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Hi again! I've just reread Don Rosa's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF $CROOGE McDUCK
in the new collected edition, and was inspired by it to post some of my
thoughts...but first to respond to the last few weeks of Digests...

Martin Berglund wrote:

<<Here's a thing I've thought about and I know a few others as well have.
Since stories like Don's can at times be very hard to translate because of
the language puns the european translators must have a tough job. But how
well do the translators translate the puns, how well do they adjust puns and
so on. I can only give my opinion one one european country when it comes to
this, and that's Sweden. Stefan Diös (and I know that he reads this list)
does a very good job at translating Don's stories into swedish. What about
the other countries? Denmark? Norway? Germany? etc.....>>

The only Rosa story I can think of offhand where a pun played a major
role was "Return to Plain Awful," whose punch line depended on one. I'd be
interested myself to learn how translators in other countries dealt with
that.

Katie Sullivan wrote:

<<P.S....Don Rosa...I just re-re-re-re-read the story of the ducks' Return to
Plain Awful. I'd forgotten how much I LOVE that story! Besides the fact
that ol' Flinty is my third favorite character (Goldie and Scrooge being the
first two, of course,) that "made it square" gag at the end had me howling.
I'd forgotten it, so I had the treat of "discovering" it all over again.
Great work. Have you done anything with Flintheart
besides this one and "Son of the Sun"?>>

Well, there was Chapter VII of "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck." (I
haven't read "A Little Something Special" yet...)

Dwight Decker wrote:

<<Now, there was talk at the time Disney Comics took over that Disney had the
deep pockets to "grow the market" -- one story had it that Disney wasn't even
expecting to make any money off the comics for five years, and was planning
to invest the vast amounts necessary for European style magazines, with
comics and "editorials," and covers showing Mickey as Michael Jackson and
Minnie as Madonna, and using the Disney clout to get point of purchase
displays in every supermarket. That didn't last long. All that brave talk
stopped and the beancounters were insisting that Disney Comics make a profit
now , with the usual traditional comic books, with
dismal results.>>

Well, "growing the market" was always Walt Disney's personal philosophy;
he poured all the profits into new enterprises, as a result giving the
company a backlog of classic but expensive cartoons that took decades to
bring the company into the black...but did so at last. His brother Roy was
the quintessential bean-counter...and, inevitably, when he took over the
company for the next decade or so after Walt died, Disney *did* sink into a
period of capitalizing on past successes and doing whatever had worked
before. Michael Eisner seems to have a more long-term view, but I've heard
that on projects like the Disney Comics, other people (like Roy's son--why is
it not surprising the bean-counters won *that* argument?) were the ones in
control.
Even so, isn't DISNEY ADVENTURES the sole survivor of the Disney Comics
line...which *does* follow the European format (articles on kid-friendly
subjects of all kinds, not just Disney comics) and apparently does quite
well? Maybe The Walt Disney Co. has, with some justice, compared its sales
figures to Gladstone's (and Akklaim's) and decided the future of the comics
lies more in *that* direction?

Dr. Archontis Pantsios wrote:

<<Gladstone II was a totally different story; much of the original excitement
had waned; the Egmont material chosen was mostly uninspiring; the Taliaferro
strips seemed stale; the Barks re-re-re-prints brought (to me, at least)
negative marginal utility after a point (too much of a good thing, as I had
Barks in B&W, Barks in albums, Barks in regular comic in almost every
conceivable language); the only bright spots for me in Gladstone II were Don
Rosa, William van Horn, Daan Jippes, Paul Murry (the VERY little we saw of
him), and Romano Scarpa (I wish they'd given us more--I certainly hope they
WILL in the new U$).>>

Right! ESPECIALLY the "re-re-re-re-reprints of Barks" even when not all
the stories had been reprinted (as some have said, why can't we see "Donald
Duck Tells About Kites" instead of yet ANOTHER reprint of "Only A Poor Old
Man?"). Not to mention Floyd Gottfredson for the guy who, as Katie and others
have noted, seems to be able to sell everything at the Disney Stores, poor
Mickey doesn't seem to be treated very well in comics. Again, we've got a lot
of re-re-re-re-reprints; all those Gottfredson Eega Beeva stories languishing
in obscurity while Gladstone trots out the seventh reprint of "Mickey and the
Seven Ghosts." It almost looks like the Disney Store situation in
reverse...they don't seem willing to give us Mickey unless Donald is somehow
along for the ride!

