Keskustelujen arkisto

Nils said:
<<I guess I also thought that maybe maybe, if Gladstone leaves the sinking
ship,
or is forced to leave it (losing its licence some day, as other grapevine
messages might seem to imply), perhaps perhaps Acclaim could take over some of
"our" products too.
From a business perspective [as partly opposed to the literary perspective] it
would make sense to look at sales, distribution apparatus, aimed-for consumer
groups (of children?), reputation, success. And perhaps, in America, finding
Disney books with Hercules, Lion King, the de-H.C.Andersenised Mermaid, the
10001 Dalmatians, etc., has been easier than finding "our" products.
Nils Lid Hjort >>

At this point, Acclaim would not be able to do much better than Gladstone.
They're taking the months of Jan-April off to figure out how to get their
books/comics in the hands of kids. I, at least, see Gladstones at my local
Books-A-Million store.

It's easy to second guess Gladstone. Certainly they've done things that we
can now say were wrong - for example, I'd say the covers (even the classics)
are not attractive to modern audiences. However, even if I were in charge; I
might not have been able to keep them going. The USA comics market is dying,
a victim of their own shortsightness. And now Donald and Scrooge are fossils,
existing in cages for old folks to read and bag. Oldsters, read them to your
kids!
but the USA has been without Disney comics before ---

of course, it's ironic that Mickey is getting a new adventure show, just as
this happens...
Steven Rowe

I wrote:

>> Yes. My opinion of Mr. Blum has nosedived in the past couple of weeks.
First was the factually inaccurate intro to the Life of $crooge HC, and then
this editorial, which not only blows the ending of the story, but also manages
to insult Duck fans on the Internet which he, by his own admission, doesn't
even have any experience with. <<

I just reread the editorial. He doesn't specifically mention Internet fans. My
apologies for the misreading. However, his characterization of all Rosa fans
as being mind-numbed robots who are easily offended by any hint of dissent is
still mind-bogglingly wrong.

-Augie
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Augie De Blieck Jr. * (Email removed) * (Email removed) <*>
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I just read Don Rosa's story AR 30 about his majesty Scrooge.

But I only got the Dutch version, so I wanted to ask if anyone of you
knows what the original name was of Scrooge's own independend nation.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****
!!!DO NOT READ THE INTERIOR TEXT OF Adventurous Uncle Scrooge McDuck #2!!!

Please be aware that the latest (and last) issue of the Adventurous Uncle
Scrooge McDuck #2 contains editorial text by Geoff Blum on the inside front
cover which DISCLOSES THE ENDING OF THE STORY!!!

Can you believe it??? Sheesh.

Hi,
Regarding the fabled Gladstone implosion/the format of Gladstone
comics.....
Personally I LOVE the current format of WDC&S. As far as the
price is concerned, I think it's a great deal! We get lots of pages,
excellent stories (I've liked just about all stories in WDC so far),
excellent colouring, interesting articles (I love the "year that was"
texts) AND a two-page letters page! And stiff covers!
But at the same time I realise that young children won't be able to
afford these, and most parents probably won't buy them. So we need some
different chices. We have (well, had anyway) the regular size Gladstones.
These do indeed rely too much on Carl Barks reprints. What Gladstone should
(IMHO!) have is a few regular sized comics - but with more European
material, some competitions and more pages - AND at least one WDC-format
comic. The regular size ones should be as cheap as possible.
This way we would have (at least) one comic catering for collectors
and other adults, and a few catering for kids. Also, if more adults buy
these comics, then maybe they'll buy them for their kids too? So an adult
title could increase the amount of young readers.
And they should be advertised as much as possible.
One could even have one comic intended for REALLY young kids, and
in that mag you could advertise the other comics.

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

With all the discussion of the Gladstone implosion, I just had to delurk.

AUGIE, in Digest V97 #268:

<<In the end, if only they had put Daisy Duck on the cover, showing a little
T&A, wearing spandex, and sporting super-powers, we might not have this
problem. If we had an industry in which quality really counted -- in which
diversity was supported and appreciated -- in which people didn't look down
their noses at quality story-telling because, oh, it's a bunch of talking
ducks... If store owners ordered and supported the titles... Promoted the
titles... Didn't hide them in a corner, afraid to show them off... If the
distributor didn't stick the listings next to Vampirella on one side and
some other crotch-baring, breast-jiggling talentless art on the other... If
newsstands supported comic books... If the direct market weren't the be-all
and end-all... If we had a strong industry and not a house of cards waiting
to collapse on itself, this might never have happened. This might not have
been possible.>>

And if Gladstone had not flooded DONALD AND MICKEY for 2 years with overly
simplistic, mindlessly repetitive "Goofy History" stories for two years, and
DONALD DUCK with equally repetitive Taliaferro strips. If Gladstone didn't
keep reprinting stories most of us had already seen, like "MicroDucks from
Outer Space," "The Great Steamboat Race" and "A Day in the Life of Scrooge"...

