Keskustelujen arkisto

On Jul 15, 5:39pm, (Email removed) wrote:
>
> Does anyone know Carl Barks'
> address?
>
I don't. I suppose I could find out, since I know the
editors at Gladstone and Egmont, but I don't have any
reason to. I met Barks once, some 20-odd years ago,
and pretty much said everything then I wanted to say to
him about how much his work meant to me as a kid and
all that. Before that, I'd exchanged a couple of
letters with him about having him do a painting for
me (in 1972, not an utter impossibility, but even
by then he was booked solid for several years ahead).
I kinda felt ever since that he deserved his privacy.
He is 95 now, after all.

But that's just me, and just because I had my turn at
telling him how much I liked his stories doesn't mean
someone else shouldn't be able to. He has an agent, who
runs an enterprise called the Carl Barks Studio selling
Unca Carl's art and generally seeing to his interests.
I don't know the address offhand, but somebody on the
ML might know it or you might get it out of the Comics
Buyer's Guide the next time the Carl Barks Studio
advertises. So it might be best for protocol and all
if you wrote to the old Duckman in care of the agent.
That's my suggestion, anyway.

--Dwight Decker

(Sorry of this is a duplicate; I tried to post it before, but I think
I mis-directed it)

> How many of you read the paper on July 14, 1996, and saw the "Big Nate"
> comics strip? In the first panel, a boy scout addressed his fellow troopers
> as "Junior Woodchucks!"

I have always wondered whether the creator of "Big Nate" is a Duckfan.
The comic strip is about a Junior High School student who aspires to
become a cartoonist. The name of his art instructor is "Mr. Rosa"!

Wilmer Rivers

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V96 Issue #150
******************************************

In response to userpro and in agreement with Dwight Decker, I don't think
that anyone will give out Carl Barks
address. At 95 he has earned a modicum of privacy and even within our
community he is reticent to have any references to his whereabouts. He does
have two people who look out for his interests and arrange for his
occassional appearances. If there is anything of an urgent nature, or to
secure any information you can write to Kathy Morby c/o Carl Barks Studio at
P.O. Box 524, Grants Pass, Or. 97526.
Gerhard Tank

Well, okay, so I've been back from Europe for weeks now! For the first week
I was busy answering the backlog of e-mail that had piled up. I get about
5-10 messages a day from all over the dang place -- (last week I got some
fanmail from Cyprus!) -- and as with my "snail-mail", I answer ALL of it,
though it takes a while. I answer the messages needing the shortest replies
first, and not that I intended to write a book about Europe, I was still
putting off getting back into the Digest until last... and then my keyboard
went, as the technical term has it, on the fritz. This is a weird problem
since a faulty keyboard apparently sends wacky messages to your computer and
drives it so nuts that even your mouse stops working and everything goes
loony, so it's hard to determine that the keyboard is the cause. But when
Dan Shane suggested that simple solution, the next time I went into town, I
bought an adapter (or as my construction workmen used to call it, a dapter)
for my old IBM keyboard and plugged it into the new 'puter, and I was back
in bizniz. But that problem had shut me down about a week, so once I was up
and running I had another backlog of world-spanning e-mail to answer, and
now I finally am trying to compose something to send the Digest. However, if
anyone has any cogent comments or questions for me, speak fast, since I
leave for yet ANOTHER 10 days at the end of this week, and I won't be back
until early August, at which point there'll be another pile of e-mail and so
on and so forth.

First of all, it might have been noticed that I wasn't in San Diego, eh? To
not go was literally a last minute decision that came on me on the way back
from Europe. The flight home was fraught with cancellations due to pilots
deciding their plane was "broke" and they didn't care to fly in it, and 2
hour taxi-ing for a spot in the take-off line, and missed connecting
flights... so that I was returning a day later than planned. That meant that
I would have just walked in my house, swapped my suitcase of dirty clothes
for a fresh one, then turned on my heel and left for San Diego. This was
grossly unfair to my poor wife who has to stay at home, completely alone,
while I'm jetting about the world giving press conferences, eating at dandy
eateries, and generally being treated like some minor national hero. Besides
that, I felt as though the 2 weeks in Germany and the week in Norway and
Denmark was just about all the comic bookery I needed for the time being,
and I was missing far too much summer... so I stayed home from San Diego and
spent that weekend taking bicycle trips, going to flea markets, movies, and
strolling and lounging out in my "north 40". Besides, I'd just spent several
days with Byron Erickson, and Barry Branvold and Michael Naiman had been by
here to visit me in recent months, and they are three of the main reasons I
go to SD, along with the other friends I see there. I missed my big, annual
shopping binge for old funnybooks, but I'll just hafta do more mail-ordering
next winter to make up for it. My mistake, I guess, was to have accepted too
many invitations from nice people to make promo tours in Europe in the
SUMMER, rather than in the times of the year when weather is less nice here
at home. I hate to lose so much of my summer! So, since SD was the last part
of that series of trips, by the time it rolled around, I didn't feel like
rolling around to it. Anyway, I wasn't in SD, sorry.

