Keskustelujen arkisto

Sorry, I sent this to the request-adress, so it's a day behind...
hope it's still of interest ;.)

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: Self <Single-user mode>
To: (Email removed)
Subject: Re: Disney comics Digest V97 #178
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 22:04:49

Hi everyone!

Following the discussion about mathematics, Fermat's Last Theorem
etc..., I remember a JW-story in the monthly German "Unternehmen
Faehnlein Fieselschweif (U.F.F.)" it's a serialized story about a
race from outer space, and closing the end, it was discovered that
they lived on earth before mankind, and were forced to leave because
they polluted the environment that bad that one couldn't leave here
anymore. And (I'm getting closer to the point, really!) the persons
living today are the very persons leaving the earth million years ago
- why??? Because they went so fast with their spaceship, that their
time passed slower in relation to us non-moving persons... so some
hard-to-understand physics-fact by Einstein logically used in a comic
- no wonder we all become science people! (Thus this nearly not
explained thing must sound as unreal to a six year-old as the
shrinking stuff lowering the space between atom center and shell)

Cristopher wrote:
< Actually, I've observed a more general
<trend of "professionals" (academics, lawyers, businesspeople) being
<enamored with the Ducks.

And I really like lawyers to be count equally to the scientzists here
:-))
- By the way, I'm studying law ;-)
And I promise never to sue Disney for the Ducks not wearing trousers
and thus causing sexual disorder and fetishes amongst children ;-))

However, this just struck my mind.
Greetings, Soeren
*still laughing - hope no US lawyer reading this makes the imagined idea
true!!!*

Soeren Schridde
Kurt-Tucholsky-Str.1
49088 Osnabrueck
Germany
eMail: (Email removed)
Tel./Fax: Acc.Code+ 541/150764

MIKKO asks:
> DON:
> You're coming to Finland on the second week of November? Oh, man!
> That's the only time in the whole year that I'm not going to be in the
> country! Didn't you say earlier that it would be a weekend in September?

Yes, that's when they originally invited me to help promote that new "Lo$"
hardback. But then their schedule changed and they needed me to postpone my
visit until later. Sorry!

> A new Don Rosa hardcover book is being published in Finland. It
> was just announced last week, so I haven't yet got it, but it might have
> some unique Rosa art again. The cover has a modern (1954) Scrooge McDuck
> standing and in the background an open clip book which is colored like an
> old photograph. At least in the ad there was a Rosa pic I had never seen
> before. Don's picture on himself, much more detailed than the one on
> Harry's webpage.

That's all correct, but for "completists", you won't need to get this
Finnish book to see the cover or read any of the contents. This is
esentially the same book being published in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, if
not in other Egmont countries as well.
However I *did* do another batch of drawings, some in full color, for a
limited-edition leather-bound Finnish version of 100 editions. None of the
Egmont countries had me do that except Finland (not an Egmont company, but
an Egmont "partner" company).

Dwight:

Your piece about $crooge's Money Bin is one of these things every $crooge fan
ought to know.

I mentioned the part about the load on the floor and the walls to one of my
colleagues (who studies granular materials) his first comment was:

"But there is no load on the floor!"

After a moment I could deduce that the load on the floor not really was zero,
but that it was much much smaller than the pressure on the walls, because
after the bin has been filled to a certain height, the friction between the
coins and the walls will be sufficient to withstand the weight of the extra
coins placed in the bin.

I am not sure that the Money Bin is sufficiently deep to have reached the
state where added coins can not be detected at the bottom, but it is probably
close to it.

There is much more to write about this subject. See for example "Physics of
the Granular State", H. M. Jaeger and S. R. Nagel, Science, vol. 255, page
1523-, March 1992.

Back to _fluid_ dynamics.

