Keskustelujen arkisto

RAM SAMUDRALA (was telling me what he didn't like about my art in
"Treasure of the Ten Avatars"):
> My general impression was that the art had been hurried.

My art is never hurried. I wish I knew HOW to hurry! Sadly, I have only ONE
speed. This greatly limits my "earning power".

> There were panels where you seemed to not concentrate on the
> Ducks' faces. For example, in page 2 panel 7, page 2 panel 10, page 5
> panel 8, page 6 panel 1, and many others, the newphews are not drawn
> properly. Their faces are either disfigured or the eyes are just dots
> (which bothers me a lot).

There is no page 2 panel 10... I guess you mean panel 9? Anyway, ALL the
above panels are places where the characters are so tiny that it's not
possible for me (with the equipment I have) to draw their eyes as anything
but the pupils. If I tried to also include the "circles", it would come out
as BIG dots. Or I could draw the circles and leave them looking like Little
Orphan Bombie, or Annie the Zombie. Er... well, you know what I mean.

> Also, sometimes in the same panel size and
> same perspective, you're able to get the newphews to look good.

Site such a panel where I drew the kids this tiny and still fully rendered
their eyebulbs. I'll go look at it and figure out how I drew so itty-bitty.

> For more examples, the panel where Donald says "get a load of the
> chubby elephant boy" is a prime of example of what bothers me. Here
> both Donald and Scrooge are barely okay, and the newphews look bad (to
> me).

As before, this is a panel where I had to draw the characters VERY small in
order to show where they were and what they were looking at.

>I think that could've been better in a bigger panel (like how
> you did it at the bottom) or on two panels.

Ah, but I don't have that luxury! The single most difficult part of the way
I do my stories is to figure out HOW on earth to cram so much stuff into so
few pages. This is always quite literally like putting together a jigsaw
puzzle -- I have many more pages of goins-on that I keep reducing and
squashing and truncating until I get it down to a bare minimum number of
panels. Then I must fit these panels into pages in a particular fashion so
that certain things happen on certain pages and do not carry over to the
next page as an incomplete thought... this forces me to truncate the panel
number even further. I'm sure I would have been delighted to have made that
page you mention into 1 1/2 or even 2 pages ... but I just can't do that.
Already they gave me an extra 4 pages for that tale.
Not to carry on so much, but just to make sure you know that even the most
insignificant panels in my stories are arrived at after a lot more planning
and thought than you'd probably think is worth the trouble.

> I can't recall if you've done this
> before, and if you have, it hasn't bothered me. It's just that this
> time, it seemed to happen a lot.

Maybe because this story involved lots of panels of tiny Ducks looking at
massive buildings or statues?
I'll keep your comments in mind in the future... but I'm not sure how to
avoid this problem. Perhaps I should do like other artists and show smaller
figures simply as silhouettes? That's one of the shortcuts that they woulda
taught me in art school if I'd ever gone. But it's the sort of shortcut
that might make the art look better, and with LESS effort! If I knew any
better, I'd draw a LOT differently than how I do, I'm sure!

> Yes, but there's so much that one has to choose. Since I already have
> two copies of Life and Times (and will eventually buy the single
> issues), perhaps I should get the 6 issue GG set.

What's a "6 issue GG set"?

OLE (asks):
> Can anyone at Egmont tell me anything about the Egmont "Life of Scrooge"
> book; like what's in it, an approximate price, and when to expect it?
> An answer a little more precise than "Don's 12 chapter story; less than
> 50$; and before Christmas" would be appreciated. :-)

I'm not at Egmont but, in brief, the Egmont hardbacks will have a new cover
scene, contain all 12 chapters (the expanded versions as seen in the
Gladstone issues), along with expanded texts as seen on Dan Shane's
website, all 12 Gladstone covers (art-only, minus the oval portraits and
logo), along with some German covers (one that was never used), and a big
bunch of unused or rejected storyboard-scripts sequences or chapters. And
maybe a few other oddities, like my self-portrait.

MIKE (says of the German Rosa albums):
> As in the last Albums, Don wrote comments to each story that give "more
or
> less deep impresssions into the developements of the stories"

Well, I can hope that might be my epitaph: "He was more or less deep".

GARY:

> >So what do we learn this month? The price of U$A albums went up a dollar.
>
> Just so you know: USA 32 had 32 pages for $8.95, USA 33 has 52 pages for $9.95.

Thanks, that makes a LOT more sense. This would qualify as one of those
"special" issues mentioned on the back cover, eh? I thought there was a lot of
stuff listed for that issue. Sorry about that.

HARRY:

>> > (What has Pat Block been doing lately?)