There were lots of interesting things in the umpteen Digests that have come
and gone. However, I also notice that the last few have been getting shorter
-- other people are deciding they, too, are missing too much summer? I don't
recall any specific questions that those Digests contained that I should be
answering here... if there were, please someone repeat them for me and I'll
deal with them quickly. On the other hand, I can think of a few items to
bring up on my own...

I have been contacted by the CARTOON ART MUSEUM of San Francisco who say
that want to put on an exhibition of my art to be titled, as I might have
guessed, "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck". I have arranged for the
loan from Egmont of the original art pages of the full 1st, 8th and 12th
chapters of the "Lo$" -- this seems logical, being the beginning, the climax
and the end of the series -- along with all the Gladstone covers. That's
about 65 pieces, all of which (I think) the Museum will put on display from
early September to early January. I guess I'll be going to San Francisco
myself when the show opens for the usual "champagne reception" or whatever
they do in art galleries. If anyone is interested, I'll post more specifics
as the dates draw near. But if anyone does have any interest in seeing
Disney comic-book art, this might be worth a visit, since that stuff is not
allowed out very often! I look forward to seeing those pages myself!

Another interesting item that came in my mail was the first Dutch album
edition of the "Lo$". Arthur De Wolf sent the album to me -- thanks, Arthur!
(It would be so nice if the Dutch publisher was nice enough to send these
albums to me, but I don't guess that will happen...) Anyway, the surprise
was the cover -- they use the Gladstone cover from U$ #285, but in place of
the background they have a map of Scotland! It really looks nice! I wish I'd
thought of that idea myself -- it makes a nice looking cover and a nice way
to link the covers of the series AND woulda saved me the trouble of doing
the backgrounds. I see the background of the next cover will be a map of the
western US for chapters 3-5. However, in front of the western USA map is the
cover of U$ #289 which was $crooge having the swordfight on the castle
ramparts... in SCOTLAND. I would have thought the cover of issue #287 or 288
would have been more appropriate and more appealing to European cowboy fans,
but I guess they thought that other cover looked more interesting. Anyway, I
look forward to seeing future covers and albums, and I hope Arthur will
continue to send them to me.

I was also surprized to learn that the Greek KOMIX Disney comic that I'm
always saying is such a beautiful piece of work is only one of about 10
different Disney comics or digests that they publish there in Greece! There
were no ads in KOMIX for anything else, so I assumed that was all there was,
but nay. They have their weekly and their monthlies and their younger-reader
comics and everything just like they do in the Egmont countries... though
not for quite as long as in northern Europe. The Greek editions range in
publishing history back to about 1966. KOMIX is their "collector's" edition
which is why it contains all the historical articles... and it's where the
"Lo$" will begin running with issue #100.

Gosh -- I notice this "Lo$" is mentioned in my every paragraph so far. It
has really become more well-known and popular than I'd ever expected and is
becoming some sort of "official version" even despite my trying to
discourage that from happening. It now looks like in late 1997 hardback
editions of the entire series will be published in America, Germany, Norway,
Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy... and perhaps other countries I don't know
about (since, as you know, the Disney licensees don't need to inform us of
when they use our stories). And I'm trying hard to help organize these
publishers so that they might all use the great Susan Daigle-Leach /
Gladstone coloring, along with full annotations such as you might see on
that "$crooge McDuck Homepage" of ours. Anyway, I think I might be spending
some time visiting Europe on promo tours in late '97, but we'll see what
develops.

Now... I think I'm next supposed to tell something of my trips to Norway and
Denmark. Okay -- the good thing about this sort of stuff is that nobody has
to read it and disintersted parties can scroll on to the next message. So
here goes.