<<(b) The new issue of the "Barks Scene" (Newsletter #1, vol. #3) put out by
the Barks Studio (read Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby) contains an article on a
topic mentioned once on this List last Spring. It's titled "THE LEGAL SCENE"
and reads as follows...

<snip>

A pretty "balanced" presentation, don't you think? :-))))))>>

Hey, who needs Don Rosa's posts here when Grandey comes off so badly in
presenting his own side? It's really sad to see a major talent like Barks so
completely co-opted by such a scheming opportunist.

Harry Fluks wrote:

<<This is an *American* story [about the Dutch boy who plugged a hole in a
dike with his finger]. 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.>>

And Jonathan Markoff replied:

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

Close. She was actually Mary M. (for Mapes, her maiden name) Dodge,
and she also edited ST. NICHOLAS, one of the top children's magazines of the
day.

Kristian Pedersen wrote:

<<So what is going on? If the death of the professor is due to bad
translation, how come the world never knew the eggs were really eggs? And if
the professor really died immediately upon returning from Plain Awful, who is
the guy Scrooge meet on the train? 'Lost in the Andes' clearly states that
nobody, besides the professor, had ever visited the valley before Donald and
the kids.>>

Don Rosa has said that he was originally Professor Rhutt Betlah
(perhaps I should explain to European readers that he was Barks' spoonerism
on Rhett Butler, the hero of Margaret Mitchell's novel GONE WITH THE WIND and
the movie made from it), the only outsider who'd visted (and named) Plain
Awful. Upon being reminded that he'd been said to have died before returning
to the United States, Don concluded that he could only have been the man who
donated them to the museum...begging the question of why nobody knew they
were eggs until Donald broke one.

<<A mystery. To be solved, I hope.>>

Well, here's my timeline:

Rhutt Betlah discovers Plain Awful, and brings back some square eggs, passing
them to the Padre who sells them to the other Professor.

Still not knowing what they are, the Professor donates some to the Duckburg
Museum, keeping a few for himself.

Later still, he breaks one and discovers what they are. He meets $crooge on
the train and tries to interest him, but one, perhaps all, are broken and he
never gets the backing to return. Perhaps he never gets back to Duckburg, so
the secret of the eggs dies with him until Donald rediscovers it.

Michael Naiman wrote:

<<Should everyone on the list go out and see the latest movies, read the
latest books and let Mr. Blum know how they turn out before he goes to
see/read them...?>>

At least a couple of people have mentioned, swearing it to be true, that
while waiting in line for the recent movie TITANIC (no, I haven't seen it
yet!) they got nasty looks from teenagers in line that

<SPOILER ALERT!!>>> (Alas!)

the ship hits an iceberg and sinks.

Paulo Cezar Lopes Barreto wrote:

<<In the 70s Brazil gradually stressed on the excellent local production and
European stories, mostly Italian (the publishing company is run by an Italian
family and they've shown frequent attempts to emulate Italian titles as long
as they remain marketable). Now most main stories in Brazilian titles are
Italian; nevertheless, many people, young and old alike, hate Italian Disney,
but in general they seem to sell well enough to stand prominent for so many
years. I believe the Italian model may not be well accepted by the U.S.
market, but when Gladstone is radically reforming their marketing, it can be
a valid alternative.>>

I remember that, in the days of Gladstone I, many fans seemed to have a
similar opinion of the Danish (Gutenberghus) Disney comics...by contrast,
they seemed to *like* what few Italian comics (especially by Scarpa) got
published. Since Egmont superseded/took over from/replaced/whatever
Gutenberghus, it seems to have vastly improved (mostly by hiring a lot of
excellent new people, including Rosa and Van Horn); possibly Italian Disney
*lost* some of its best people?

