Keskustelujen arkisto

TARJEI KIDD OLSEN --
"it seems like most of the European Duck scripts are written very
hastily, incorporating few references, or even much thought ...
That's why it's much more fun to read the story in a Gladstone
comic ..."
Speaking only for myself, I've written very few stories
hastily, and virtually none without much thought. It takes REAL
EFFORT to drag the things out of my brain, and they come out
EXCRUCIATINGLY slowly. One always hopes the effort shows...
Sadly, this is not always the case.
Anyway, when you see a story by Dave Rawson, David
Gerstein, Don Rosa, or any other American writer in a Gladstone
comic, the chances are, you ARE reading what the author actually
wrote -- and given the state of Disney comics in the English-
speaking world, that's probably the ONLY place you can read it.

DON R. --
[referring to Woodchuck titles:] "I'll bet I had translators
cussing a worse blue-streak at me over that story..."
Maybe. But I could also see someone regarding it as a
challenge, and having fun trying to come up with something
equally outlandish.

"Putting my plots and motivations together is literally like
figuring out a jigsaw puzzle."
I've used the "jigsaw" analogy myself, but I have to
leave out the word "literally" because I don't go so far as to
write things down and try to shuffle them into coherence -- I do
it all in my head. I'm told it looks just like gazing blankly at
the pretty patterns my screen saver makes. Maybe I'll try your
method sometime, but I suspect it won't work as well for me as
it does for you. But anyway, doesn't it feel GREAT when two
story problems come together and solve each other?

Now that you mention it, I do remember that aspect of
"The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything" -- that it only slowed
down time, and made for lots of inertia in things the user moved
around. It's been QUITE a few years since I read it...

KRITON KYRIMIS --
The detectives in TINTIN are an example of identical
characters that I should have thought of. The Cucnash Brothers,
however, I wouldn't have known, since I'm not familiar with
Jacovitti's work. (Considering all the talk here lately, tho, I
guess I should drop by the Web site.)

CHRISTOPHER E. BARAT --
Good ones! I never would have thought of any of those
sets of identical characters, tho I at least know KRAZY KAT well
enough to remember, once prompted, that Ignatz's children fit
the description.

MARCO BARLOTTI --
Well, I SAID my brain must have been defective if I
couldn't think of any more sets of identical characters than I
did. Missing three Disney sets -- yeesh! (For that matter, I
just saw the art on a Disney story of my own [for Egmont] that
contains such a set. Scrooge, in effect, called down a Biblical-
style Plague of Lawyers on an opponent. I left it open how many
there are in all, but as many as four appear in a single panel,
and they're all absolutely identical. But these, of course, are
just nonce characters, appearing in four panels of one story. I
don't see them returning. They don't even have names.)

[referring to my American scripts for Dutch Bucky Bug stories] "I
beg your pardon, and do you call that a "translation" ???"
No, I don't. In fact, I CAREFULLY AVOIDED using the word
"translation" in connection with what I'm doing there (except
once, elsewhere, when I facetiously called it "translating from
nothing"). What I'm doing is WRITING NEW SCRIPTS. I don't even
claim to be following the original story, except to the extent
that the art dictates I do. In the very first panel of the first
story scheduled to appear, Bucky wakes up, stretching. I re-
interpreted his stretches as gestures associated with an action-
packed dream, because (a) it worked with what I wanted to do and
(b) the art didn't contradict it.
Furthermore, this is the case WHENEVER I write an
American script for Gladstone, and (get this!) I'm NOT EVEN
EMBARRASSED. What I set out to do is write the best script I
possibly can, irrespective of precise congruence with the
original version. I will add a running gag, if I happen to think
of one. I once added an entire sub-plot. More than once, when I
think characterizations that are just fine for European readers
won't work as well in America, I've tweaked them. In the present
case, I'm re-rendering the ENTIRE STORY in meter and rhyme --
and doing WHATEVER is necessary to make that work, including add
or delete word balloons, or, in one case SO FAR, calling for a
panel to be flopped.
And if you'll look at the credits, nowhere have I ever
been listed as a translator (which is a good thing, because that
isn't my area of competence). My credit says "American script",
and an American script is exactly what I've done.
As for the integrity of the story -- as has been pointed
out at least three times in the course of this conversation, the
original story remains untouched. It's still right where it was
before, still precisely the same as always. See for yourself! I
haven't done a thing to it.
It occurred to me, just before I sent this off, that this
is an area in which I resemble Disney himself. I don't think I
need to elaborate.

