Keskustelujen arkisto

On Aug 29, 5:47pm, Francois Willot wrote:

> >For our foreign friends -- "kindergarten" in the US is a kind of >pre-school
year
>
> Sounds very German.
>
Yes, the word definitely is a German import. English tends to borrow
words from other languages. Besides "kindergarten," the Swedish word
"ombudsman" is now known here, and the Phoenix area couldn't do without
a term lifted from your own lovely language, "cul de sac." (Housing
developers love those little circles of houses with only one way in
and out...)

> I think one of the major problem with Paul Murry is that he was only an
> artist. It's really better when the authors are "complete authors" or at
> least when the writer and the artist work together. Murry was a
> fantastic cartoonist and drawer and his inking was superb (he even made
> critics on Barks' inking which was too thin in his opinion, and about
> the way Gottfredson did put the characters on the panels, with only the
> head for example). But I don't think Paul Murry worked together with all
> his scribes.
>
Well, Gottfredson had writers, too, right? Bill Walsh and others?
So he couldn't have been a Carl Barks in the way that Carl Barks
was. Somehow, though, something worked very well in the '30s to
make those Mickey Mouse newspaper strips wonderful -- the combination
of art, story, and that rich, colloquial, slangy, distinctly 1930s
American dialogue that only David Gerstein speaks now. But even the
same people couldn't keep it up, due to (I suppose) changing times
and changes in direction dictated from above. I was shocked to find
out the same man who had drawn the '30s Mickey adventure strips was
still drawing the gag-a-day Mickey strips much later. If nothing
else, I was always a little spooked by his later Minnie who had a
human female mouth that wandered all over her face, sometimes 45
degrees away from where it should have been -- I can understand
the cartooning logic behind what he was doing, but it looked awful.
Barks was uniquely situated to do what he did. Murry had good
art but not the scripts or the freedom to make Mickey into something
special. If we were given the green light to give Mickey a makeover,
we don't really need a Carl Barks of Mice -- Gottfredson & Co. already
filled that role in the '30s. We need a Don Rosa of Rodents -- an
artist-writer combination with his own distinct talent and viewpoint,
in love with the Gottfredson Mouse and willing to spend his life and
career on making the globetrotting Mickey live again. But where do
we find such a prodigy?

--Dwight Decker

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End of Disney comics Digest V97 Issue #183
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My formatting woes continue, as shown by my last posting here.
I'll try a slightly different approach this time, and see if
this one works.

DAVE --
Actually, I never left; I just haven't been posting
very much.
I think of those 6-page stories as a blessing in disguise.
It keeps Egmont from being overwhelmed with submissions from
out-of-work American superhero writers. It's sure hard to fit
a story into that length, but whenever I'm staring at the screen
saver, wondering how I can possibly manage it, I recall that one
of the greatest series in comics history consisted entirely of
stories exactly seven pages long -- and I don't recall Will
Eisner ever complaining about lack of space. Anyway, count your
blessings -- at least we get eight panels to the page.
I think the tendency toward conformity, and the suspicion
(if not outright hostility) directed toward individuals who show
less of it, is probably a survival characteristic in a species
with as much capacity for innovative behavior as ours. Without
it, we might not have been able to form any kind of stable
communities at all.

DWIGHT --
I think a cube, each of whose faces has an area of three
acres, is the wrong way to go about measuring three cubic acres.
Three cubes, each having faces measuring one acre, the resulting
volume being re-formed into a single cube, would be more like
it -- each would be a cubic acre, and there'd be three of 'em.
Defining a "linear acre" as the length of the side of a
square measuring one acre, your method would give a value of
(3**(3/2))(la**3) -- which is greater than the measure Barks
gave (which in these terms would be expressed as 3(la**3),
assuming, as I believe most of us do, that a cubic acre is,
indeed, a cube with sides measuring one acre) by a factor of
3**(1/2).
The fact that this is an irrational number, juxtaposed
with the tenor of this entire discussion, is, as I'm SURE we'll
ALL agree, mere happenstance.

DISCUSSION TOPIC -- Scrooge's accent
When I first read Barks -- early to middle 1950s -- I
didn't "hear" Scrooge with any accent at all. But later, there
was a story -- I don't recall the title, but it involved an
amnesia ray and repeated trips to Dismal Swamp -- in which it
was specifically stated, by Barks, that he speaks with a
Scottish accent. Later still, when he was first animated (first
VOICED, I should say, since his first animated appearance was
in the opening to "Mickey Mouse Club"), he was clearly depicted
that way. And down through the decades, every time he is done
with an audible voice, it's a Scottish one.
On the other hand, many prominent and very knowledgeable
comics people say he has no accent; that Barks was "wrong" in
saying he did and the animation folks are "wrong" in showing it.
It makes no difference to me when I write the character
-- I draw my cues from Barks's sparkling prose style, a source
that will never steer me wrong.
BUT -- when I read Barks aloud to children, I use the
accent.
What's the "truth"?