Merlin Haas wrote:

<<The Disney Christmas strip for 1997 featured "The Little Mermaid." Nothing
special, though at one point there was an old-fashioned sailing ship featured
and I thought maybe there was going to be a Peter Pan or Capt. Hook
cross-over. No such luck, however.>>

I read somewhere that the usual practice was to feature the stars of
whatever movie had been released the previous year...or, in the days before
they made a movie every year, a recent re-release. Which would have led me to
think that this year's would have starred the Hunchback of Notre Dame...but,
I suppose, THE LITTLE MERMAID was an even more timely rerelease...
And occasionally they did do crossovers, even with the Duck universe. At
least I remember (perhaps because it was the first one I read) one in the
early '60's featuring Sleeping Beauty and an attempt to wake her before
Christmas. Ludwig von Drake (Matilda's husband, Don has said) ended up doing
so by "giving her a sleeping pill upside down." Yes, I can't explain it
either...

And, speaking of Rosa, herewith my thoughts on THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
$CROOGE McDUCK (upon rereading the complete story for the first time since it
appeared)

Other posters have already noted better than I the complete inaccuracy
of Geoffrey Blum's introduction (which, to add insult to injury, Rosa's
comments in red got cut off the page, at least in my copy!), so I'll jump
right to the story. (The only thing I regret is the lack of inclusion of the
original Gladstone covers...especially since they were the only source of the
exact dates in which the action is taking place. Most of them can still be
gleaned from the internal references and Don's text pieces, but I would have
liked to have seen them...not necessarily as full pages, but they would have
fit neatly at quarter-size on three pages.)

CHAPTER 1: My friend and research partner Martin O'Hearn was an enthusiastic
reader of the series as it was coming out. His only problems with it were the
printing of the last two issues in the "coverless" format (certainly not
Don's fault)...AND Fergus McDuck essentially "setting up" his son by
arranging for him to get the American dime, rather than his just happening to
get it from a slightly shady ditchdigger who recognized an inexperienced
child. (I might add, though, that he loved Don's follow-up in which Magica di
Spell travelled back in time to obtain the dime...only to realize that it
would be worthless for her amulet if she changed history so it never HAD
belonged to a rich man.)
I personally had a higher opinion of "Invisible Intruder" (the
aforementioned Vic Lockman/Carl Barks story that revealed Scrooge's first
work to have been shining shoes) than Don did. (Especially since Martin's
research on writing styles indicates that, as he's said was his custom, Barks
rescripted the entire story as he drew it.) But Don has indicated that he
tends to overlook, or at least seriously discount, the stories Barks drew
from other people's original scripts ("Pirate Gold," "Trick Or Treat," et
al), as opposed to those that were 100% Barks...something I can hardly
quibble with.

CHAPTER V: I really loved the (very true-to-life!) way Don explained why,
after so many years of prospecting and a few good breaks, Scrooge took so
long to accumulate anything. Having him use his initial earnings to pay the
taxes on Castle McDuck brilliantly reconciled two seemingly contradictory
Barks goals...preserving his ancestral castle in Scotland, but also
indicating that, like everything else Scrooge owns, it was bought and paid
for with money Scrooge earned himself. Very good indeed...and the real-life
ghosts, although rather un-Barksish (though very Disneyesque...especially
when we remember the plot of the Dickens novella to which Scrooge owes his
existence and name) fit in perfectly.

CHAPTER VI: For purely personal reasons (he was the villain of the first
full-length Scrooge story I ever read...the one in which the two Ducks piled
up all their money in a heap to determine who was richer), Flintheart
Glomgold has always been my favorite $crooge villain, so his appearance here
was delightful! Although it might be heresy to Don, I don't have any
difficulty reconciling stories in which Flinty lives in Duckburg with the
Barks/Rosa canon. Barks himself established that Flintheart, like Scrooge,
owns businesses and real estate all over the world...and I'm pretty sure I
remember a Gladstone story in which Flinty *bought* a house in Duckburg,
*after* his rivalry with Scrooge had commenced. Naturally, he'd want to keep
it in order to keep an eye on his rival, and perhaps twit him further by thus
qualifying as a resident of Duckburg's own Millionaire's Club. But I have to
concur with Don; his *true* residence is South Africa, and always will be.
(And, I suspect, he's not at all pleased to see Daffy Duck's relatives get
the vote....)

