Keskustelujen arkisto

PER-ERIK responded to the query:
>> During Gladstone's first run, I believe - or it could have even been by
Bob Foster during Disney's run - there was a two page essay on Van Horn,
but I cannot remember what issue of which comic line.<<

by saying:
<<Are you thinking about DESTINATION DUCKBURG that was published in DDA #2
(Disney), and later republished in WDC&S 549? If not, it has to be FANFARE
FOR WILLIAM VAN HORN from WDC&S 537. All other essays about WVH
that's been published in an American Disney comic book have either been
about someone else too, or published much later.>>

I think she's talking about the latter. An expansion of this early essay,
exploring how VH's storytelling and style have developed, was the sort of
thing I would have liked to have seen in the first few Van Horn album
releases.

Chris Barat
(Email removed)
http://members.aol.com/cebarat/home.htm

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V98 Issue #155
******************************************

To Don:

Other temples did exist on that site prior to 550 BC, but Croesus definitely
built the Temple of Artemis about that time. Or many, MANY history books are
incorrect.

I don't know what you have read, but my reading contradicts this. I am not an expert on the temple of Ephesos, but my understanding from recent archaeological books is that Croesus may have dedicated some columns but did not build the temple. Seton Lloyd suggests that the temple was even built before Croesus' time as the earliest artefacts from the Croesus period temple predate the period when Croesus could have had contact with Ephesos. Similarly, the columns look hellenistic rather than mid 6th century - iconographically the one remaining column at Ephesos does not fit within the sixth century BC.

>>> There are other things that probably only an archaeologist would have
picked up - for instance, the language used on inscriptions at the temple
during Croesus' time was pretty straightforward Ionic Greek,

That's not true, according to the history professors that I made
long-distance calls to. The Lidians used the Greek alphabet but they used
them in their own language, a language which has been lost. I made sure of
this because I wanted to write out the secret phrase on the columns in Ionic
Greek, but my experts at the Universtity of Michigan told me this was not
possible because Croesus would not have written anything in the Greek
language.

Sorry, it is true. There are a fair few inscriptions from Ephesos dating to the 6th century which show traces of dedications by Croesus and they are written in Greek. You can find them in Cook's Greek Inscriptions. As Ephesos was actually part of a Greek colony, inhabited by Greeks and not by Lydians, and as the colony only paid tribute to Croesus, this is probably to be expected. The Lydians may well have used the Greek alphabet to write Lydian, but not (as far as I know) at Ephesos.

>>> and the names of Croesus and Circe that were written in Greek characters
at the end are misspelled.

I have a photo of a Greek mural of the period which shows both those names
spelled exactly as I showed them, so if the names were mispelled, then some
ancient Greek made a mistake but "white-out" had yet to be invented. But as
I say, I was told I could spell things any way I wished since no one knows
the Lidian language. If the ancient Greek inscription I copied was
misspelled, then I can simply say that's how those names were spelled in
Greek letters in the Lidian language.

Strangely enough, the inscriptions with Croesus' name on them from Ephesos (which is probably as close as you'll get to something of this time) are spelled KPOISOS (I can't duplicate the Greek sigma on this keyboard but that's close enough) not KROESOS. Where is the inscription you mention from? In Homer Circe is spelled KIRKH, from memory (I may be wrong on this one as I haven't checked it for a while), not SIRSH. I haven't seen this name on an inscription (and without knowing which inscription you have used as a model I wonder whether the name on your inscription is meant to refer to Circe). I don't recall many 6th century murals.

>>>There are other inaccuracies, but I don't want to get into an argument -

Tell me what you think they were. I'm curious.

I feel like a nitpicker here (or whatever else you want to call me) - but the alphabetic numeral system you put on the money gauge in Croesus' money bin didn't come into use until the 2nd century BC. In Croesus' time he might have used the acrophonic system of numbering. I was actually really impressed that you'd put in the alphabetic system of numbering (but it was wrong!). Similarly, the gag of all the columns falling over like dominos is a great gag - but no Greek temple was built of a forest of columns like that.

