Keskustelujen arkisto

Poul kindly translated an interesting article about actually putting money into
advertising comics and seeing a sales jump. Hmmmm, might be something to that.
Nah, never mind.

Anyway, Poul, can you send me the citation for the article so I can add it to
the Comics Research Bibliography (http://www.rpi.edu/~bulloj/comxbib.html)?
We've got just about 3,000 articles & books on comics listed there. Any other
articles anyone wants to send info on will be welcome as well.

Mike Rhode

TO: (Email removed)

Hi!

Has anyone ever seen $crooge playing "real" football (American Soccer),
hockey or darts?

King Wog Of Norwalk

RICH:

>I was rumaging around at a certain Comic Shop where I came across
>several issues of a Disney magazine called "Wonderful World of
>Disney" pnted by Western Printing and Lithographing Co. in 1968
>which was apparently distributed by Gulf Oil Company gas stations.
>The magazine was filled with art, stories, nature photos, and activities
>for the kiddies (puzzles, etc.). Among the stories was a Fethry comic
>which is most likely a foreign import (I dunno), but there was no
>*storycode* located in any panel.

At first glance, I'd say this is US production, and I'd even commit myself
in saying that you've got the FIRST EVER HHM STORY, but, well, let me get
home and check my books before I say such a thing.
I'll post more about this in a few hours.

Marco

Thank's to Marco Barlotti I can be a little more precise

> http://marcobar.cce.unifi.it/Comics/Censored/GG/BGG0.jpg

At the top left panel of that page a young female duck is jumping out
of a wagon. I've seen her in a few of those Grandi Parodie stories,
but I have never seen her in the regular present-day
Duckburg stories. What is her name and how does she fit in to the Duck
universe?

Claus O. M. Havik

Thanks for the upload, Rich. I didn't know that story, but
it was sufficiently similar to some of the ones appearing
in 1969 in Denmark to allow me a guess about it's origin.

Those stories were coded XTRA or EXTRA or with a square
folowed by a four digit number. These translate (by rules
I don't remember offhand) to a five-digit S-code, since
they were the first decade of Studio stories. So it's more
a re-import than a foreign story.
The art looks like Pete Alvarado to me.

Ole <(Email removed)>

MARCO:
Boy, have we got a mystery here. To solve our Moe questions I
discovered and studied some very incomplete X-code records here at
Egmont - which can provide me with English title, ONE starring
character, and original page count for stories which we may or may not
have in our vaults and which, anyway, aren't accessible to me unless
we've published them. From this frustrating situation I've managed to
fill a few holes, but only a few...
"Mountain Magic" is coded X 4109 and was originally 8 pages.
(For what it's worth, Egmont never published it.)
The story which Harry and I have discussed as possibly being
Moe's first appearance (Donald with a schoolbus, no Fethry, 7 pages, =
art
Pete Alvarado) is X 4099, so it's earlier. For the record, its English
title is "Ditch Day."
The story in TOPOLINO 465 doesn't seem to go with any of the
English-language titles or story page counts I saw in the Egmont
database between X 4099 and X 4109, so it must be earlier than both of
them. (Certainly not later, as Fethry's appearance isn't finalized in T
465, whereas it *is* in X 4109).
Unfortunately, I can't quite nail down a code on T 465, mainly
because I don't know its original English name or its 8-panel page =
count
(seems like a 10-pager, but there's no way to know if anything was
deleted or even added in Italy). There are a few possibilities, most
likely of which seem:
X 4029 - "It's Music?" (10 pages)
X 4066 - "Pop Goes the Art" (11 pages)
X 4083 - "Must The Show Go On?" (9 pages)
X 4084 -=A0"King of the Country" (9 pages)
I'd assume in the blink of an eye that X 4029 is the one,
*except* that X 4038 ("Time to Duck," a non-Moe Fethry story published
in AA 2/65) has a much more primitive-looking Fethry. Meanwhile, unless
material was added in Italy, X 4083 and X 4084 are most likely too =
short
to contain all the panels seen in T 465. But if T 465's story is X 4066
- why does its title refer to pop art (a visual medium) while the
story's about performing music?!
RICH -=A0can you send me some English titles and quick synopses of
all Duck-related comic stories (with or without Fethry and/or Moe) that
you've got in other issues of WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY? That might =
give
me enough information to clobber this dilemma once and for all.