Writing stories for Egmont! (See the indexes on him and Shelly Block
on our dcomics web site.) <<

Aha, thanks. You know, I haven't visited the index yet. (Haven't really ever
needed to.) Maybe I should sometime soon to see what it's like. So is Pat
Block strictly writing, and not pencilling anymore?

-Augie
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AUGIE wondered:
> (What has Pat Block been doing lately?)

Writing stories for Egmont! (See the indexes on him and Shelly Block
on our dcomics web site.)

JO:

> I have a lot of Norwegian Disney Comics.
> How can I help ?

I'll contact you in private mail about this.

> The covers on The Carl Barks Library In Color from Gladstone doesn't have
> any story-code.
> I tried to find it on the database but it wasn't there (I think).

Most of the covers are blow-ups of Barks art from his stories. Probably
mr. and mrs. Leach can tell you how they were produced.
Anyway, since almost *all* covers of the Library albums were
made this way, I didn't bother listing them individually in the Database.
I included a remark about this in the header of the file.

--Harry.

About treasure of the ten avatars:

Don wrote:
>I'm sure I would have been delighted to have made that
>page you mention into 1 1/2 or even 2 pages ... but I just can't do that.
>Already they gave me an extra 4 pages for that tale.

In my opinion the Avatars is really one of the stories, where one can see
that the story had to fit (or better to be stuffed) into 28 pages. I don t
have the feeling that the art was rushed in that story, but that the story
rushed me by while I was reading it. So many life threatening traps and
only such few pages....

I really like the story and it reminds me quite a lot about the european
adventure comics we have here, like Asterix or Spirou, only that these
Adventures have at least 40 (and sometimes more than 70) pages to tell the
tales.
Maybe we get lucky one day and Don get s so famous, that even big Stories
would be profitable for Egmont. ?!

>> As in the last Albums, Don wrote comments to each story that give "more or
>> less deep impresssions into the developements of the stories"
>Well, I can hope that might be my epitaph: "He was more or less deep".

I have to add that it is not the usual way the editors express that the
Album contains special comments from Don. But among the 4 text Don wrote
for the Album there is at least one (for the incident at the McDuck tower)
where Don simply just can t tell much about the story. And he is telling
quite a lot about the omnisolve story, because it is also an adaption of
one of his old comics.
And in the text for another story he explains that the stories are not
poublished in any specific order in the Albums. So if people are wondering
about the constant changes in the quality of the art during the Albums, it
is not because he broke his hands (or lost his ability to draw) but that
some of the published stories are older then others and he was just
starting doing Duck stories then!
It s simply not that the texts are "more or less deep", but they just give
more or less deep information about the stories!

And finally: it just seems to be Rosa week in germany, just in the same
week as the new album came out they also started publishing the "attack of
the hideous space varmints" in the MM weekly. And they successfully deleted
the D.U.C.K. and the Signature.

Mike out!

OTA attacked the notion of censoring <<politically incorrect stuff>> in the
name of oversensitivity.
*clap clap clap* *WHISTLE*

DON ROSA discusses his artistic difficulties thusly:
<<Ah, but I don't have that luxury! The single most difficult part of the
way
I do my stories is to figure out HOW on earth to cram so much stuff into so
few pages. This is always quite literally like putting together a jigsaw
puzzle -- I have many more pages of goins-on that I keep reducing and
squashing and truncating until I get it down to a bare minimum number of
panels. Then I must fit these panels into pages in a particular fashion so
that certain things happen on certain pages and do not carry over to the
next page as an incomplete thought... this forces me to truncate the panel
number even further. I'm sure I would have been delighted to have made that
page you mention into 1 1/2 or even 2 pages ... but I just can't do that.
Already they gave me an extra 4 pages for that tale.
Not to carry on so much, but just to make sure you know that even the most
insignificant panels in my stories are arrived at after a lot more planning
and thought than you'd probably think is worth the trouble.>>

I'm no expert, but I believe that Don's years of practice in drawing the
Ducks and their settings have served him well in terms of maximizing what he
provides us in the allotted space while still maintaining a high level of
artistic quality. The "clutterish" feel that sometimes invaded his earlier
stories is far less evident now.

AUGIE DE BLIECK previewed:
<<DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES #48
"The Soaphead Factor" A new WVH tale in which Donald and HDL try to
escape the heat by travelling north, then getting involved in a dimaong
smuggling scheme.
$1.95
UNCLE $CROOGE #308
"Revenge of the Witch," a feature-length Christmas story
by Mau Heymans in which the sorceress from "The Golden Christmas Tree"
tries once again to ruin the holidays for the residents of Duckburg.
Cover by Pat Block. (What has Pat Block been doing lately?)
$1.95>>

Another Van Horn ADVENTURE story! Quite literally, he has NEVER done a bad
one! I'm looking forward to this one!