CHAPTER IX: Don did indeed handle the death of Fergus McDuck tastefully; it
genuinely brought a tear to my eye. It probably IS the first death of a
Disney character, at least in a comic book (Bambi's mother and many others
have of course died in the films), though several on this list have cited
Donaldo el Quacko and several other spies in Barks' "Dangerous Disguise." (On
the other hand, we never SAW them die...I've always thought Donaldo el
Quacko, Donald's foreign-spy/matador double, would be a great character to
bring back...and, pace Don's comments about the Ducks' hair color, he was a
male Barks duck with BLACK hair! Come to think of it, maybe we could have him
and Prince Cad Ali Cad from "Ancient Persia"--who'd only need another dose of
potion to come back from the dust...AND Donaldo and Donald in ONE story? Or
would that be too outrageous even for Don?)

CHAPTER X: Now we get to see the Duckburg characters we know and love, and
another go-round with the Beagle Boys. (Don very nicely treads the line
between Barks' slightly inconsistent treatment of them; though stupid in some
ways, they still have enough low cunning to outsmart a clever and world-wise
old duck like Scrooge on a number of occasions. In this, they're almost a
Barksian mirror-image of Donald, who *has* a brain, but often is too angry
and/or lazy to use it properly.) Martin accused me of spoiling the surprise
when I leaked from the Family Tree I'd seen which of $crooge's two sisters
would become Donald's mother, but it seemed to me that, with the attention
Don paid to her temper, that was obvious almost from the beginning...

CHAPER XI: Bombie the Zombie does indeed add the needed plot and shade some
light (?) on Scrooge's worst side, usually suppressed but present even in a
few of Barks' later stories. And I love the way Don squeezes in all the
myriad achievements Barks gave him, adding a few of his own like being the
first person at the North Pole (possibly...doesn't Santa Claus actually exist
in the Duck universe, even if we limit ourselves to Barks stories?). The
candy-striped ruby and a lot of other good stuff...including Donald and his
sister Della (mother of Huey, Dewey and Louie, but WHO was their father?) as
ducklings!

CHAPTER XII: Don brings us full circle, ending the story at Christmas time,
literally where Barks began with Scrooge! Truly a job well done.

And I've spent a long time THIS Christmas weekend catching up! Time to post
this...

Rich Morrissey

Andrea Destro wrote:

> Hello to everybody,
> is there someone that can tell me how to subscribe to Disney Comics in
> SPANISH language from here (Italy)?
>
> Is there any address on the Net that allows this?
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
> (Email removed)

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V97 Issue #285
******************************************

MARCO BARLOTTI:
Subject: Hidden (?) Mickey in a Little Something Special:
>You call that "HIDDEN"? At least in the Italian translation, the guy holding
>Mickey's photo says "What about an autographed portrait of Mickey Mouse?"
>so that's certainly not "hidden".

Lauritsen's page actually indicated that it was on the "cover" which is why
I couldn't find it (if it was there originally). The Mickey photo seemed too
obvious. But after Mark's reply I just figured I was over sleuthing it.

>Was the original caption different?

Same in English.

-Rich (xephyr)
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/disney.html

Thanks to those people who have sent me information about their Australian
Disney comics. I still need more, though, so if you hold any Australian
Disney, please send the details to me, David King (email address
(Email removed)).

"Mankind has not so much power to receive as the genius has power to give."

Schopenhauer

Greetings, earthlings...

I hope all list subscribers have had a nice Christmas... Now back to
the regularly scheduled postings:

About OTA's greatly detailed explanation on Brazilian Disney, we can
just conclude, as previously stated, there's no one proven way for
marketing Disney comics -- in Brazil or elsewhere.