David Gerstein
<(Email removed)>

David, Marco, Ole, et alii:

HARD HAID MOE:
Jiminy Jillikers, Radioactive Man! I was surprised by all the
flurry that resulted fro a simple scan. :-)))

First than you to all who pulled out those dusty tomes and to
resolve the mystery of HHM's first appearance.

Now, just to make sure I followed this correctly, apparently
HHM is a character created by the folks at Western Pulbishing
as an "X" (extra) coded feature, scripted by Dick Kinney and
drawn by Al Hubbard. His first appearance in a comic anywhere
was in Topolino #462 (storycode: X 4029) in a tale called
"It's Music?" which, as David says, is a "a story where Donald
and banjo-twanging Fethry go off into the wilderness" (and
there meet up with HHM. I guess?). Do you know the publishing
date for this issue of TL? Marco? David?

However, would you say that the issue of "Wounderful World of
Disney" (Gulf Oil/Western give-away) featuring "Fethry Duck in
Mountain Magic" was his first appearance in the USA? I think
that issue of WWoD is also the 1st issue of that magazine,
though I don't recall seeing an actual issue number on the
cover. I could only find an editorial commentary on the inside
of the front cover which tells the reader "Welcome to the
premiere issue of the Wonderful World of Disney..." I'll
recheck and let you know for sure.

Now that both David & Marco say that there are more panels/pages
of the comic included in the European printing I'm curious as to
what is missing from the American version. I can't imagine it
was censored...probably just editted for space? [Y'kno, this is
a really annoying habit practiced by American publishers].

TABBY THE CAT:
If this is HHM's first appearance, and Fethry's only previous
USA appearances were in "Donald Duck" #105 in "Donald's Buzzin'
Cousin"; and "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories" #304 in "Mad
Madam Mim: Ducky Date" both in 1966, (prior to WD Giant #5, May
1996), then would you say that it is quite likely that WWoD
story "Mountain Magic" is indeed Tabby the Cat's first USA
appearance? My reason for speculating this is because Tabby's
appearances have often corresponded with Fethry's appearances
in a DD comic, since it would seem that Tabby & Fethry have
a special rapport. [I am aware that, at least in Europe, Tabby
has appeared in tales not including Fethry, but not frequently].
Has Tabby ever appeared in another USA comic?

QUACK PACK:
As for the Quack Pack commentary, and the relevance of the staff's
lack of knowledge of Gladstone Gander, I can see your point, and I
guess it just boils down to coincidence. Oh well. The more I think
about "Quack Pack" the less I like the show. I think the animation
is well done, but the fact that the show has diverged so far from
the Duckburg reality we all know and love is what bothers me the
most.

SCANS & POSTINGS:
David, as for your request for scans/info from other issues of
WWoD (Gulf Oil) comics, I'll be happy to do so, but first I have
to make my way back to that comicbook store soon (I hope) and buy
up the rest of his inventory. I didn't know what I had bought
until I brought it home and read the comic. I just bought that
first issue as a tryout, before I spent anymore money on them. I
hope he is still willing to sell the rest... I had to practically
twist the owner's arm off just to get him to pull out the boxes
he did show me. :-) This was around July... I want to go back
soon. I'll let you, and the List know when I've posted more. In
the meantime, as I promised Mr. Barreto, I should be posting "The
Red Wasp Mystery" tale from WDC&S #317 - 319 soon. However, David,
if there is anything ELSE I can scan for you until then, just let
me know. ;-)

BTW, if anyone can scan and post the first Disney superhero
League-like story which, according to P.C. Barreto, was published
in "Tio Patinhas", 1st. sem. 1979 (or it's equivalent elsewhere),
this would be interesting to see.