As for "Revenge of the Witch," what I want to know is, how did the witch
survive that fall off the cliff while in the form of a gas can? Didn't the
Golden Tree say that she had met her "end"? Well, if Superman can die and
return, I suppose that a witch can, too...

-- Christopher E. Barat
(Email removed)
http://members.aol.com/cebarat/home.htm
Nephew 1: "WHATTAYA CALL A WHOLE BUNCH OF BEES?"
Nephew 2: "A PRETTY GOOD REPORT CARD?"
-- "DuckTales" episode "The Uncrashable Hindentanic"

ANTTI:
Will I ever do a Duck story about Finland? Since my last visit to Finland,
I have had an idea in my notes to do a story based on your Finnish epic
tale of THE KALEVALA, but I have two problems: first, the story is so long
and... weird... that I don't have the time to read the whole thing, and
need to find a condensation or a sorta CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED version to help
me (I do lots of research, but I can't allow myself to spend TOO much time
on such research since my pay is not based on the authenticity or
complexity of my stories, just my page count). Secondly, I'm afraid that
no one outside of Finland knows any details of THE KALEVALA if they've even
heard of it (I hadn't)... so the effort might be wasted, except for readers
in Finland (even though, per capita, I think there are more Disney comics
readers in Finland than anywhere else).
So, I *hope* to someday do a Duck story set in Finland.... but don't hold
your breath waiting.

Hi!!

Does anyone know if there are any Disney comics beeing published in Canada?

FRANCOIS
> Is
> Vicar also a good writer?

Well, we al have different tastes! I didn't like it so much but I enjoyed
reading it anyway!!

Congratulations to al of you in Greece, I hope you'll enjoy the olympics in
2004!!

Best regards

Per-Erik Malmstr?m

------------------------------------------------------------------
(Email removed)
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Don Rosa wrote (regarding my comments about his art in Treasure of the
Ten Avatars):

>My art is never hurried. I wish I knew HOW to hurry! Sadly, I have
>only ONE speed.

I understand that, but I think the impression came about because the
scenes with the nephews eyes were just dots. (Note that I don't
think the art was hurried, but that's the impression I got.)

>Site such a panel where I drew the kids this tiny and still fully
>rendered their eyebulbs. I'll go look at it and figure out how I drew
>so itty-bitty.

Okay, in page two last panel, one of the nephews is exactly 1 cm with
dots. On page 4 panel 3, the nephew is around (less than?) 1 cm with
great eyes (side view), and on page 8, last but one panel, the nephew
is 1.1 cm with perfect eyes. Again, last page, last panel, nephew is
less than 1.1 cm and has great eyes. I am not sure if 0.1 cm makes
such a big difference.

A better trick is what you do in page 6 last panel, where you play
with the perspective. Here, the nephew with the red cap is drawn
well (closer to us), but the nephew with the green cap (saying "quiet
everyone listen") has dotted eyes. You do this quite well at other
times, but here, you could've just thrown out the nephew with dotted
eyes I think. (Sorry I can never keep them straight.)

>Not to carry on so much, but just to make sure you know that even the most
>insignificant panels in my stories are arrived at after a lot more planning
>and thought than you'd probably think is worth the trouble.

And please don't misunderstand my comments as implying you didn't give
it thought. I do think you spent time on it. And perhaps it's just me
who gets bothered by the dots.

>I'll keep your comments in mind in the future... but I'm not sure how
>to avoid this problem. Perhaps I should do like other artists and show
>smaller figures simply as silhouettes?

I prefer this generally, and in the past, I think you've struck a
better balance between silhouettes (which you use here) and dots. I
also think you can do perspective figures where the main character is
off to the side but closer to my ideas.

>> Yes, but there's so much that one has to choose. Since I already have
>> two copies of Life and Times (and will eventually buy the single
>> issues), perhaps I should get the 6 issue GG set.
>
>What's a "6 issue GG set"?

The 6 issue set of Gyro Gearloose Albums.

Someone remarked this story reminded them of an Asterix story. And
I agree with that. I do think your stories suffer a bit from being in
the standard comic book format, and nowhere is this more apparent than
in the Life and Times albums vs. the comic books. Just my comments!

--Ram

(Email removed) || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
When the history of this century is written, the one thing that'll stand
out the most, even more than the loss of life and money due to political
insipidness, is the development of Quantum Mechanics and the subsequent
biological and computer revolutions.