I arrived in Oslo in the early morning and was met by one of my favorite
folks, the Norwegian editor-in-chief, Svein Erik Soland. He seems to know by
now that I'm immune to jet-lag since he almost immediately put me on another
plane to the west-coast city of Bergen to appear on what I was told was a
national TV talk show. I was expecting something like Johnny Carson or... I
don't really know. But this turned out to be a strange kinduva show for the
teen-twenty-something set. What an odd concept that these are considered in
Europe to be the age of the readers of Duck comics whereas those are the
ages that American super-hero zombies feel they must shun Disney comics like
the plague. Heh. Anyway, the whole show is set up as if it's a party being
held at the home of the show's hostess, and the (many) guests of the show
are actually guests at her home. But it's all sort of a fantasy since it's
also quite clear that it's in a studio set with lights and cameras and wires
all around. It's really kinda hard to describe, and I don't know what
viewers think of all this, and I had no idea what was going on most of the
time anyway -- but it seemed like fun. There's a band-of-the-week and so
forth. I was sorta kept separate from all that since I guess I didn't fit in
so well, being so OLD and all. The host stopped by my table a few times
where they had me doing a drawing, then towards the end of the show she had
a longer chat with me and I showed the art for the "Ten Avatars" story that
was in print that week in the Egmont issues. I guess I did okay since some
people said I seemed more relaxed than the show's host. Also in Bergen I
actually got a chance to do about a half hour of sightseeing! There's a
great fisherman's wharf with peddlers selling every sort of seafood, alive
and expired (the seafood, that is)... and I love seafood, eating it AND just
lookin' at it, so that was fun. Back at the airport, someone approached me
and asked me if I was "the famous cartoonist Don Rosa". This is such an
unbelievable thing that, whenever it happens, I immediately accuse Svein
Erik of slipping the guy five bucks to play a joke on me. But it just
happens -- Donald Duck is so famous over there that anyone who is known to
write and/or draw the comics gets to be a minor celebrity. I think it's nice
to visit places where I'm famous, but to live here where I'm "nobody"?
Anyway -- it's already hard to recall what came next. I do remember the SAS
Raddison hotel I was in being surrounded by roadblocks and police guards
armed with machine guns. No, I'm not THAT popular in Norway (close?) -- this
was for one of my fellow guests, the president of CHINA. There I was
sleeping in the same building as the most important single man on earth (per
capita). This was interesting except that sometimes I couldn't walk across
the hotel lobby or use a certain elevator, and one time I was prevented from
going into or near my own hotel by armed guards because the leader of the
yellow hoardes was leaving the building or something. Intersting.
I think the next thing I did in Oslo was to attend the grand opening of
their new comic book store/library/museum operated by the Norwegian comic
society. They were allowed to borrow the full 28 pages of art from that
"Avatar" story to put on display (throughout July) with the original script
pages for comparison. And I did an autograph session for several hours
and... well, I think Nils Lid Hjort already posted a nice report on this and
the meeting and dinner afterward.

What next? I think it was off to TUSENFRYD, the amusement park outside Oslo,
where I appeared in the Donald Duck show that Egmont sponsors there each
year -- this is the same one that Barks participated in 2 years ago. Egmont
organizes a stage show that runs about 45 minutes and involves songs by
those costumed Disney characters and contests for kids where the winners are
given huge mounds of Egmont comics and books and toys and it's part of the
fun to see if the poor kids can stagger off stage under their loads. Again,
I was happy to be part of this, but still kind of off to one side so to
speak. I was introduced at the beginning of the show, and goofed around with
"Donald", then I sat down off to one side and started doing a drawing while
a video camera peered over my shoulder and an enormous TV screen showed the
audience what I was drawing while the other shenanigans were going on. The
main drawing I did was given away to one contestant, but I also did another
drawing where a group of kids watching that monitor had to guess who I was
drawing. This was an awkward idea since it couldn't be an obscure character
so as not to be too tough for the youngest kiddies, so it had to be Donald
or $crooge or Gladstone or Daisy or maybe Grandma. So I knew what that would
result in and I was right -- I chose the most "obscure" character they
allowed, Gladstone Gander, and before I could draw more than two lines, the
kids started calling out names, and the third name they called was right, of
course. It was more like asking them to pick a number between one and three
-- the third guesses was bound to get it, eh? But everyone seemed to enjoy
it, so what the hey.
Before the show we had a press conference and I talked to a group of
newspaper reporters and the national TV news, and this was tricky since
there was a limited amount of time and the two groups kept stealing me from
each other. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to either one, but DID get
a chance to talk to the Aftenposten photographer while waiting to go "on",
and that was interesting. (I bet the newspaper would've liked to publish
what we talked about then!) But also, just like some backstage talks I had
during filming of that talk-show -- it's constantly amazing to hear what a
vital part of European culture Donald Duck is! People of ALL ages have no
shame in proudly telling how much they loved the Duck comics when they were
young, and what a great feeling they still get from them even if they no
longer read them. That's one reason why Duck comics will never die as they
did in America -- parents are eager to introduce their children to Donald so
that they can enjoy the comics anew, themselves. I always get a warm, fuzzy
feeling when I'm visiting Europe and finding that I work with a character
that has a popularity that NO comic or TV or movie or any American character
can compare to!
I got a surprise myself at one point. When I walked out and handed the
drawing I'd been working on to the winner, I turned to go back to my seat
when the host grabbed my arm and started jabbering something in Norwegian
gibberish (to my ears) to the audience. It took me a moment to figure out
what was happening -- he was telling everyone that that day was my 45th
birthday. We never made much of birthdays in my family, so it was QUITE a
special treat to suddenly find myself being sung "Happy Birthday" to (in
English) by hundreds of people! The Donald costume-character was at my side,
so I gestured to my ears and pointed to Donald's bowtie, and audience
members later told me I was right -- my ears and Donald's tie were the same
color. Anyway, we did this show on two successive days, and it seemed to be
a big hit... so perhaps I'll be doing it again some year.
One interesting thing about the show is that there was a pack of Disney
costume-characters... but NO MICKEY MOUSE. I don't think Mickey ever appears
in such functions in Europe. Can you guess WHY? Because Donald is the star!
Donald is so VASTLY more popular than Mickey that it would be "insulting" to
Disney and their corporate icon to have Mickey on the same stage with
Donald! What a hoot. I didn't mention that this was NOT billed as a Disney
show... it was a DONALD DUCK SHOW. That's what they want in Europe -- Donald
Duck! (chuckle)

