Keskustelujen arkisto

Rich:

Most devoted Mickey fans have, I suspect, largely given up on Gladstone,
and how can we blame them? The worst part is, we *want* to do more Mickey,
but every time we do Mickey (as a feature, not just a backup) we get killed
in terms of sales. It's sad, depressing, and really, really unfair.

And, believe me, *cooking* lasagna day after day can get pretty old, too.

When Gladstone can get up and running on some non-Duck Disney books (never
say die!), I hope you'll be there to buy 'em.

Gary

****************************
"Ee!" - Tiffany Case (as two flaming shish kebabs unpleasantly
approach...)
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Gladstone on the Web: http://www.hamlco.com/bhc/
---------------------------------------------------------------------

CHRIS:
>Perhaps so... but Butch could probably just as easily turn into a "lovable
>lug" a la the SUPERMAN comics' Bibbo Bibbowski. Would Horace be more likely
>to team up with other characters in a money-making idea, as he did on one or
>two occasions during the Gottfredson years?
You're right... I think Horace is most likely to join in on a GROUP
money-making idea (as he in fact does in the first Mickey story I ever
wrote, "Digging Up Trouble"). Still, I don't think money-making is exactly
anathema to Horace when he's on his own, either. :-)
The difference between Horace and Butch in money-making is fairly
simple, IMHO. Horace wants to use his "expertise" to get the old moolah.
Butch uses a different kind of streetwise... um, skills. In one recent
story I did, he was working as a patently phony fortune teller, and
assuming naively that nothing was wrong with this, because he was getting
away with it, wasn't he, and nobody was stopping him? (And that's about
when Mickey hit the wall.)

>BTW, excellent job on "A Mouse vs. the World"! Did the notion for this story
>come from the old book "The Goops and How to Be Them," I wonder?...
[Repeating what I told you in private e-mail]
Partly (I'm sure you noticed the title of the old book of morality
tales Mickey already owned).
But the other major influence was Heinrich Hoffman's STRUWWELPETER,
a 19th-century German kids' book which kids still read there today. The
cover -- unforgettable -- pictures this hideous, filthy kid with a huge mop
of unruly hair and fingernails as long as yardsticks. The idea was to tell
morality tales of an almost M. C. Gaines type, so over-the-top that kids
would get a laugh from the exaggerated grotesquerie while taking the lesson
to heart. My folks bought me this as a kid and while I laughed at it, I
got awful nightmares afterward. Thus "A Mouse Against The World."
Actually, the cool thing is that the German translators knew what I
was getting a dig at, and called the book in Mickey's attic
"Strubbelratte."

RICH:
>So you "planned" for Patricia to be in the tale?
Sure! Here's the script for the first panel with her:

* * * * *

Pic 5-6 We see a street intersection in Mickey's neighborhood.
Patricia
Pigg (see attached illustration), leading her son and daughter,
passes Mickey as he reaches the corner. The son and daughter
have their noses in a wide-open copy of Mickey's book.
Patricia
waves cheerfully to Mickey, who holds his straw hat in his
hands
and looks just a bit embarrassed. In the background we see
other kids across the street, sitting on their lawn and reading
the book, too.

Patricia Pigg: Afternoon, Mickey! Hope y' don't mind my spreadin' the word
about your writing!

Mickey: Gosh! Hardly, Patricia! Thanks t' you, every mom in town's
helpin' my bank account get back t' normal!

* * * * *

The straw hat, which Mickey wore off and on in the '30s and '40s,
didn't make it into Ferioli's finished art... I didn't mind at all.
(Probably would have dated the story a little, anyway.)

>Patricia appears with a baby piglet in one one-page gag
Which one? I know the daily strip of 7/13/31 (part of the story
"Pluto the Pup"), but that's not a stand-alone gag. I'd like to check out
the instance you cite for myself.

>but I notice that in your tale she has two. [snip] Have they been used
>>before?
Yipe. I think I may have just given her another kid. I've looked
at all my references and can't find a single instance of two piglets!
(Maybe if the page you cited has a girl piglet, that will make two... as
the one in the 7/13/31 strip is a boy.)

