Keskustelujen arkisto

SCOTT "ROCKY TOP" LIVINGOOD introduced himself by saying:
<<Hello! My name is Scott Livingood. I am a graduate student in the
Journalism school at University of Tennessee-Knoxville in the United
States...I am intersted in becoming a writer for Disney Comics someday.>>

Welcome, Scott! And I certainly hope you fulfill your dream. :-)

DON ROSA commented, regarding the use of Gus and Jaq in GRANDMA DUCK stories:
<<However, in those days, the reason for the very inclusion of such totally
out of place characters in a Grandma Duck story was surely at the demand of
Disney. When the Grandma Duck feature began in 1950, CINDERALLA was in
release and Dell was told to produce comics and specials that would help
promote the new feature film. And some loony executive must have heard that
there would be a new feature in WDC&S and told Dell that it should also
include Gus & Jaq.>>

I suppose that this "loony executive" may have thought that G&J were
"naturals" to appear in a story set on a farm -- after all, weren't a number
of the early Mickey stories given a barnyard setting? Still, Don is right,
this exec SHOULD have been aware that G&J hailed from a different time
period.

Of course, one can think of even stranger encounters between Grandma Duck
and a pair of mice who "just don't belong" in her universe. To wit:
"Lands O Goshen! I've never seen you two little fellows around here before!"
"Actually Madam, we are two lab mice engaged in research for our latest plan
to take over the world."
"Can I milk the cows next time, Brain? Can I? POIT! NARF!" :-)

DONALD MARKSTEIN asked:
<<The recent talk of universes, and splitting of licenses, and
what-about-non-Duck, etc., prompts a question -- What, exactly, is a Disney
comic?>>

I would tend to regard any comic based on characters who emanate in some
fashion from
the Disney Company as being a "Disney comic". That being said, there are
several
"gradations" of "Disney comics", those being:
1. Comics based on animated and/or live-action productions that were
developed at the Disney Studio. (Ducks, Mice, Bugs, Wolves, Pigs, and the
Disney
version of Zorro.)
2. Comics based on animated and/or live-action productions that were
produced
by other studios that have since fallen under Disney's control or have
entered
into formal "partnership" with Disney. (DOUG comics, TOY STORY comics.)
3. Comics based on animated and/or live-action productions for which the
rights to
use the characters were outright acquired by Disney without any "partnership"
being formed. (MARSUPILAMI comics.)
4. Comics based on non-Disney products that were used as fillers in Disney
comics,
because of an agreement with the creator, commercial reasons, or a connection
between the creator and Disney. (BONE reprints, NERVOUS REX by William Van
Horn,
JACK THE LEGOMANIAC, etc.)

Obviously, these "gradations" are rather simplistic and can easily be
questioned. For
example, the current 101 DALMATIANS TV series is based on a classic Disney
movie,
but it was produced by Jim Jinkins' Jumbo Pictures, the same outfit that
created
DOUG. So technically, it's hovering between 1. and 2. Also, it is probably
true
that some fans will regard comics based on Disney TV series such as
DUCKTALES,
RESCUE RANGERS, TALESPIN et al. as somehow being "off the charts" and not
really
fitting any of these categories, since they involve revamped versions of
classic
Disney characters (not to mention a bunch of new characters).

I'd like to hear what other Listers have to say about the above
classification.
Whatever the response, it is clear that Don's question is not a trivial one.

RICH BELLACERA commented, regarding QUACK PACK:
<<...I don't recall even seeing a "Quack Pack" comic in DISNEY ADVENTURES.>>

David Gerstein says that a QP story is appearing in DISNEY ADVENTURES soon,
but aside from that one, no QUACK PACK stories have appeared in DISNEY
ADVENTURES... or anywhere else... up to the present time. It goes beyond
that: I have seen virtually
no QUACK PACK merchandise of ANY sort, save for a T-shirt and lunch box
offer on cartons of Donald Duck Orange Juice. It is as if, having made the
series, Disney has gone out of its way to deny its very existence. It may be

that producer Toby Shelton's decision to feature human supporting characters
in the manner of some Duck shorts of the 40's and 50's went beyond the
bounds of what Disney was willing to market, and the company simply decided
to throw the QUACK PACK eps out there and then let them wither on the vine.

In Richmond, VA, BTW, QUACK PACK and MIGHTY DUCKS are no longer airing, 101
DALMATIANS is airing at 6 am (yikes!), and DUCK TALES is airing at 8:30 am on
a different station -- oddly enough, right before a televised Baptist church
service.

