Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi, folks-

I'm back from the Blackhole, and it seems I've missed quite something... (issues #15-#19).
Don Rosa's decision makes me sad, but I'm also glad that some other authors than Barks and Rosa are discussed on the list, sometimes, and Romano Scarpa is just my cup of tea... ;-)

LUNA STORTA

to RICH
>And as long as I can remember the first time I saw a
>meeting between Donald and Mickey (excluding Donald's appearances in
>Gottfredson's work) was in a stroy from Paul Murry, then from USA.

I believe we had "mixed" universes since the early fifties, in Italy.
The oldest stories I can remember of are both from Romano Scarpa, the "connection" story in "Albo d'Oro #50, 12/53, and "Topolino e le delizie natalizie", "Albo d'Oro" #51, 12/54 (also on the current "Maestri"), but there's also "Topolino e la doppia vigilia di natale", TL 129-131, '55, by Bottaro and "Topolino e il natale natalizio", TL 200-201, '58, by Gatto. All stories were written by Guido Martina.
The only Paul Murry's story featuring both Mickey and Donald that I remember of was "The Crown of Tasbah" (Macchia Nera e la corona di Tasbah), from "Phantom Blot #5, 4/66 (TL 564, 9/66). Are there anymore? Please, let me know, since I'm working on a "piece" on mixed "universes" in Disney comics for my web page.

to LUCA BOSCHI
>UNCLE Ludwig Von Drake????? I always considered LVD not as a relative
>to the ducks...

I remember him being introduced, in '64, as an European uncle (Austrian, probably).
I agree with Don Rosa, here, in his being an acquired relation, probably, and that would explain why nobody addresses him as "uncle".

to KATHY
>I can surely scan for you the meeting between Goldie and Brigitta,
>but... I don't remember at all in which publication this story can be
>found, I surely own it, but don't remember where... Maybe someone can
>help?

Sorry, mate, but I doubt you can... that meeting was *never* documented, as far as I know.
According with MARCO's index, there are only 3 appearances of Goldie at all, in Italian stories, and the only one featuring both her and Brigitta was Scarpa's "Arriva Paperetta Ye-Ye", TL 577, 12/66.
It is obvious they would have met, during the final party, but the story ends before that... and there's not a single panel in the whole story portraying them together.
However, you can also find a reprint in "Disney Melody" '94 (Superdisney #2).

EVERYONE corresponding with me

NEW provisional email address :

(Email removed)

Cheers

Eta Beta
------------------------------------------
"Do you suffer from long-term memory loss ?"
"I don't remember..."
(Chumbawamba '97)
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Hi ALL...

HARD TIME WITH THIS SERVER: Again, this system is having severe
hardware problems, I've failed to get 3 digests in a row and I'm not
sure about when this posting will be actually sent. Sorry for the
inconvenience.

in re DUCKBURG NATION:

a) We can't see strong evidence of a national power over Duckburg,
although there's no signs of Duckburg being something as a city-State.
Although Duckburg has its own mayor, Duckburg's degree of
sovereignship is quite unclear.

b) Duckburgers aren't expected to show passports when going to
Goosetown; in general, we feel like both towns (and some other
occasional neighbors) belong to the same state and/or country.

c) I remember some times when the national flag *had* to be pictured.
In the clearest case in my memory, the HDL school frontage appeared
on a panel background, including a small but noticeable U.S. flag --
promptly redesigned into a Brazilian flag in our local version.
Nevertheless, the Brazilian sub-canon never implies Duckburg is in Brazil.

d) There are countless examples of the concept of State in the Duck
universe, but all of them exclude Duckburg, Goosetown and neighbors.
We can rank them in 3 categories:

- Duck-Universe counterparts of real-life places, which there's not
much to invent about. Those include Scrooge's Klondike, Magica's
Vesuvius and the whole Ze Carioca universe.
- Made-up nations, nearly *all* despotically ruled (absolute monarchy
is an all-time favorite, as the most easily conceived form of government).
- *The Nation* comprising Duckburg and surroundings. An Utopian
boundaryless America? The dream of the least noticeable government as
the best government? The land of the free in contrast with
Bonga-Bonga-confined natives? That really puzzles me.

e) Of course, discussing political organization is a delicate issue,
but if you had 3 cubic acres of money, would you follow the rules or
would you *make* them? And would such fortune be made by following
the rules beforehand?