Ciao or now,

Rich
(Email removed)

ETA BETA regarding the Mark Twain gag from Lo$ II, previously discussed by
Mike and myself:

>Yes, that was another good gag Italian readers missed, too.
>Scrooge's line went like "Mark one... half two... mark two", while the
>arriving "Gyroid" goes "Hey! Sounds like fun! Let me have a go at it!".

I guess I would have done something similar, if everything else really
failed - i.e. I couldn't find any suitable pun in my language on Mark Twain
or anything else in the scene. But I would feel extremely disappointed about
it, and possibly try even more to make up for the lost gag somewhere else.
The Finnish solution described by Mike, while evidently not perfect, is
decidedly better.

Eta further suggests:

> Just because of Mark Twain's popularity Scrooge's line could
>easily
>have been left exactly as it was, in *English*, while the "Gyroid"
>comment could
>then have been translated literally, respecting the original gag without
>even
>the need for a footnote

I gather that this view is shared by Mike, and perchance even by my
excellent friend Br'er "Steamboat" Hellman. Seein' as how these fine people
outnumber me by several hundred percent, one might surmise that I'd be
tempted to change my ways. Not so! I'm adamant about this. Scrooge speaking
English all of a sudden, in a Swedish comic, just because I can't translate
a gag with little or no bearing on the story? Even in this case, it would
look perfectly absurd to me. I would never even consider that.

I'm amazed by the high level of education among the Finnish and Italian
people. Sure enough, I have many Swedish friends who certainly are familiar
with old Sam Clemens's choice of a pen-name. But I also know some people who
wouldn't know, wouldn't care, and maybe wouldn't even understand. Many of
those latter people happen to enjoy reading Disney comics. And if I were to
go out in Malmo, asking people on the bus or in the grocery store if they
know how Mark Twain got his name, I'd expect to be met by a blank stare, at
best. (This, of course, is a mere conjecture. I have not actually conducted
this experiment, nor do I intend to.) Why, if somebody doesn't stop me
anytime soon, I'll go on to suggest that those who *would* understand the
original gag are much better off reading the original American comics
instead of a crappy translation; and probably already are doing so... but
that might be going a bit too far.

I had several other, much worse problems when translating Lo$. For example,
when Scrooge specifically is in America, should I use "dollar" as the given
currency instead of "kronor", which is otherwise legal tender all over the
Swedish Disney comics world? When another writer have the Ducks visit the
Wild West, there are never any dollars in sight. Should I be more faithful
to the "real" world, just because Don Rosa is? I found myself almost
perfectly balanced towards both alternatives, and I never solved the
problem. I don't even think I was consistent between different Lo$ chapters,
when they first were published (several months apart). And my editor, who
always had the last word, evidently wasn't quite sure, either. At one point,
I think we tried to eliminate the currency altogether, speaking only of
"C-notes" and such. For the Lo$ book, this is one point where I should have
made a serious effort to at least be consistent within the book. But there
was so much other work with the book, I never got around to do that
properly. Bad boy!

I was also very careful not to mention that Scrooge was moving to "Duckburg,
America" with his sisters. If I had to say something, I said "Calisota". In
Sweden, it's not all that clear that Duckburg must be in America. Obviously,
in this case there are so many other references (maps, presidents and
whatnot) that one hardly can doubt where we are. I don't mind that at all -
but I don't want to mention it in the dialogue!

Now, I realize that readers in countries like Italy, where nobody tries to
pretend that the Ducks live anywhere else than real-life America, can't
easily relate to these problems. And many other people will surely agree and
find it sacrilegious to Don Rosa not to follow his every word religiously. I
do understand and respect that view - but to me, it ain't that easy. So,
without wanting to put anybody down by presenting a different opinion, I can
just agree with Eta Beta's words:

>Well, what we can say here, I guess, is that a rule cannot be
>estabilished, and
>every single case stands on its own with regard of the various "local"
>cultures...
>Translating surely is a difficult job, one where is nearly impossible to
>make
>everyone happy, I'm afraid.

Well said, old chum!

Stefan Dios
Malmo, Sweden