"What would YOU say if somebody should "translate" a story of
YOURS this way?"
That would depend on a number of things. If it were an
original creation of my own, I'd try to arrange matters so I
could exercise a certain amount of control over altered
versions, such as translations or adaptations into other media.
And if I were working with another person's characters, in true
collaboration with the owner (as, for example, if an artist
created a series and brought me in to write it), I'd want some
say in how my stories were used.
But of course, that isn't the case with Disney. Here, I'm
working with other people's well-established and non-alterable
main characters -- so even while I'm dragging the story out of
my brain, it's already somewhat different from what it would be
if the characters belonged to me. I accept that I can't do
whatever I want with them. Similarly, while I may not always
like it, I also accept that once the story is sold, it no longer
belongs to me (and if there is ANY doubt, take a gander at the
contract!), and Disney can do as they please with it.
Anyway, never mind translation -- In my years of writing
this and that, I've had enough big surprises seeing my own stuff
in print to where I don't think an extensively-remade version in
another language would faze me. When I console myself that the
original is still there, sometimes the only place it still is,
is my own file.
By the way, are you familiar with DTV? The title is a
play on MTV, the American TV channel that mostly runs music
videos. DTV pieces consist of a work of popular music, with
clips from Disney cartoons. Usually, they do clips from two or
more toons, often butting wildly disparate styles up against
each other. Sometimes they'll paste sequences from a single
cartoon together out of order. They're capable of VERY
imaginative butchery.
I detest DTV. I loathe it. I am repulsed by it. I find
it disgusting.
But look on the bright side. The original cartoons are
still there.

Quack, Don
=

Here's more (non-Disney) identical characters:

The Smurfs...well, most of 'em. Also; Toucan Sam of Fruit Loops cereal
fame has 2-3 un-named nephews who are identical to each other and to Sam
himself...albeit they're smaller than him.

-Shaun

"Listen...you smell something?"
Dr. Raymond Stantz -- "Ghostbusters"

All this talking about timepieces that stop/slow down time reminded me of
a story I read some time in the sixties. In it, HD&L get as a Christmas
present from Gyro a ray gun that can freeze/unfreeze objects. Donald
tricks the kids into giving him the gun, and then uses it to force them
into doing various chores. The kids try to get the gun back, there is a
struggle, and the gun falls into the stove, blowing up and releasing its
rays all over Duckburg. Then, Mickey and Goofy (!) arrive, visiting for
Christmas, and ask for Gyro's help--Gyro was supposed to have been living
outside Duckburg city limits, so he had been unaffected. Gyro comes up
with a clock that can make time go forward by 24 hours, by which time the
freeze ray would have dissipated. This is indeed what happens. At this
point, Scrooge realizes that by reading the local paper he can "predict"
stock market values for the rest of the world, which had not been affected
by Gyro's clock, and tries to take advantage of this. To stop him, Gyro
uses the clock again, this time to make time go back. Since the ray had
now dissipated, this did not re-freeze Duckburg. (No, I didn't buy this,
either.) Thus, it is Christmas Eve again, and the story ends with a big
Christmas party.

This was one of my childhood favorites. Any idea who might have written
this story?
--
Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis
-----
"One day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day..."
-----

Does anyone have an easy way of getting me a copy of Alberto
Becattini's recent book on Disney comics? I'd certainly like to at least
have one I can look at, even if it's not in a language I can read. I'd
order one directly, but I'm unsure of the address to mail my check to
and how much the check should be (or be equivalent to). Help, anyone?