Quack, Don=

DWIGHT:

> There is, however, a measurement called the "acre-foot": "the
> volume (as of irrigation water) that would cover one acre to
> a depth of one foot." It doesn't seem to apply to the present
> case.

The above may sound strange, but it is consistent: it is the product of
one acre (a unit of surface) multiplied by one foot (a unit of length),
which is a volume (i.e., that of a box with a base having an area of
one acre and having a height of one foot). This is very similar to the
more familiar kilowatt-hour: the energy produced by a 1 kilowatt (power)
engine in 1 hour (time) [power X time equals energy].

All this discussion about cubic acres reminded me of something I'd written
in my high school days, where, without yet having read any references
to Barks' "cubic acres", I had come up with the term "cubic kilo". I
wonder if someone could explain to me what *that* is!!! (A cube with
edges 1 kilo "long"?!?)

> We need a Don Rosa of Rodents -- an
> artist-writer combination with his own distinct talent and viewpoint,
> in love with the Gottfredson Mouse and willing to spend his life and
> career on making the globetrotting Mickey live again. But where do
> we find such a prodigy?

Kentucky?

(Sorry, but I couldn't resist! Besides, Don hasn't yet answered my
question on whether he might consider doing a Mickey story in the
Gottfredson style, despite what he once said about not being interested
in doing Mouse stories.)
--
Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis
-----
"If everybody gave up because things were hopeless, the whole vast panoply of
galactic history would be reduced to an exponentially expanding mass of
fissioning protozoa."
-----

JO:
What made you think I wasn't here all along? I think I've had a message in
every second or third Digest. But I stay silent unless I am individually
addressed and asked a specific question.

DIDIER:
Yes, you DID individually address me and ask me a specific question, eh?
And I ignored you. That was because I'm pretty sure I *have* mentioned what
I'm currently working on on here several times recently, and I didn't want
to discuss myself so often. But, since you missed it, I'll risk saying it
again: I was half-done with that story about an assault on the Money Bin by
a French Master Thief when Egmont decided they needed a rush-job on a
Gladstone Gander 50th Anniversary story... so that is what I am in the
middle of right now. I currently have two full stories written and
pencilled -- that's never happened before. I am now just into inking the
first few pages of the GG story. Then I'll finish up the Master-Thief
story. Then I expect to do a new "Lo$" chapter.

GARY LEACH (and thanks for the kind words about my input, Gary) responded to
my comments about Mickey by saying:
<<One would hope that this "Barks equivalent" would have found a way.
However, from what you and Rich have brought up, I'm not sure a "Barks
equivalent" would have been enough. Someone (or several someones) with
vision and talent greater than Barks may have been required to bring Mickey
up to snuff!>>

I can think of one particular "someone": an editor who had sufficiently clear
vision to identify such a talent and "develop" it in the proper fashion.
Barks established himself so quickly that no editorial "molding" was really
necessary. For Mickey, by contrast, we got what David referred to as the
"musical" phase of changing writers and artists, plus the decision to redraw
Gottfredson's stories rather than concentrate on developing a talent that
could pull off similar original stories in comic-book form.
As Gary states, this might have taken more effort, but it could have been
done, I believe.

Of course, this leads to another question: why did the editor(s) in charge at
the time (the late 40's and early 50's) treat Mickey in such a fashion, given
his instant recognizability? Was Mickey shuffled to the background because
other projects were pressing and "Mickey is so recognizable a character that
we don't NEED to put any special effort into his title"? Or did their
attitude REFLECT a decline in Mickey's overall popularity within the culture?
I tend to lead towards a combination of these effects.

SHAUN CRAILL, in the midst of his introducktion, commented:
<<I'm a real Don Rosa fan. His first story for Gladstone "The Son of the
Sun"
inspired me to give Disney Comics a go. I thought if he can do it, why not
give it a try myself?>>

This is what I like to see -- creators inspired to get into the business by
other CONTEMPORARY creators. That is why it's so important to give said
creators as much exposure as possible.

DAVE RAWSON ruminated:
<<Society is often quite procrustean in its normative values. Correctness,
political or otherwise, has been around as long as history has has a status
quo to conserve.>>

True, Dave, but never before has it so dominated an ADVERSARY culture that
seeks to replace existing cultural norms with its own. The attitude towards
deviant ideas in the PC camp is far more intolerant than that of the
stereotypical "bigot" or closed-minded old-fogey conservative. Indeed, it
comes with the added tinge of hypocrisy, since the PC'ers claim to represent
"diversity" and openness to new ideas. It makes one wonder whether an
ultimate triumph by the adversary culture will lead directly to the
reesstablishment of totalitarianism in the West. But I digress... albeit in
a deadly serious manner...