I need to tell you something interesting about these Disney characters. I
was later boarding the plane to Copenhagen and I spotted their "director" in
the queue. I told him that I hadn't noticed his companions in line since
they didn't have their costumes on, ha ha ha. And he said that they were
travelling incognito, which I figured was his own lil' joke -- they were
travelling without wearing their costumes so they were incognito, ha ha ha.
But then when I got on the plane he was very nice to introduce me to the
group, but then I found out what a privilege that was since they actually DO
travel incognito! Nobody knows who the actors are inside the suits. In fact,
the only people these folks are allowed to tell what they do are their
parents and their spouses. No one else knows what their side-job is, and
when they go off to do such a show they must say something like "I'm going
to visit my grandmother in Helsinki" or something. As it turned out, the
seat next to "Donald" was empty, so I had a chance to actually talk to the
person inside the suit that I'd spent the previous two days posing and
acting goofy with. And, as always, we both learned some interesting things
about Disney! You can imagine.
Uh... what next? I guess I've taken my story to Copenhagen, eh? Byron met me
at the airport, and the next day I visited the main Egmont offices again.
This is all so amazing, again for me from America where these comics are so
ignored. But here's several entire floors of a huge building that is
completely devoted to Disney comics (being 90% Ducks, natch). Every office I
poke my head into has such an amazing array of nifty junk cluttering the
desks and walls -- one nice guy showed me a closet where they store all the
Disney NECKTIES that they send the offices, and they gave me several
BEAUTIFUL Donald and $crooge ties. These are not the awful ones that I've
seen for years with the characters colored wrong or poor choices of
pictures, or otherwise looking like they were designed by Americans who had
no idea who the characters were. These were GREAT ties. Of the three I made
off with, one has Donald throwing various and sundry temper tantrums, one
has him speeding about in his car, and the other has great shots of $crooge
standing in mounds of money. But the offices are filled with this sorta stuff!
Anyway, there's no end to what to say about those offices, so I'll move on
to say that I did a signing session at the most popular Copenhagen comic
shop, FANTASK. And I even had a chance to sit long enough that I could do
some drawings for some people, including Ole "RoC" who is sometimes on our
Digest here (hello?).
That evening I went with Byron and publisher Per Grubert (who you sometimes
also see here) to have dinner inside TIVOLI! And I need to say something
about that place! TIVOLI is a fantastic amusement park in the very center of
Copenhagen, and the story goes that Walt Disney got the idea for Disneyland
from seeing Tivoli. This sounds fishy but if you ever saw Tivoli you'll
believe it. Tivoli is set up like Disneyland with rides and shops and
restaurants and lots of beautiful trees and flowers and ponds and places to
sit. What's more, Per Grubert tells me that Walt Disney visited Tivoli while
on a trip to visit Egmont (Gutenberghus) in the early 50s! Is Egmont and
Donald Duck comics ultimately responsible for DisneyWorld, Disney's biggest
money maker? Hm.

Anyway, it was the next morning that Byron and I started on our trip to San
Diego, which I never finished, as I was telling you about 537 pages ago. Had
enough yet? GO HOME!