MARCO BARLOTTI commented, regarding the 1988 Seoul Olympics Duck story in
TOPOLINO:
<<This again was written and drawn by Romano Scarpa. The original name of the
story is "Paperolimpiadi" (Duck Olympics) and it appeared from issue 1705 to
issue 1712 of "Topolino". In this story Scarpa managed to insert almost
every Disneyan character he had (up to then) created. I don't believe it was
ever reprinted as a whole in Italy...>>

I do remember a lot of familiar Scarpa characters popping up in that story.
I
suppose that the story's datedness may make it a poor candidate for future
reprinting, unless someone in Italy gets the idea of doing a special reprint
volume devoted to past Olympic stories...

While we're on the subject of sports-based Disney comics, have there been any
memorable European Disney stories based on the World Cup? How free are the
companies to use World Cup insignia, etc.?

DAVID GERSTEIN responded to a suggestion that Li'l Bad Wolf and Brer Rabbit
exist in the Duck and Mouse "universe" by saying:
<<The Wolf & Rabbit Universe (or whatever we want to call it ;-) is a more
elemental, primitive, anthropomorphic community, in which the characters'
animal species is still important and some ground rules of nature (atavism)
remain heavily in play...>>

Perhaps the Wolf and Rabbit "universe" is a particularly primitive and
underdeveloped section of Walt Kelly's Okefenokee Swamp? Sure, the character
wear clothes, but in some ways (e.g. the atavism) they seem less
sophisticated than the characters in POGO.
The early, comic-book version of Albert the Alligator (the version that was
always eating things) would probably have fit right in with Brer Rabbit,
Zeke, Li'l Bad, and company, but the later Albert would have had a harder
time of it.

HARRY FLUKS asked me to:
<<...minimise the quotes...>>

How'm I doin', there, Harry? Seriously, your point is well taken; I didn't
realize that this was getting to be a problem.

-- Christopher E. Barat
(Email removed)
http://members.aol.com/cebarat/home.htm
"WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HIS VOICE? UH, DID I GRAB HIM BY THE NECK OR
SOMETHING?" -- Launchpad re Donald, "DuckTales" episode "Three Ducks of the
Condor"

RICH:
> it would seem that we in the US exist in a pocket
> Disney Universe where there are all kinds of restrictions on what can
> and cannot appear in a Disney Comic. While outside of the US it is
> basically restriction free.

That is precisely right! Disney comics are the best selling comics in
Europe, yet Egmont and the other publishers operate as if they own the
characters, without anyone at Disney seeing any of the material until it's
in print (assuming they look even then)! I think they don't want to mess
with the mind-boggling system that has developed where Egmont produces
4000-5000 pages of Disney comics each year completely on its own,
commissioning all the writing and artwork, doing all the editting, etc.,
then turns over the rights to ALL that work to Disney to allow Disney to
market that material to other publishers worldwide and collect and keep
100% of the profits derived therefrom... and Egmont must PAY Disney huge
mounds of $$$ for the privilege to do this!!!! Who would monkey with a deal
like THAT!?!?
Meanwhile, poor lil' Gladstone, who already has the world's toughest market
to try to sell Disney comics, must operate with Disney scrutinizing and
second-guessing every line they reprint from Europe or Dell. Too bad, so
sad.

Hi everyone!

In a recent debate on superannuation in New Zealand it came to light that
people with a history of saving money lived longer. It seems that the act of
saving money, especially money that is superfluous to your future needs and
which you have no intention of actually spending, grants benefits of well
being and reduced stress to the people who saved it.

During the debate a statistician showed that there was actually a formula
which could be used to calculate the level of well being a given sum could
pass on to it's owner as a proportion of that persons actual financial needs.
If it was positive than the person probably lived longer, and a negative
resulted in a lowered life expectancy. Scrooge McDuck was cited as the
ultimate example of this phenomenon, at which point an opposing politician
rolled his eyes and said that the last thing we needed in the debate was airy
fairy Mickey Mouse formulaes!

IMHO Scrooge will live a very very long time provided he doesn't spend the
money in his bin. While there is little chance of that, I'm not sure how
Scrooge reduces his stress given his problems with Magica, the Beagle Boys,
the IRS, Glomgold, Tachyon Farflung, etc, etc...