KATHY:
In "The Great Orphanage Robbery" (1932) toward the start -- during
the intermission of their "Uncle Tom's Cabin" performance -- Mickey
actually comes out on stage and tells the crowd that Horace and Clarabelle
are about to be married and the whole audience is invited to the party (and
to kiss the bride and groom... Horace gets all the kisses). The
festivities are interrupted when the box-office proceeds are stolen and
Horace is suspected of the crime. Finally, the couple is reunited at the
end of the story, but one of the concluding captions mentions simply that
their "romance" can go on freely. It seems that specific mention of
marriage was purposely dropped right there, probably to leave more gag
possibilities open.

<(Email removed)>
Also <(Email removed)>

CHRISTOPHER:
> Which leads naturally to the question: WHY did these particular issues
get
> distributed in such limited quantities? Was Whitman in the throes of
> downsizing (or whatever the term was back then) or administrative
upheaval?

Well, yeah, that's the point. My "theory" is that there was nothing special
about U$ #179 or the others, they just happened along at the wrong time.
Whatever reason it was that made those issues rare, it was just a fluke.
Some nasty kinda fluke. One of those hairy flukes.

ROB:
(sigh) I don't know... but I sure hope you aren't implying that I dislike
the opening to "Island in the Shy" because I think it's "scientifically
inconsistent". I hope somebody, somewhere grasps why I dislike the opening
of that story. I don't object for a nanosecond to the scientific
impossibilities in that story or any Barks story (or any of my OWN stories,
and there's a-plenty). It was the sudden redefinition of Duckburg after I'd
seen no mention of Duckburg being anything other than a normal city before
that or afterward. Suddenly, for one story, Duckburg was a city of the far
future for no reason I could discern. And yes, "Island in the Sky" was a
LOVELY story otherwise... the bizarre opening and the closing sequence on
the space station were completely unnecessary to that plot. There were
other ways that $crooge's delay could have cost him money, other than the
stop at a 23rd century space station. It's NOT the story I dislike... it's
the framing sequence that bothers me. I *don't* dislike ALL of Barks' space
stories, and I *don't* dislike scientific innaccuracies for the sake of
telling a story about what seem to be talking Ducks. Okey-dokey?>

LAURENT:
You want me to respond to someone's comments about how they think I
misrepresent DD's character? Oh... I'd rather not. If someone doesn't like
my stories or my style, I don't mind. And I usually agree with them rather
than disagree. I think I have used DD too much as simple comedy-relief to
$crooge's adventures in the past, and I try to change that.
But I *don't* think my problem is simply that I don't have DD fly into
rages in my U$ adventures. That's not the place for that. Those stories
aren't about DD or his temper. And the humor of the situation would not be
increased by violent fits of rage that have nothing to do with the plot
(and which, in my *intensely* tightly plotted tales, I have no room for).
DD's temper is a plot element in those 10-page gag-stories that I do so few
of. I don't recall DD's tempre being very evident in Barks' U$ adventures.
But, if somebody thinks it was, I won't debate it any more than I'll debate
someone who thinks I misunderstand DD. I can only say to them "sorry...
I'll try to do better."

ERIC:
> Does anyone think it's worth joining "Uncle Scrooge Collectors
> International"? I have their flyer. Yearly dues are $20.
> Besides getting a pin, I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be.
> Are there any members on the mailing list?

Well, what do you get for $20? If it's simply a chance to on a mailing list
(snailmailing list, that is) to get ads selling high-priced "collectibles",
why do you need to join a club and pay $ for that? Perhaps the membership
list will be shared with others who want to sell you stuff? You'd have to
be the judge... I dunno.
Can you imagine a better "Uncle $crooge fan club" than simply being on this
Mailing List? And yet nobody wants you to pay $20 to simply be part of this
group.

JAKOB:
> I don't recall if it's been discussed before, but Gallerie Lacqua in
Germany
> offered 4 pages from "His Majesty McDuck" together with the cover some
while
> ago. The reason for why Don had to leave Gladstone was because Disney
told
> the company they had to have the original art of anything they published
> in a a cabinet somewhere. As it appears, those 5 pieces left this cabinet
> a while before the print of those Rosa "Gladstone library" issues.

That story was in-the-works when Disney told Gladstone to no longer give
the artists back their art. So those originals were sold back in 1989. That
was the last one, though. I then quit since I couldn't work under such an
edict.

> lack of training or experience -- I look at a Marco Rota city or a
> Cesar Ferroli (whose name I never remember the spelling of) city and
> turn green with envy at how wonderfully they can draw that stuff!

John Byrne's Superman is also a good example of excruciatingly
detailed urban landscapes.