Jacob
--
Jacob Sparre Andersen Web: http://fys.ku.dk/%7Esparre/
Center for Chaos and Turbulence Studies Phone: (+45) 39 65 53 51
The Niels Bohr Institute (+45) 35 32 53 05
--
Advertising Lego is like advertising oxygen. You don't need to! (Joey Jones)

FRANCOIS:
> (About Disney Europe' stories)
> You have probably seen some of these stories, they are published in
> Albums (at least in France). Most of the writers are French, while the
> artists are from Spain (Comicup Studio), and from various Animated
> Studio (I don't exactly know).

Yes, they are published in Germany in the series MICKY MAUS PRAESENTIERT,
which is not an album but a comic book series.

> The codes are "EGN" + space + year [of publication] + month. For
> example, "EGN 97-03". According to Harry Fluks, "EGN" stands for "Ero
> Graphic Novels".

I had always assumed "EGN" would stand for "Egmont Graphic Novel",
but the mostly French writers are a good argument that these stories
were produced by Disney Europe in Paris.

Juergen Gebhardt

On Aug 25, 4:37pm, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> Your piece about $crooge's Money Bin is one of these things every $crooge fan
> ought to know.

It's all howling absurdities for humorous effect, of course, but...

An acre is a measurement of area equaling 46,560 square feet.
Three acres, then, would be 139,680 square feet. The square
root of that is about 374 feet (meaning that three acres in
the form of a square would be 374 feet on a side). Since
Scrooge's money bin is three cubic acres, the bin would have
to be a cube 374 feet wide and 374 feet tall. That's over
thirty stories!

> I mentioned the part about the load on the floor and the walls to one of my
> colleagues (who studies granular materials) his first comment was:
>
> "But there is no load on the floor!"
>
> After a moment I could deduce that the load on the floor not really was zero,
> but that it was much much smaller than the pressure on the walls, because
> after the bin has been filled to a certain height, the friction between the
> coins and the walls will be sufficient to withstand the weight of the extra
> coins placed in the bin.
>
> I am not sure that the Money Bin is sufficiently deep to have reached the
> state where added coins can not be detected at the bottom, but it is probably
> close to it.
>
Granular physics is a little over my head, I'm afraid. In the "perfect"
version of my thought experiment, in which the money was assumed to be
stacks of quarters, the _entire_ weight of the mass was on the floor,
and there was no sideways pressure on the walls. I forget what the
weight was per square foot, but it didn't bode well for the idea that
there might be a basement underneath the bin floor. Assuming that the
money was a free-flowing mass (as Barks actually drew it), I didn't
have the math or the physics to come up with any numbers, but it was
easy to see that the mass would have a sideways thrust, and would be
contained only by the walls. My guess was that there would be significant
structural engineering problems in building walls strong enough to hold
a free-flowing mass of metal of that amount. It's interesting to think
that above a certain point, the sideways pressure would be so much that
it would take most of the weight off the floor. But wait--the walls would
be in effect _suspending_ much of the mass, so the load would be on
the walls, and thus on their relatively narrow foundations, right?

--Dwight (quickly getting a headache) Decker

DWIGHT:
>Well, the term "cubic acre" is of
>course Barks's deliberate humorous absurdity, since an acre is a
>measurement of area and not volume,
^^^^^^
Hmmm... If acre was a measurement of volume, "cubic acre" would imply
a NINE-dimensional unit of measurement! Anyway, I agree that Barks
came up with "cubic acre" as a deliberately non-existent unit; I
don't beleive Barks was simply ignorant as someone else suggested.

GLADSTONE STAFF:
Why don't you put a complete list of available back issues on your web
page? I don't want to go through the trouble of sending $2.00 to a
foreign country to get a listing that will be outdated by the time I
receive it...