DAVID GERSTEIN:

>I don't know why Dugan's colored differently in non-Brazilian
comics. Probably, I guess, to make him more like the other Ducks,
although that's not much of an excuse IMHO.

I'd like to get further background on Dugan (fortunately, not many
readers will have to call him Dugan...) creation, but it's evident
each publisher had the right to color him at their best pleasure.
Then the Brazilian publishers, apparently unable to make a decision by
themselves, made up that coloring contest. Not bad, since the
winning coloring made Dugan yellow just like a real-life duckling...

> as far as I can
figure out myself, Fethry is indeed English. You'll note that the
Gladstone translation of Cavazzano's Fethry story in WDG 5 maintains the
pattern (mentioning that he's visiting from overseas).

That's way relative, since non-American readers can't even figure
which country Fethry moved *to*! As I've previously stated, there's
no such concept that Duckburg is in America; it's easier to recognize
those Bonga-Bonga-type wild islands as state nations than conceiving
Duckburg as part of a state nation.

> Remember, before anyone
gets their hopes up, that a lot of the Gottfredson material in those
early issues is banned in the USA.

...and fan clubs everywhere start smuggling the complete, unabridged,
unretouched, uncensored Gottfredson bootlegs (as in the music bootleg
industry) :-)

DANIEL:

<The big Duck what-if discussion: Goldie inheirits U$'s fortune>

> In fact, what does he know about her? Did she really change to a
purely good person over all the years? "Back to the Klondike" doesn't
really give an answer (though readers can of course hope it's the
case). Besides that, isn't the treasure some kind of inheritance-gift
to Goldie? This could be Scrooge's way to make sure she'll get a
better life-standard than is the case in this story. Not because she
could have changed to a purely good person, but because U$ would
love her anyway... Maybe Disney's strict code can't allow children
to know what U$ finds so special in Goldie (in association to the
way Goldie made a living by "entertaining" tired miners). :-) P> No
one would wonder if U$ actually leaves his fortune to Goldie.

>*I* would! But maybe that's the same to you? ;-)

I'd bet a goose egg nugget on Goldie (after tax collection and the
family share, of course). A dead Scrooge wouldn't be swimming in
money anymore and it's fair to let him leave his fortune to whomever
he wants... I feel U$ is not fully pleased with his family, while
Goldie is his only aquaintance who shares his greedy-but-struggling
spirit. But U$ is the winner and Goldie is the loser... In general,
the moral and the romance implied in "BttK" don't have been so much of
U$'s life. I think it's fair to believe U$ could remedy it, even if
he will not allow himself living to see it.

P> I also remember an Italian story where U$ puts his adult nephews to
P> the test by bestowing them investment money in equal parts.
However, P> none did qualify to run U$'s fortune...

> Could this be Don Rosa's "Nobody's Business" story? Not the same
story. Correction: I'm not sure it's Italian, but I'm sure it's not
a Rosa story.

> Maybe in a way of speaking, Duckburg is a world on its own?There must
be democracy

Indeed, there are occasional elections in Duckburg. I don't doubt
it's a democracy, but democracy is a concept prior to the modern state
nation -- not Duckburg's case, I think. In Brazilian stories
Duckburgers speak Portuguese and do business in Brazilian currency,
but nothing really makes us imagine them as Brazilian (or American, or
whatever).

SOEREN:

> I remember a story in which HD&L stated that each time
they asked Scrooge about details they got a new and
different explanation about what happened in the past, and
they somehow enjoyed that fact (so did I).

Maybe U$ is making up a legend of himself so as to justify his fortune
and hide the *actual* origin of his fantasticabillions??????