I can't argue with you as to
whether my historical facts are correct. But I will defend every fact that I
meticulously research before I include in one of my stories as having been
presented in one of my sources as being correct. I have no option other than
to believe what my reference books and expert consultants tell me are the
facts. But one thing that I discovered in my 10 years of doing this research
and comparing numerous accounts of the same events or facts -- historians of
antiquities have few hard facts to base their writings on, and they must
make "educated guesses"... however, no historian can ever present his
theories as "theories"... he must write of them as HARD FACT otherwise he
looks uncertain and loses prestige. I have read drastically conflicting
accounts of all the facts of even important things like the history of the
Library of Alexandria, but none of these historians' theories were ever
presented by them as being anything short of absolute certainty. The
theories of my historians may conflict with your historians, and your
historians may well be the more accurate... I dunno. But I do know that I
get all of my facts from respected sources and double-check them when I
can... I lose a LOT of worktime (and $) researching to make these stories as
authentic as possible, and it cannot be suggested that I don't put great
care into the work.

I agree with you - I would be a bit silly to presume that a historian does anything other than interpret the past. Facts about dating and provenance, though, are about the only things archaeologists can point to with any accuracy, and in this case the facts about provenance show that the temple probably predates Croesus and was then rebuilt later on, and that the inscriptions at the temple are written in Greek.

>>> my point was that these things did jar me when I first read the story,
but didn't stop me enjoying it.

Great! Thanks!

I should point out that I wasn't trying to take a swipe at you - I was commenting on a comment by someone (I forget who) who said that he didn't think historical inaccuracies would jar people out of enjoying a story, and was referring to a long discussion about your black knight story. I mentioned your story then because it was in my mind - and because this was how I felt when I read it. I probably reacted like a typical archaeologist - with no sense of humour - so sorry if you're miffed (though I didn't react like this to the Life of Brian!).
!

!

Happy Birthday to our own Don Rosa! Thanks for all the great stories!

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

Greetings! I've been a subscriber to the mailing list for a few weeks
now, and am writing for help with what (so far) has been an intractable
research problem: tracking down an early 1960s image of Mickey Mouse and
Donald Duck fishing on a dock.

To introduce myself, my name is Michael Lobel and I'm a doctoral candidate
in art history at Yale University. I'm currently writing a dissertation
on the early Pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. As many of you probably know,
Lichtenstein based his paintings on images he took from comic strips and
comic books. While scholars have been able to track down the sources for
most of his paintings, there's still one we haven't been able to locate:
the source for his very first Pop painting, entitled "Look Mickey!". The
image depicts Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on a dock overlooking a body of
water. Donald is in the foreground holding a fishing pole; he's looking
into the water and saying (in a word balloon): "LOOK MICKEY, I'VE HOOKED
A BIG ONE!". But his fishing line isn't in the water at all; it's hooked
on the back of his shirt. Mickey's in back of him, hand over his mouth,
laughing.

Have any of you seen this image? After finding out about the Disney
comics mailing list about a month ago, and reading the postings since that
time, I'm betting this is the group with the best chance of having seen
it. The original probably dates to either 1960 or 1961 (it may be
earlier, but it can't be any later than 1961, because that's when
Lichtenstein made the painting). It looks like a one-panel gag, although
it could have been part of a larger story. However, the people at the
Walt Disney Company archives have informed me that it's rare to have
Mickey and Donald together in a comics story. Roy Lichtenstein always
said that he got the image from a bubble gum wrapper (like Bazooka
comics), but my research has shown that this probably wasn't the case, as
no bubble gum company seems to have licensed these characters in the
1960s.

I'm assuming the image was from a comic book, but I've looked through a
lot of the Dell Giants from 1959-1961 and haven't been able to find it
(the only one I haven't been able to get my hands on is "Mickey and Donald
in Vacationland"). I have a lot of questions that could narrow down my
search: were there any Disney newspaper strips running at this time
(1959-1961)? Were there Disney coloring books or other print sources that
might have run such a gag panel? There's also a possibility that
Lichtenstein took a comic book panel that depicted the same gag, but with
different characters (maybe Goofy, for instance?), and substituted Mickey
and Donald.

Basically, this is the "holy grail" of my research, so any input would be
greatly appreciated. If anyone has seen the panel, or anything like it
(i.e. Disney characters fishing, with a joke like the one I described,
from around 1961), I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks a lot!

Sincerely,
Michael Lobel

(Email removed)