/------------------------------|-------------------------------------\
| Fredrik Sandstrom | What a night! I'll never mix radish |
| (Email removed) | juice and carrot juice again! |
| http://www.compart.fi/~fred/ | - Bugs Bunny |
\------------------------------|-------------------------------------/

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V97 Issue #180
******************************************

GARY (RE: The Question of Mickey's Success):
>On the matter of Mickey, his lack of comics success is still, in my
>opinion, due fundamentally to the character never having had his own Carl
>Barks. Sure, Gottfredson and Murry did some great Mickey stuff, but no
>one ever came forward to give the Mouse the focused creative vision in
>comics that Barks gave the ducks.
>
>Here's a question I'd like to ask anyone who has any thoughts on the
>matter: was there ever a point at which, had a couple of things gone just a
>little differently, Mickey could have had a shot at gaining as much stature
>in comics as the ducks...in the USA, I mean?

You knew I'd respond to this one ;-) I'm a frustrated fan, or haven't you
guessed? Personally I agree with your sentiments on Mickey's success (or
current lack there of) having much to due with the Mouse not having as
devoted a writer/artist as the Ducks did/do in the form of Barks/Rosa. I
think
there is a qualified agreement where Gottfredson is concerned as being the
Mouse's most formidable creator in comics. As a fair novice in the world of
collecting and reading Mickey, I see the difference between Barks and
Gottfredson as night and day. Barks' stories were usually short and quick to
the punch. A person could read a Duck tale in one sitting and learn a lot
about the character (whether it was Donald, $crooge, Gladstone or even
Daisy), while, with Gottfredson, you had to read the entire strip (which
could last weeks) before you came to the conclusion, so you had to be a
devoted fan to follow through. Mickey's early tales were often very involved
while Barks' were light. I can see how a following for the Ducks could build
quickly, and for the Mouse would move slower. However, with Rosa's
new tales, we get some longer, more indepth tales of Scrooge & Company.
Now it would work since there is already a strong Duck fan-base that is
ready to delve into meatier matters concerning them. There was also a large
family of ducks which brought lots of color and interesting interactions that
also helped the success of Donald & Scrooge. Other than Minnie and the
Twins, and the occassional appearances of Uncle Mortimer, we were never
really introduced to Mickey's family. The color and interaction usually
came from the non-related members like Goofy, Pluto and often Pete. I'm
not sure, but I think the idea was to maintain Mickey as the focus, but since
Mickey doesn't have the strong personality that Donald and Scrooge do,
he can't carry a comic all by himself. I realize Mickey's "golly, gee-whiz"
personality had to evolve into it's current state due to him being the Company
logo and all ---imagine Disney's "Family" image if the irascible Donald or
the miserly $crooge (or even the dopey Goofy) was the Company mascot.
It would be nice if Disney would loosen the reins on Mickey's personality
to allow someone to take him to new heights. I imagine these reins have
something to do with all the banning Disney has imposed on past Mickey
comics. Perhaps someone who has a genuine devotion to the Mouse like
David Gerstein can bring back the good-ol' days of Mickey. He's certainly
off to a great start. With respect to Mickey's personality, a person's
personality is usually measured by how they interact with relatives and
friends. I think Mickey needs some relatives with stonger personalities,
though this does run the risk of those characters becoming more popular
than Mickey. Mickey should keep his circle of friends which include
Horace, Goofy, Pluto, Clarabelle, Eega and Butch, as well.

So IMHO, I blame it on too many long involved tales at the start (which are
great for the devoted fan like me, but lousy when many folks just want a
quick fix of their favorite hi-jinx), and a lack of a strong personality (like
Donald's irascibilty), and a lack of colorful relatives who constantly make
his life....interesting, and most of all, as you alluded, a lack of a devoted
writer to carry on in Gottfredson's footsteps (though things are changing).

A television cartoon series featuring Mickey & Co. wouldn't hurt, and
would probably attract a whole new audience to Mickey comics as well.

At this time, though, I think Disney, itself, is probably the biggest
hinderance to Mickey's stateside (USA) success. Loosen up Disney. ;-)

-Rich (xephyr)
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/disney.html