[]s, P.C.Barreto (Email removed)

Daniel:=20
> > I can't believe someone with as many investments as Scrooge wouldn't
> > read a newspaper every day, at least during the week. (I suspect he
> > borrows Miss Quackfaster's.)
>=20
> As Scrooge explains himself: "I haven't bought a paper since the price=20
> jumped a cent in 1950!" Which means that, at the time of the story, he=20
> has been without a paper for about 6 years!

But he does read the newspapers he just don't buy them.
I think I've seen the same scenario several times.
Some person sits in the park and reads a newspaper,
and Scrooge stands in his Money Binge and reads the same
paper through a telescope over the fellows shoulder.
(I think this happens mostly in Italian stories)

And sometimes H, L & D meets Scrooge in the park were
he is looking for the daily newspaper.

And how many times hasn't he gone over to Donald to
watch the news on the telly.

> Then you really should see his pre-Disney work "Pertwillaby Papers" and=
=20
> "Captain Kentucky"! I hope this work will be reprinted one day, although=
=20
> I'm very curious if Disney would allow it because some of the plots=20
> and scenes were re-used in his Disney stories.=20

If it is PRE-Disney, how can Disney have anything to say
about it being reprinted? Surely if Don Rosa has reused
the story lines in his Disney stories, if anyone were
to object it would be whoever has the copyright to these
pre-Disney stories, since Disney have stolen the plots
from them, wouldn't it?
=20
> Scrooge only thinks of himself and how *he* can get better. There has bee=
n=20
> (limited to Barks) as far as I know only one time in which he shows he=20
> cares for his family (I've searched for it but I can't find it back). But=
=20
> of course, caring for your family doesn't nescessarily cost money!

I remember one story where Scrooge kicks Donald out of his (DD's)
house, since DD can't pay his debt. Donald asks him to not to do
it and to think of H, D & L who'll be homeless too, but Scrooge
replys that he naturally won't let the kids suffer for Donalds
mistakes, and that they could come and live with him. That struck
me as an example of Scrooge caring for others (Though not for
Donald). Can't remember when I read it, or what it was about,
just remember that opening)

Claus O. M. Havik
--------------------------------------
Claus Ola Margon H=E5vik
Hedmark College: http://www.hihm.no
email: (Email removed)

DANIEL:

> What's so wrong with Fethry? I've been wondering this for years. For me
> the Al Hubbard version looks great! Hubbard's style is very special and
> lively, for people (like me) who think that an artist should be able to
> have his own style, they really should see his work!

I sincerely doubt if I've ever seen Hubbard's version. Apart from the
one story that Gladstone printed, and which I've forgotten, all I've
read are some forgettable stories in the Greek "Mickey Mouse" magazine,
where the setting is usually: Scrooge as newspaper editor, Donald has
a cat that comments on everything (called "Mitsa" in Greek), and with
a barefooted bearded hillbilly in the supporting cast (called "Jim the
terrible" in Greek).

Thus, comparing young Scrooge with the Fethry I know, I'll take the
former every day.
--
Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis
-----
"Your species doesn't, uh, do anything, you know, *awful* when you get too
happy, do you? Like, you know, blow up or something?"
-----

NILS LID HJORT:
Thanks for your letter - kjempe fint! :-)

KRITON + DANIEL:
I fully agree with Daniel on the matter of Fethry.
Fathry may even be more complex than Scrooge
to some extent, its just that we don't see him in too
many stories. My all time favourite is Donald, though.
The stories to which you refer, Kriton, is
probably the "series" of Tony Strobl. The art is
rather simple, but the plots are funny little confusion
comedies, with misunderstandings and talking at
cross purposes. He made several of those,
also with Mickey/Goofy stories that worked pretty
much the same way - even including Mitsa I think :-)
Back to Fethry; Cavazzano has made great Fethry
stories, even as the lead character.