AUGIE, in Digest V97 #269:
<<Now, can someone PLEASE explain to me why this list has been so damned quiet
about this bombshell announcement? Sheesh>>

Maybe because some of us are just disgusted with Gladstone for the above
reasons, and others--the more-than-a-year-long lack of letter columns, the
computer lettering, the sloppy editing of Egmont stories--such as when
Scrooge's home mountain, the quintessential Killmotor Hill, is suddenly "Mt.
Duckala" (?!), or when we suddenly find Scrooge's ancestor to be a cowboy
outlaw (??!!).

WILMER, in Digest V97 #270:
<<So, what's to be done? I'll ask for advice, from List members in the
more nearly Duck-enlightened parts of the world: which European version
of Disney comics should I start reading? [snip]>>

Della bell'Italia! At Frank Stajano's suggestion, I started learning this
language in January of 1997, and have accumulated quite a small Papero
collection! In fact, recently there was a discussion of PAPERINIK NEW
ADVENTURES on this mailing list. I only have a minimal amount of these
stories, but all I can say is "WOWWWWW!" It is by no means "traditional,"
but never have I seen more fully-developed and cohesive independent universe
of Ducks outside of Barks and Rosa's own. Someone here suggested a
"modernized" Duck title with a "new look" more likely to attract today's
Spawn-spawn; well, take a look at this, GLADSTONE! Since nearly every Duck
country in Europe has (or has had) its own version of PKNA, and since the
format is similar to Gladstone's own comics, and since "dark" superheroes
ARE the most succesful hook in the USA, what have you got to lose? (Of
course, to preserve the excellent continuity and consistency of the
original, the translator would have to TRANSLATE, and not just guess from
the pictures, as certain Gladstone translations I know have seemed to do.)

So what else is there in Italia? Well, there are a myriad of great Scarpa,
Cavazzano, and Rota stories out there (such as "The Underwater Adventure"
and "The Space Tourist"), first printed in TOPOLINO and than reprinted I
CLASSICI WALT DISNEY and similar titles. As for the much-discussed ZIO
PAPERONE, I only have one issue of this (81, with "Lo$ 12" by Rosa, "The
Night of the Saracen" by Rota, and "The Fabulous Tycoon" by Barks), and the
format is good, with thick covers, high-quality paper, detailed articles,
and a table of contents (which tells the stories' original titles in
English!), but Americans have probably already seen most stories reprinted
here, so I'd say the Yanks' best bets would be TOPOLINO (and I-story reprint
titles) and PAPERINIK NEW ADVENTURES.

I have also read many of the Dutch DONALD DUCK WEEKBLAD, and I'm not as
impressed as others are. The magazine starts with a 10-12 page Duck story,
sometimes Dutch, other times Egmont or Western, and only occasionally worth
quacking about. Unfortuneatly, the rest of the magazine is for age 5, with
only short stories, such as Little Bad Wolf, Little Hiawatha, or Chip and
Dale. However, DONALD DUCK EXTRA features entirely Ducks. Almost all Rosa
and Van Horn stories reprinted in Holland debut there, as well as better
non-North American artists such as Branca and Rota. Also, there are, I
believe, the DONALD DUCK POCKET digests reprinting Italian stories.

BTW, relating to a discussion the list had once regarding the connection
between April, May, & June and Webby of DUCKTALES, in Dutch AMJ are called
Lizzy, Juultje, en Babetje, whereas Webby is Lizzy--i. e., by Dutch criteria
April and Webby are one and the same!

DON, in Digest V97 #272:
<<I... uh... picked a REALLY bad time to finally end my silence and talk
about my recent trips, didn't I? I felt EXTREMELY foolish having my first
jolly travel report appearing, not simply in the same Digest as the bad
(but inevitable) news from Gladstone, but actually AFTER their posting,
such that it looked like I was indifferent to the news.
Anyway, I think I'll postpone any further travelogue until this Great
American Tragedy sorts itself out a bit more...
Back to lurking....................>>

Please don't stop writing "travel reports"! We need some good news to
balance out all these bad ones!

