Keskustelujen arkisto

In the last digest a couple of people wrote in that they were puzzled by my
recent remark that Gladstone's license may not be renewed. I didn't think I
was announcing anything new. Gladstone's license to publish comic books
featuring Disney characters expires at the end of this year. Negotiations
between Disney and Gladstone are still going on.

Now I certainly wasn't saying that Gladstone's license won't be renewed. I
hope it is and Gladstone continues publishing the Disney characters for many
years to come. From what I hear, however, the negotiations are particularly
difficult this time and the license renewal could go either way. Personally,
I'm hoping for the best and keeping my fingers crossed.

--John Lustig

It's true that Donald's parenting skills aren't likely to win him
any awards. Actually, Barks once used that very idea as the premise
of a story, in which an organization of concerned parents expressed
concern about Donald's leading his nephews into great danger in a
trip down the river through the jungle, but Donald proudly proclaimed
to them that he had been a good parent because he had rescued them
from numerous perils (when in fact, it had of course been the nephews
who had saved their uncle's tail feathers at practically every turn!).

The defining characteristic of Donald is of course that he is a hot-
head. This certainly comes out in his relationship with his nephews,
at least in the early years, but then we should not expect him to be
any better a parent to HD&L than he is a neighbor to Jones, with whom
he regularly engages in physical combat on a routine basis. Donald
does tend to react to his nephews' misconduct (real or perceived) by
chasing after them with a switch, but it would be totally out of
character for him to react any other way.

Also, you have to realize that in the early days, HD&L often acted like
real brats! Barks inherited the characters as a bunch of real rascals,
and over the years he matured them to the point where, as emphasized in
the story mentioned above, it is the nephews who are the parent to their
uncle. Prior to that, though, they often **deserved** to be spanked.
Remember just how it was that they came to live with Unca Donald in the
first place - their "real" father ("Daddy Duck"?) suffered a terrible
injury when a firecracker of unknown origin exploded underneath the
armchair in which he was sitting. Far be it from me to suggest that
HD&L were in any way responsible for that explosions (it may well have
been the evil fourth nephew who hatched the Gunpowder Plot), but there
was often plenty of reason for Donald to keep his switch handy when
dealing with mischief in triplicate!

Wilmer Rivers

hwy wassup

Marco Barlotti wrote:
>
> I asked:
> >
> >> Is this the end of the saga?
> >
>
> (regarding the <Once upon in America...> saga by Pezzin and Massimo De Vita)
>
> to which Luca Boschi answered:
>
> >Yes!
>
> But I asked Pezzin too... and he told me that TWO more instalments are to
> come! One about those flying machines... by Horace and Wilbur... and
> another one (still far to come) about the oil rush!
>
> So it is NOT the end of it... it seems! And I am quite glad.

Me, too!
Luca

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V98 Issue #158
******************************************

MICHAEL MANKUS:

> Hey Don Rosa, or anyone else that may know, I was looking over the Family
> Tree from WDC&S 600 and I remembered that HD&L's father was missing.

No, it's not. It clearly states that Donald's father's name is
}{{
NO CARRIER
}}}{{}
CONNECT 28800
Duck

"KFITZ":

> did not care for
> the last stories Gladstone has printed by Scarpa, especially not "Lentils
> of Babylon".

Hey! That's one of my favorites you're talking about!
--
Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis
-----
"I'm the nearest thing you can get to infullable."
"Infallible!"
"Exactly."
-----

from MIKKO:
>>>Oh, darn :) There's got to be something you didn't think about...
How about his eye-holes when he was moving through the walls?

There are things that I think about, then decide to ignore... but I *think*
that I think about everything there is to be thunk about. I think.
The eye-hole problem... he simply turned his head sideways as he walked
through walls. I even knew that the feather on his helmet would suffer,
though I needed it to be there for the conclusion when the helmet had to be
pulled off by a Duck. Note that the feather gets more beat up as the story
goes along.

>>>>I kind of thought that the Universal Solvent (tm) would also
absorb air.

Yes, it does... and you'll see that this was a major idea in the FIRST
version of the "Universal Solvent" (no tm needed if you don't say
"Omnisolve"(tm)) which I wrote/drew back in 1977. In that original version,
the use of Omnisolve(tm) had to be abandonned for that very reason -- Lance
Pertwillaby realized that it was sucking in and destroying air, and
widespread use of the Universal Solvent would spell the end of life on
Earth. But, as I often say, my Egmont page counts simply don't allow me to
examine or explain everything in my stories or in my head -- there just
isn't room... I must cut corners.
But, anyway, air would always flow through the Black Knight's eyeholes even
if some was absorbed by the edges.

>>> I notice you had
The Black Knight destroy the old cannon Scrooge got from the Bour War. I
think you in a way crossed the line there. That cannon was a Barks item
which has been seen in many stories. You kind of broke the status-quo
there and I think that's bad.

I was well aware of this... and I agree that the loss of that cannon would
be like the loss of the #1 Dime. So I knew that $crooge had more than ONE of
these old cannons. He bought a number of them at a Boer War surplus sale.
Simple explanation.

from HARRY: re - "On a Silver Platter"
>>>>But apart from that, the Dutch editors retouched the final inked
version, removing some of the background details, and/or what they
thought was too dark shading.

That may be true. But how would you know that? Did you see the photostats of
the art that I sent them? I'm not saying you're wrong, and I wouldn't object
to some real artist cleaning up my messy art (on photostats, *only*!)... but
I'm trying to see how you know this to be a fact when I never even noticed
anything myself.

FRANCOIS:
> You're not the only one who is making protestations against that
> butchering! What issue number did you receive? In the last one(s), they
> changed the titles, and I believe the stories are now published in their
> original versions.

PICSOU Magazine No. 294. I believe it's one of the latest issues (if not
*the* latest issue). Disregarded the butchering and all the ads, I liked
the comic book. Unusual to see both beginning and end of a Don Rosa story
in the same issue.

Best,
Per-Erik