DANIEL:
>Yes, I think a person who makes huge profits by exploiting his family
for
>only 30 cents an hour, isn't making his money "fair and square".
Scrooge
>misuses his power on his own family!
Wow. Well, you are right! Fortunately Scrooge
usually in the endings of (many Italian) stories
admits that he was a bit too harsh on his family,
or he "learns" from what went wrong, like misuse
of nature or his hardworking personnel like Gyro.
And what about Scarpa's Peperino e la leggenda dello
"scozzese volante" (I-TL-174-A), he cries genuine *tears*
in the end while waving goodbye to his
ancient grand-grand-grand-...uncle.

CLAUS OLA:
On the Scrooge robot: In fact it is Scrooge himself
that makes the robot with the assistance of Gyro.
The story is Scarpa's "Zio Paperone e il sosia elettronico"
(I-TL-629-A) from 1967.

S=F8ren

On Jan 19, 6:22pm, Francois Willot wrote:
> Subject: Re: Dutch story
> Dwight Decker wrote:
>
> >There
> >isn't much in the dialogue of that story that is really distinctive
> >or memorable, but the name of the restaurant in Paris, the "Trop Cher,"
> >sounds like something I might have come up with.
>
> The story was published here one month before the US publication, with
> the same "trop cher" joke.
>
Aw...I thought sure I'd made that up myself, but...I translated that story so
long ago I don't remember the fine details. (Everybody else: "Trop cher" is
French for "too expensive").

> I recall that in a certain issue of JM, I saw a parody of another famous
> painting, the "radeau de la meduse".

Hey, I know that painting! I saw it when I was at the Louvre last spring (and
then saw a 3-D reproduction of it at the Musee Grevin wax museum a couple of
hours later). My inner child's take on it was "The naked man who still has his
socks on." I recently read a Lucky Luke volume ("Klondike") in which Jolly
Jumper makes a comment to the reader referring to that painting while watching
Lucky Luke and his friend build a raft -- it being just a little bit absurd
that an American horse would be familiar with a French painting. ("Klondike"
was also interesting for seeing a different take on the territory Barks and
Rosa have explored in their Scrooge stories, such as using the historically
genuine Soapy Smith as opposed to Soapy Slick.)

--Dwight Decker

On Jan 19, 11:37pm, Luca Boschi wrote:

> The first time the word "Topolinia" is
> written in an italian story (not by Scarpa, indeed, maybe drawn by Rino
> Anzi, this idea is by Guido Martina and Mario Gentilini, anyway), it
> seems that Donald and the same $crooge, in his very first (bad) story
> made in Italy in which he is starred, all live in "Mouseton", with
> Mickey! Odd, isn't it?

It's not so odd because Mickey Mouse was the primary Disney character, while
Donald, etc. played second fiddle to Mickey. So the name of the town would
reflect Mickey, not the supporting characters. Later, when Donald & Co. had
increased in importance, things would split.
>
> RICH BELLACERA
> > As far as Italy goes, it is my impression that Duck
> > stories occur in Duckburg (primarily) and that Mouse stories occur
> > in a different place, which, thanks to you, I now know to be
> > Topolinia. Apparently "Topolinia" corresponds to the English
> > name of "Mouseton."

As I remember it, "Mouseton" was an invention of the Disney Comics guys (either
Len Wein or Marv Wolfman or both), and the stated intent at the time was to
build up Mouseton into as much of a place as Duckburg. I don't know how much
they knew about the scheme of things in Italian comics; my guess is that
Mouseton was an independent invention inspired by the example of Duckburg and
not thought of as a translation of "Topolinia," which they had probably never
heard of, though Mouseton and Topolinia would amount to the same thing in
practice. A friend of mine who worked for Disney Comics later tried to submit a
Mickey story to Egmont and used Mouseton in all innocence, not realizing that
the different Disney fiefdoms do things differently. When I pointed out that in
Egmont-land, the Donald characters and the Mickey characters both live in
Duckburg and simply never happen to run into each other, my friend looked blank
for a moment, then said, "But that's wrong. Mickey lives in Mouseton, Donald
lives in Duckburg." It's all a matter of what you're used to that seems right,
I guess, but as far as I know he didn't sell that story to Egmont, either.

--Dwight Decker