RICH BELLACERA suggests:
<<How about a new focus book called Mickey and his Pal, Pluto" or
better yet, "Mickey and Company" which features stories not just about
Mickey, but seperate tales about Pluto, Figaro (as Minnie's cat), Morty &
Ferdie and Minnie. If Minnie was given a more liberated attitude (like
Daisy's in the cartoon series "Quack Pack") she'd soon have a following of
both boys and girls (I know I really like this new Daisy). And if Morty &
Ferdie could be updated and creative, they too could build in poularity. I
know lots of cat and dog lovers who might be attacted to a book which
regularly features tales about them. Perhaps none of these characters could
carry the book all by themselves, but I think there is enough of a
foundation
on all of them to create a really great book which features short stories,
one-
page gags, and continuing serials. I fear though that there just isn't
enough
of a company latitude to allow it to happen.>>

Probably not, but I still like your idea. Especially the idea about a more
"liberated" Minnie. Some of the stories in MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES struggled
toward this goal, but some more work needs to be done. I like what I see of
Minnie in Michael T. Gilbert's scripts...

GARY LEACH commented, regarding Paul Murry:
<<I grew up reading Paul Murry's Mickey stories, and I loved them, but I
can't credit him with achieving what Barks achieved. He established a notable
way of doing
Mickey, but it is only one coherent extrusion from the miasma that is
Mickey; Carl Barks brought coherence to the duck miasma itself, and most of
what has been established by subsequent creators can be seen, in one way or
another, as extrusions from Barks.>>

"Extrusions"...are these guys artists or dentists? ;-)

I can't see Murry as Mickey's Barks, either, except in the establishment of a
specific
and well-accepted "comic-book look" for the character. He wasn't a writer,
and thus was probably far more prone to regard what he did as a simple
"drawing job" than Barks was. Not to overly romanticize Barks' view of his
lengthy labors, but I'm specifically thinking of Murry's response in an
interview to a question about his work and/or legacy: "I do the best I can
and let it go at that."

-- Christopher E. Barat
(Email removed)
http://members.aol.com/cebarat/home.htm
"KNAVES? KNAVES?!... YOU CAN CALL US IDIOTS OR FOOLS, BUT I DRAW THE LINE AT
KNAVES!" -- Launchpad McQuack, "DuckTales" episode "Duck in the Iron Mask"

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End of Disney comics Digest V97 Issue #184
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Michael Mankus wrote:

> My absolute, favorite Disney comics to read are FG Mickey Mouse comic
> strips from the 30s and 40s. However, Gladstone, in a recent letter page
> in WDC&S, said that they pretty much have reprinted all the allowable MM
> comic strip material. To get my dose of MM strips, I've turned to trying
> to find them on newspaper microfilm at my college library. The search for
> a newspaper that carried the Mickey strip back then was on. I did discover
> that the San Francisco Examiner, in 1937 at least, had only the MM Sunday
> strips. My library, however, probably won't like the idea of having them
> send away for every newspaper in the US from the 30s, just to find one
> comic strip. Thus, can anyone out there, help in my search. Does anyone
> know of a newspaper from the 30s or 40s that carried the daily MM comic strip?
>
> Any help would be appriciated.
>
> Michael

Michael (and all other mice fans):

About 10 to 15 years ago, the Comic Book Club Germany ("Comic Buch Club
Germany") published a 26 volume oversize paperback set entitled "The
Complete Daily Strip Adventures of Mickey Mouse 1930 - 1955". This
reprinted ALL of the Gottfredson strips from 1930 to 1955, in good
quality, in English, with NO censoring. This was a true limited edition,
with the print run first limited to 300, then increased to 500. I don't
know if the entire print run sold out, but I understand that the license
with Disney required that all unsold copies be destroyed upon expiration
of the license. It was an expensive publication, but I am certainly glad I
purchased them all when they first came out. I will never sell my set, but
there should be someone out there with copies they are willing to sell. It
would be well worth looking into.

Brian Tucker

As a result of all our complaints ;)
Disney Adventures Vol7 #14 features a Disney comic cover: yes it's Timon
and Pumbaa as the X-files!

Timon & Pumbaa * The X-Philes 6pp JZ 315
Brian Swenlin / John Costanza & Dave Hunt
timon & pumbaa encounter aliens

Plus:
Doug (no code found) 4pp a shaggy dog story (translate that !)
Bone (JZ316) 8pp Jeff Smith reprint of one of the best new comics around.
next issue out September 16, 1997

Wonder if they could run Mickey? Probably not, as I'm sure that Gladstone
has the liscence.

But speadking of Mickey; I saw David comment that MM comics lost their
popularity in the early 1950s... Of course it took anothe 30 years to die...

Let's do some beginning on Disney Gold Key circulation statements, to get
some arguing room... These are yearly average paid statements (which only
available on books that had us 2nd class postage) from 1965 on

Donald Duck #106(1965) 298,144 editor: MMorse
#112 (1966) 265,932
#118 (1967) 255,470 editor: Eiger & Murphy
#124 (1968) 262,249
#130
#136 (1970) 230,565 editor: Connaughton & Craig
#142 (1971) 229,933 outsold wdc&s
Mickey Mouse (1961) 387,662
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories (1969) 272,672
(1971) 211.846

anybody have the rest? or know who Eiger or Connaughton are?
Steven Rowe