I agree the Italian roots of the family running Editora Abril and the
recurring usage of Mondadori-like strategies may be merely
coincidential in the pursuit of sales success and market adaptability
-- maybe any other publisher would be doing the same.

Anyway, it's necessary to notice: the occurrence of Italian stories
(including the 3-band pages) has grown frequent; since January 1981
the ever-dreadfully little format of regular Abril Disney titles has
been re-standardized down to the exact Topolino size; editorials have
been (unsuccessfully) tried in various formats; Abril occasionally
uses that slick paper and fancy coloring the Mondadori way.

But pointing out such similarities is much different from regarding
Abril as a straight follower of The Italian Model -- and even more
different from regarding The Italian Model as the key factor to the
relative success of Disney comics in Brazil. Anyway, despite a few
seasonal trends and a comfortable corner in comics market in the
mid-80s, we can't deny Abril *knows* how to sell comics -- even Globo
was aware of that when they took over Mauricio de Souza comics without
more than a few minor changes.

P.C.Barreto
(Email removed)

TALIAFERRO STRIPS

What's so wrong with them, pray tell, that should make someone scream
(and somebody already did)?
They're surely better than most (with notable exceptions) of the third
rate Eurosouthamerican stuff we've been given plenty of in past years,
IMHO.

RICH MORRISSEY

>The only Rosa story I can think of offhand where a pun played a major
>role was "Return to Plain Awful," whose punch line depended on one. I'd be
>interested myself to learn how translators in other countries dealt with
>that.

You refer to "making it square", I reckon. Well, they didn't make a bad
job, in Italy, especially considering the actual impossibility of a
literal translation.
It was "rendered" with something that could sound, re-translated, as
"squaring the counts".

>all those Gottfredson Eega Beeva stories languishing
>in obscurity while Gladstone trots out the seventh reprint of "Mickey and the
>Seven Ghosts."

Couldn't agree more ;-)

>Paulo Cezar Lopes Barreto wrote:
>
><<In the 70s Brazil gradually stressed on the excellent local production and
>European stories, mostly Italian <snip>

>I remember that, in the days of Gladstone I, many fans seemed to have a
>similar opinion of the Danish (Gutenberghus) Disney comics...by contrast,
>they seemed to *like* what few Italian comics (especially by Scarpa) got
>published. Since Egmont superseded/took over from/replaced/whatever
>Gutenberghus, it seems to have vastly improved (mostly by hiring a lot of
>excellent new people, including Rosa and Van Horn); possibly Italian Disney
>*lost* some of its best people?

What best people? Only Marco Rota left, that I know of, among the very
few worthwile Italian authors.
They could lose Scarpa, now, it seems, (see Luca Boschi on V97#283), and
that's also an answer to everybody suggesting Gladstone should "do it"
the Italian way.

However, Romano Scarpa is not *just* an Italian Disney, he's the most
international artist/author we ever had and, IMHO, should be considered
on the same level as Barks and Gottfredson.

Cheers

Eta Beta

Greetings, Earthlings...

David:

> I remember that, in the days of Gladstone I, many fans seemed to have a
similar opinion of the Danish (Gutenberghus) Disney comics...by contrast,
they seemed to *like* what few Italian comics (especially by Scarpa) got
published. Since Egmont superseded/took over from/replaced/whatever
Gutenberghus, it seems to have vastly improved (mostly by hiring a lot of
excellent new people, including Rosa and Van Horn); possibly Italian Disney
*lost* some of its best people?

I hope they didn't; IMHO Italians do a good job in Disney comics, both
as art and as a product. But many people regard them as sort of too
"rad" to be Disneyesque, frequently disturbing (reminding some of
Italian cinema), often iconoclastic. Many of such critiques are based
on the comparison with Barks classics (often coexistent with Italians
in the same title, in the Brazilian example), so regarded as "The"
ultimate Disney comics -- a bad misinterpretation of both styles.

P.C.Barreto
(Email removed)