David Gerstein
<(Email removed)>

I have a Donald Duck sticker that says "I go for the '92 Olympics" (in
Norwegian)
and pictures Donald *skiing*. The '94 Olympics was the winter games,
doesn't that mean that the '92 Olympics would have been the summer games ?

Eirik Krogh Visted

Arbeiderenes Idrettsbevegelse
FRIHET -- SUNDHET -- KULTUR

Okay, I know people want me to post this, so here it is -- the schedule of
my next Euro tour (Germany-Italy-Finland)...
Well, the German schedule has already been posted so we'll skip that.
Here's the schedule for Italy-Finland tour.
Well, aside from the Lucca festival, my travels in Italy will be visiting
individuals, so we'll skip that. Here's the schedule for my visit to
Finland (the public parts).

Thursday Nov. 6, 5:30-7:00 PM -- Academic Book Store in Tapiola

Friday Nov. 7, 11:30-1:30 PM -- Kukunor comic shop in Tampere
5:15-8:00 PM -- Academic Book Store in Helsinki

The rest of this is in Helsinki...
Saturday Nov. 8, 10:30-noon -- Suomalainen Kirjakauppa (which I trust is
the name of a Finnish book store, though it sounds to me like a South
Pacific volcano)
1:00-3:00 PM -- City-Antilla Dept. Store.
4:30-6:00? PM -- Helsinki Comics Festival

Sunday Nov. 9, 10:00-noon -- The Good Fellows comic shop
2:00-6:00 PM -- Helsinki Comics Festival

Monday Nov. 10, 4:00 PM-dark -- raking leaves on Dawson Hill in Louisville,
USA (back to being nobody).

Daniel:

>I've heard a rumour that Ulrich Schroder plans to do the re-inking of >the Barks script-only story "King Scrooge the First" (U$ 71) again.

Do you know for what publisher Schroder would do such a work?

>The art he did on it in the past (which was *not* the entire story, >but about 3 or 4 pages) unfortunately got lost in a fire.

Irremediably lost (again)? And nobody from the CBL's staff made xeroxes
of the pages?

David:

I'm glad to hear that Donald's nephews were actually created by Al
Taliaferro and Ted Osborne (for the "Silly Symphony" pages, of course,
not the dailies as I wrote...).

>The reason that the animation department is sometimes cited as the
>kids' creators is that they *did* do some "creation" at the time

I checked out the recent book on Don Rosa and according to Alberto
Becattini, Harry Reeves, Homer Brightman and Carl Barks were some of the
cartoonists involved in the nephews' "creation" (for the screen). The
name of "Huey" was suggested by Dana Coty.

Kriton:

>This was one of my childhood favorites. Any idea who might have
>written this story?

Mickey and Donald together, that could only be Guido Martina, the best
Disney comics writer of all times (with Barks)...

Almanacco Topolino 13 (January 1958)
Paperino e il doppio capodanno
By Guido Martina (w) and G. B. Carpi (p/i)
Published in Picsou Magazine 59!!

That's indeed a great story (funny, original, with good dialogues).

Guido Martina wrote a few other stories like this one for Almanacco
Topolino, with the eternal (Italian-) conflict between Donald and
Scrooge, often showing Mickey Mouse and Goofy meeting the Ducks at
Christmas time (and, something more strange: he once used Zeke Wolf!).

Dan Shane:

>no one has mentioned April, May and June.

Marco Barlotti mentioned them. Please, pay more attention (just a
joke...).

Francois

>could someone please tell me who Bucky Bug is? (Perhaps the Norwegian
>name or what kind of animal he is)
>
You'll be surprised to know that Bucky Bug is... a bug. 8-)
The Disney Comics Pages do not give a Norwegian (or any Scandinavian)
name for him. The Danish and Swedish parts of the Disney comics
Database do not mention any Bucky Bug story, so it's likely that the
>character was never used in Scandinavia!

--Harry.