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if a composition of any of Carl
Barks' works were ever put together. I wanted to get some of the early
Uncle $crooge comics and I was wondering if any books containing a group
of them were made.
Thanks- Jake Semmel
(Email removed)

On Jul 17, 3:37am, Don Rosa wrote:
> Subject: Re: Disney comics Digest

> TIVOLI is a fantastic amusement park in the very center of
> Copenhagen, and the story goes that Walt Disney got the idea
> for Disneyland from seeing Tivoli. This sounds fishy but if
> you ever saw Tivoli you'll believe it. Tivoli is set up like
> Disneyland with rides and shops and restaurants and lots of
> beautiful trees and flowers and ponds and places to sit.
> What's more, Per Grubert tells me that Walt Disney visited
> Tivoli while on a trip to visit Egmont (Gutenberghus) in the
> early 50s! Is Egmont and Donald Duck comics ultimately
> responsible for DisneyWorld, Disney's biggest money maker? Hm.
>
Er...I thought the official story about Unca Walt's inspiration
for Disneyland was taking his daughters to a seedy amusement park
in Los Angeles that seemed to be just a poor excuse of a place for
divorced fathers to take their kids on their visitation days, and
he decided he could do better? I seem to dimly recall reading that
in one of the authorized bios of Disney, and the book gave enough
of a hint as to where the seedy amusement park was that when I
chanced to drive by it once I realized this must be the place. And
it wasn't that much better in the '70s than it was described as
being in the late '40s or early '50s. Of course, _both_ stories
could be true. The seedy amusement park inspired Walt to do his
own, while a visit to Tivoli showed him how to do it. Anyway, I
was at Tivoli myself last November, when the place had a Christmas
bazaar going on inside, and yep, it is an enchanting sort of place.

> Anyway, it was the next morning that Byron and I started on
> our trip to San Diego, which I never finished...

Well, believe me, you were sorely missed. "Where is Rosa?!" was
the cry that rose from the throats of a thousand fans. (Actually,
it was more like at the Egmont dinner, somebody said, "This food
is great! Too bad Don isn't here to enjoy it!")

--Dwight Decker

Hi!

ALL:
I was going through some newsgroups the other day, and I found
a letter by David Lippert. He tried to sell some WDC&C's he had. I asked
him how much he wanted for it and after that, I suggested to ask it on
this mailing list for him, as there are lots of people here, that might
be interested in those WDC&S's. (I'm not). So ... here I go:
He has issues 100-278 of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories for sale.
The average grade is good to very good. About 15 copies are poor to fair,
but over 100 are solid VG. All have subscription creases and some have an
address printed on the cover. He's looking for about 1/2 guide-proce, but
he'll take lower. And he'll be willing to break up the set if he can't
find a buyer for the whole bunch (issues 100-278), which will go for
about $450. E-mail him at <(Email removed)> if you're interested.

DON ROSA:
You said:"Arthur De Wolf sent the album to me -- thanks, Arthur!"
You're welcome! :-)

You also said: "It would be so nice if the Dutch publisher was
nice enough to send these albums to me, but I don't guess that will
happen..."
You once told us about Greek G.E.A., sending you their Komix-
title, whenever one of your stories appears in them. How's that with other
publishers? I mean ... do more publishers around the world send you their
comics, if one of your stories is printed in them? I certainly don't think
Dutch GP will ever do the same, but who knows what'll happen if the
"Lo$"-albums are a big success ...
And OFCOURSE I will send you the other albums as well. That'll
take a while though. There's probably a couple of MONTHS between each album
is published!

About the Greek editions; Greek comics are published by TWO publishers.
They both have very difficult names, so I'll abbreviate them. The first is
AKTINA, which has been publishing Disney comics since 1966. Those Disney
comics aren't of very high quality, though. The paper isn't like the KOMIX-
paper (which is the same kind of paper WDC is currently printed on). AKTINA
had been publishing three series since 1966, 1967 and 1969, of which MIKY
MAOUS was (and still is their only) weekly comic and the other two are
MEGALO MIKY and KLASIKA. In 1988, a new publisher came on the market,
called GEA. The quality of the comicbooks published by GEA is much higher.
They're all like KOMIX. These new titles include ALMANAKO, CHAROUMENES
ISTORIES, DONALD, KOMIX, MIKY MYSTERIO and MINNI.
AKTINA and GEO both form part of the larger Terzopoulos Group, which
releases some of the major Greek adult men's and women's magazines. It seems
that the two publishers aren't competing with eachother at all. Advertisements
to the comics of GEA are printed in the ones from AKTINA and vice versa.

Bye!

Arthur de Wolf -- Roosendaal, the Netherlands
email: (Email removed)
homepage: www.pi.net/~wolfman/disney
"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."