(Only the first line of this message appeared in my copy of Digest
#202, so I'm sending it again. Apologies if this is a repeat for some of
you)

>>This I do recollect: Mighty Mouse first appeared in a TerryToons
cartoon (I don't remember the title, though "Mighty Mouse" doesn't seem
unlikely) as a rather generic animated mouse who, harrassed by a cat,
finds momentary refuge in a supermarket, where he consumes such items as
Super Soup and Super Celery to become Mighty Mouse, complete with a red
and *blue* costume. I suppose this could have been meant as a cross
between Mickey Mouse and Superman, but the overall design of the
production suggests it was a one-off poke at Superman specifically.<<

The first Mighty Mouse cartoon was "The Mouse of Tomorrow"
(the title being a takeoff on the phrase "The Man of Tomorrow" which was
used for Superman in the early stories) in 1942. The character was
originally called "Super Mouse" tying in to the "Super" theme (super
market, super cheese, super soup, etc.) but was changed NOT due to
pressure from DC's lawyers, as you would expect, but because a
Terrytoons employee (Steven Rowe will know who, I bet) had taken the
concept with him to Standard Comics where he had drawn a story in
Coo-Coo Comics called Super Mouse that came out at the same time as
the cartoon. After a year studio head Paul Terry decided to change the
name so as not to promote the Standard comics character. (this info from
Len Maltin's "Of Mice and Magic" history of American Animated Cartoons)
Hence the change to Mighty Mouse. The earlier cartoons were
redubbed (rather badly) to change references to Super Mouse to Mighty
Mouse. The Terrytoons Mighty Mouse cartoons were churned out on a bare
bones budget (there are only about five sound effects and they're used
over and over) but there are some interesting entries: Frankenstein's
Cat and Wreck of the Hesperus stand out and I like the Oil Can Harry
operettas from the late '40s. The latter are where the "Here I come to
save the day!" song comes from.

best -- Merlin Haas (not Disney but still mice...)

Hi all!

I want to say "thank you" to Don also in the mailing list. I'm now an
"immortal", because my name is in a panel of a Duck story, as a "title" of
the Junior Woodchucks (L.E.O.G.O.R.I.).
Wow! You can see the panel on my web page, if you want. And excuse me for
my enormous EGO :-)

Leonardo Gori
Leonardo Gori

(Email removed)
(Email removed)
http://www.agora.stm.it/L.Gori/home.htm

Merlin Haas resent a message, saying
> (Only the first line of this message appeared in my copy of Digest
> #202, so I'm sending it again. Apologies if this is a repeat for some of
> you)

Sorry about that. The file system where the digests are assembled was
full, and evidently this can happen then. Two other messages were
skipped in their entirety: One from Don Rosa (subject "Re: Disney
comics Digest V97 #201") and one from Don Markstein (subject
"Junkville Journal"). I send a copy of this to both of you to let
you know that I know about the problem and will add your messages to
the next digest, so you don't have to resend them.

OLE and MARCO:
> "C'era una volta... in America"
>1. I TL 1996-A "Topolino e il tesoro della Mayflower" Pezzin/MdV 34 p.
>2. I TL 1999-A "Topolino e i trafficanti di Boston" Pezzin/MdV 35 p.
>3. I TL 2015-1 "Topolino e il grande cielo" Pezzin/MdV 40 p.
>4. I TL 2025-1 "Intervista a George Washington" Pezzin/MdV 30 p.
>5. I TL 2055-1 "Topolino e il penultimo dei mohicani" Pezzin/Ziche 35 p.
>6. I TL 2059-1 "Topolino e la bella del fiume" Pezzin/MdV 32 p.
>7. I TL 2156-1 "Topolino e la battaglia di Alamo" Pezzin/Petrossi 33 pages
>8. I TL 2162-1 "Topolino e la via dell'Oregon" Pezzin/MdV 40 pages
>9. I TL 2177-1 "Topolino e la febbre dell'oro" Pezzin/MdV 34 pages

Thank's for answering my question regarding that story, but could you or
someone tell me in which pocketbooks (or whatever) they were published in
Norway? I couldn't find any references to the norwegian #'s in Per and
Harry's database. I can unfortunately not read Italian ;-)

EVERYBODY:

Here's a question I asked a couple of weeks ago, but nobody answered:

Could somebody tell me what I have to do to buy a copy of the italian Don
Rosa book "DON ROSA e il rinascimento disneyano"?? I know this was mentioned
several times on the list already, but I couldn't afford it at the
time.....Or, alternatively, does anyone know if an english version is coming
out anytime soon?

|| <<<<Tarjei Kidd Olsen>>>> ||
||___________________________||
|| http://home.sol.no/~kidd/ ||
|| (Email removed) ||