KATIE, in Digest V97 #273:
<<It doesn't make any sense to me. I'd soooooo much rather have a book
full of duck stories than what's in WDC&S most of the time. But I'm not
willing to miss Rosa stories. It's a no-win situation. And, call me
un-American, but I don't even like Mickey Mouse.>>

I agree about Bucky Bug and Little Bad Wolf, but don't dare say a bad word
about Mickey! ;-) [I realize Katie wasn't here in the days of my
contribution, but to appreciate the irony of this statement, compare it to
the pot's complaint to the kettle.]

HARRY, in Digest V97 #275 (re: "Hero of the Dike"):
<<This is an *American* story. Written by someone-I-can't-recall-the-name-of.
The boy had no name in the story. But in the same book there is another
story about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. By error, the dike-boy
is usually called Hans Brinker.>>

This was written by Mary E. Dodge (1831-1905).

--Jonathan Markoff
Virginia, USA

"Io saro' un pirata saraceno, e lei...la mia schiava!"
--Marco Rota, "Paperino e la notte del saraceno"

Hi Katie,

> I got "A Little Something Special"!!!! I LOVE IT!!!! Don, you've
> outdone yourself this time! I've been smiling so wide my face hurts.
> ALL the best characters are here! No matter how many thumbs I had,
> they'd all be way, way up, believe me!

I have to agree here. Not only was the story superb, but everything turned out
perfect. The coloring was terrific and nothing ended up off-register. John
Clark's lettering was a joy to see, and most likely a labor of love. And all
the right moments were there. What a great issue. And a long story, at that!

Of course, I only say this because, as Geoff Blum seems to believe, I'm one of
those Internet fanboys with nothing bad to say about Don -- and don't let me
catch you saying anything bad, or I'll mail bomb ya!

-Augie
----------------------------------------------------------------
Augie De Blieck Jr. * (Email removed) * (Email removed) <*>
Pipeline Commentary and Review: New Comic Book Commentary
Every Sunday: http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline/pipeline.htm

Mark Semich wrote:

>Don't forget the infamous Archie/Punisher cross-over - this was
>*actually* published by Archie & Marvel a few years back. The punisher
>showed up in Riverdale and things only got worse from there...

When I first heard about that crossover, I thought, "Well, here's another
lame gimmick to boost sales." But then I found out that a good friend of
mine, Batton Lash, was to write it. (Some of you may be familiar with
Batton as the writer/artist of a scathingly humorous - though vastly
underappreciated - comic strip/comic book sendup of the American legal
system, "Wolff & Byrd, Counsellors of the Macabre". ) To make it short, I
had to give this one a try, and, sure enough, it turned out to be a
scathingly humorous sendup of both The Punisher and Archie.

I know I'm biased here, and this might seem rather off-topic, but Bat has
been a long-time fellow-traveller with Gladstone/Hamilton in trying to gain
acceptance - and adequate sales - in the US comics market, so I hate to see
his efforts slighted. (I realize Mark was just making an observation, no
disrespect meant. Even Bat says that the crossover was a gimmick, and a
pretty weird one at that...but then, that's just the sort of thing that
suits his style.)

Francois:

>>but how can Gladstone let this chance pass to give readers a chance
>>to read "Tells About Kites" as it originally was drawn by Barks? (In
>>the CBL it is heavily retouched.)
>
>"Retouched" in the first Black and White edition, or in the second in
>color? (or maybe in both of them?). And, btw: why?

Since you asked, it's because no photostats were available from Western.
Hard as they tried, they couldn't come up with anything. At first we
thought we could create stats by shooting the pages of the actual comic
book on a stat camera and blowing out the color. No dice; the result was
pure crap. Then we got our hands on actual clean photostats of the story
from overseas, except all the lettering was in Danish, the stats had been
made for a digest-size book, and much of the art had been extensively
reinked.

We weren't going to not print the story, so we went with what we had. We
enlarged the photostat images and put the original English lettering back
in, correcting balloons and redrawing bits of art to put everything into as
close an approximation of the original as was practicable.

It was a lot of work that we knew would go unappreciated. That's just how
it goes with stuff like that. But, hey, at least we didn't have to do any
Disney-mandated revising of the story itself.

Joakim (and all):

"Backyard Battlers" as it appears in WDC&S 615 is, art-wise, "Backyard
Battlers" as Gladstone got it.

Gary

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"Life ain't nohow permanent!" - Porkypine
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