# Cristian Lucas
# From Buenos Aires, Argentina

DON:
> Some nasty kinda fluke. One of those hairy flukes.

Hey! You're not getting personal, I hope?
--Harry.
8-)

To all:

As a clarification to a previous posting, Geoffrey Blum wishes me to pass
along the following: he is an avowed Luddite, and will not be using the
Internet in any foreseeable future.

Christopher:

The prestige for Marvel in Disney comics resided in doing Disney comics,
not in how well they actually did them. Even so, Marvel did have a lot of
ideas for doing Disney comics that we never got to see, for reasons I
shouldn't think I need to point out.

Rob:

>"Christmas for Shacktown" bothered me sometimes because at the end of
>that story Scrooge's entire fortune was hovering over a bottomless pit
>of quicksand and could only be recovered one toy trainload at a time.
>Yet the next time we see him everything is as it was, the fortune
>somehow miraculously rescued and no further mention made of it.

Yep, and just in time for his debut as the headliner in Four Color 386
("Only a Poor Old Man"). Think of how different that milestone event would
have been had Barks let himself get hung up by the concluding moments of
"Shacktown." I suppose, had he been continuity minded, he could have looked
ahead and ended "Shacktown" differently, but would we have wanted him to do
that?

Laurent:

Good points indeed from "elmo" about Donald's characterization in Don's
recent stories. That characterization doesn't bother me, personally, since
a calmer, less hotheaded Donald has usually come to the fore when he's gone
adventuring with his Uncle Scrooge, at least in my reading experience. It's
as if Scrooge, who is most often in charge of the proceedings, creates a
command structure that Donald, though he may fret within it, really doesn't
mind having in his life. That sort of thing can often have a very calming
effect on an otherwise volatile personality.

Jakob:

>>>I don't recall if it's been discussed before, but Gallerie Lacqua in Germany
offered 4 pages from "His Majesty McDuck" together with the cover some while
ago. The reason for why Don had to leave Gladstone was because Disney told
the company they had to have the original art of anything they published
in a a cabinet somewhere. As it appears, those 5 pieces left this cabinet
a while before the print of those Rosa "Gladstone library" issues. "What's
wrong with this picture"? Why is this suddenly changed so that Gladstone
*can* sell this original art?<<<

Jakob, I won't take issue with the conclusions you've reached, born as they
are of a lack of information, but the accusations you make are uncalled
for. Now read the following very carefully: "His Majesty McDuck" was a
story produced and published before Disney's edict on original art came
down. Prior to that edict we handed back all original art to the artists,
as was common practice in the comics industry at the time (still is today,
I gather). "His Majesty McDuck" appeared in the recent Rosa albums because
we have photostats of the art; we haven't seen the *original* art in years!

Gary

****************************
"Ee!" - Tiffany Case (as two flaming shish kebabs unpleasantly
approach...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gladstone on the Web: http://www.hamlco.com/bhc/
---------------------------------------------------------------------

GARY:
>When Gladstone can get up and running on some non-Duck Disney books (never
>say die!), I hope you'll be there to buy 'em.

I'll be there, where else am I gonna go... there's not many Disney Comics
available.... but I digress... :-)

>>Patricia appears with a baby piglet in one one-page gag
> Which one? I know the daily strip of 7/13/31 (part of the story
>"Pluto the Pup"), but that's not a stand-alone gag. I'd like to check out
>the instance you cite for myself. [snip]
>(Maybe if the page you cited has a girl piglet, that will make two... as
>the one in the 7/13/31 strip is a boy.)

That would be the same one that I know, only I have it reprinted in "Mickey
Mouse" #255 (though I'm not sure how you can tell the baby is a boy or
a girl), anyhow it is this tale that got me speculating that this same
piglet is
also Herbert (HD&L's friend). No proof, just speculation.

Concerning all this upsurge in Horace-talk. Not but a couple months ago
Tad Stones from Walt Disney animation (responsible for bringing us some
of the classic programming on "The Disney Afternoon" told an on-line
audience that he really wants to do a new series in the vein of "The X-Files"
and "Sliders" starring Horace Horsecollar as the lead character (no Mickey).
He didn't think we'd see such a thing anytime soon, mostly 'cause the-
powers-that-be don't know who Horace is (an don't wanna know they don't
even care about anything prior to the Aladdin series... too sad).

-Rich