentioning one more thing about this scout camp I
was on --- I worked as a cartoonist on the camp newspaper and
as we live in a modern world parts of the paper can be found
also on-line, including my comics! So if you feel adventurous
enough to surf on Finnish web-pages here's an address for you:
http://org.utu.fi/harrastus/loisto-leiri/1707/sarjis.spml
1707 is the date of the strip. If you want to see the rest of
them, just replace that number with any of these: 1807, 1907,
2007, 2207, 2307, 2407 or 2507. 2007 is a Sunday strip.
The comics are scanned quite roughly (unfortunately) but that
also means that you don't have to wait all day to see them.

--- Jyrki Vainio ---

Arthur,

I agree with you about "On the Ball" and the cover. The colors on the cover
ended up looking faded and a little muddy, perhaps it was just the color
choices, but it was dark and not bright and contrasting. The story seemed
rushed in parts and undeveloped. I have no problem with Donald landing at
the feet of Mickey, so to speak, the type of comic coincidence we
occasionally might see, the story from there on is REALLY undeveloped.

Kathy

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V96 Issue #159
******************************************

KATHY and ARTHUR:

Sorry you didn't like ON THE BALL. I appreciate the feedback nonetheless
as I expect to be learning how to write as long as I write. One of the
reasons I don't make a big deal out of my presence here is so that I can
get honest feedback like this.

Some errata that may interest you or others:

The art was not by Branca, but by someone whose name I don't recall.

The story was co-written with Pat McGreal.

The opening sequence (hated by Arthur and praised by Joe Torcivio in
recent correspondence to me) was constructed by Byron Ericson. Regarding
the deus ex machina (popularized with great skill in the Ducks ethos by
Carl Bark's use of Duckburg as Anywhere, U.S.A. containing a mountain one
day, and minus that, a port the next), it's possible that readers may
have missed the "Property of Professor Dustibones" label on the crate
into which Donald hid. That at least explains how it ended up being
delivered to the Professor (with whom Mickey has had past adventures
besides this one), though I don't know that it satisfies the criticism of
deus ex machina.

Actually, I LIKE the unapologetic use of this device in mice and duck
tales. Exagerated implausibility is almost convention. Certainly it was
employed consistently and charmingly by their best known story-tellers.
Gladstone Gander, in fact, is an archetypal character whose very comedy
is derived by the flouting of a more elite convention that would
otherwise forbid his entire existence.

Regarding the implied history of past adventures shared by Mickey and
Donald, no, this was no reference to cartoons. Rather, it was to
establish that these characters knew each other and had shared a rich
history together. A minor conceit I find pleasent and fertile to
contemplate, much like the hints of something greater that Barks would
use and which Don has made his forte in the wonderful Scrooge series.
This implied past history between the two characters was also a point of
praise from Joe and from Dana Gabbard. So readers are of a strongly mixed
mind on this.

As far as Kathy's perception that the story was not just underdeveloped,
but REALLY underdeveloped, I'm at a loss. Obviously I could benefit from
more specific insight and would consider it a kindness to hear it.

Finally, this version of the story was not supposed to be printed. There
exists a version with better art (by Ferioli) -- not that the better art
alters the "poor" writing.

Like Don, I'm rarely perfectly pleased with the finished story by the
time I see it (and I have far less control over what happens to the story
due to my own inability to draw it).

Your humble scribe,

--
http://users.aol.com./dcrawson/home.htm

[ Elmo ]

> Me, I'm just wondering when the next WDC&S is coming out; four pages of
> Rosa a month is not enough!

No idea. I decided not to buy it as long as they are $5.95 apiece. If
Gladstone had kept the $5.95 pricetag, but instead did a Rosa special, a
Gottfredson special, etc. I would have bought some of the issues - or perhaps
even all of them. The way they've done it is unfair to those readers who do not
buy every single $5.95 issue.

-- Jan Lund Thomsen

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan Lund Thomsen (aka Qed/Triangle 3532) Lystrup, Denmark
C64/RPG/INWO/Warner Bros/Disney/Anthro/Comics-addict and all-around nice guy.
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