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MAXIMILIANE SAALFRANK to me, 21 August 1998:

> Many thanks for mentioning "Krankenstein Gyro". The story seems
> fitting perfectly for my scientific purposes. What kind of life tried
> Gyro to build? How does it look like? In what year and month did it
> appear? I need details because of bibliographical reasons.

The Gyro story (a four-pager) was published in Uncle $crooge 26, June-
August 1959. Barks submitted it on June 16, 1958. The end-result of the
experiment is a big surprise, one page of the story consists of Gyro's
guessing on what he might be creating (which he did by putting the mix
he made into an egg-shell).

Greetings,

--- Daniel

> Speaking of Moby Duck (a character I also like),
>
> >His Laurel-and-Hardy-style antics with First Mate Dimwitty are hilarious.
> >Will Gladstone reprint any of his stories (starting with DD 112: "A Whale of
> >an Adventure")? His early tales might take some flak in today's world for
> >depicting a whaler as the hero,

I think you are correct concerning the possibility of reprints, however, not
all of Moby & Dimwitty's tales were about whaling. I have nearly a complete
run of Gold Key's "Moby Duck" comics and the few that appeared in WDC&S and
DD, so I can tell you that many many of the stories actually dealt with him
adventuring for other purposes... there are stories where he fight Capt Hook,
and he has several other enemies, mostly these folk are trying to stop him
from delivering special passengers or *goods* to certain places, or to steal
them. Uncle Scrooge had hired Moby a couple of time to transport items for
him, and I believe Donald & the Nephews and others hitched many rides to
different places using his ship. As for whales, there were even a couple
of stories dealing with large mechanical whales which were really ships,
themselves.

Perhaps, since many of the undertones, even when not said straight out, still
implied the Moby was a whale hunter, perhaps reprinting those stories are not
in the best interest of Disney, but there are certainly many others which could
be. Personally I am not a big Vic Lockman fan, but he, like Paul Murry dove
into new territory with Disney comics, and for that, I am grateful. Since
Gladstone doesn't really create it's own new comics, but I see no reason why
Disney Italia, of French Hachette or Egmont or whoever couldn't create new
tales featuring Moby & Dimwitty, as long as they kept them out of the whaling
business.

Probably a character I would really NOT favor a revival for is the western
hero, Sheriff Buckaroo "Buck Duck". Anyone familiar with this forgetable
character was probably not very sorry when he, and his "May West-esque"
girlfriend, Calamity, from the western town of Hotlead Hollow, disappeared.

Speaking of these three... in the Disney comics of the 60s and 70s it seemed
that every continuing character was related in some way to our heroes like
Donald and Uncle Scrooge. Does anyone know if Moby, Dimwitty or Buck were
related to Donald or anyone else?

For anyone interested in these characters:
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/dzone/hoozoo/moby.html
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/dzone/hoozoo/dimwitty.html
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/dzone/hoozoo/buck.html

JONATHAN MARKOFF:

<<An example of the above topic can be found in the most famous Barks Scrooge
story ever--"Only a Poor Old Man". The Beagle Boy in that gang's laboratory
develops a "super species" of beetles that eat wood like termites.>>

Many years later, in the DUCKTALES episode "Attack of the Metal Mites,"
Flintheart Glomgold's researchers developed the title critters, which Flinty
intended to use to eat Scrooge's money. There had to be some gene-gouging
going on there, too.

RE Moby Duck: I still think that Moby could be "salvaged" (no pun intended)
for today's sensibilities by turning him from a whaler (an ananchronistic
pastime even when Moby was created in the 60's) into a general "sea-
adventurer," sort of a Disney comics version of Jacques Cousteau, Thor
Heyerdahl, or the characters on the old TV series SEA HUNT. You could keep
the personality and the interactions with Donald, Scrooge, Dimwitty et al.
while dispensing with the references to harpoons and whaling. Why cast the
character into outer darkness?

ANDERS CHRISTIAN:

<<Now I know they are called spats; but you forgot Gladstone
and Flintheart, (Don't forget that Rockerduck wears normal
shoes) they wear spats too, as Donald also does in festive
occasions (or whatever). Barks made a cover once (have to
look it up), for a story that he didn't make, where Donald
wears them. They must be some symbol for wealth.>>

D'OH!!!!! Did I put my foot (without spat) in my mouth this time by
completely forgetting Gladstone and Glomgold. You're right, spats seem to
be a Barksian "symbol" for wealth and (in Gladstone's case) luxuriant
leisure.

KATIE SULLIVAN:
Having just gone through the first week of classes at Virginia State (albeit
on the "other side of the desk"), I can imagine how hectic things are for you
at this time. Good luck as you commence your undergraduate career!

MARTIN BERGLUND:
<<Maybe if I meditate during math class tomorrow I can figure out what's going
to happen in chapter 3B of L&$ :-)>>

This math instructor says, don't even THINK it!! :-) If you MUST think about
the Ducks during math class, think of DONALD DUCK IN MATHEMAGIC LAND.

Rich (xephyr) wrote:

> As far as I knew, MM & DD strips
> had stopped nationwide (America) years ago, though it is my under-
> standing that an ocassional "special" comic is run for holidays, but
> I've never seen any of these either! Boy am I happy you shared this! :-)

There have been Disney Christmas strips for the past few years, usually
movie tie-ins. These are daily strips running from Thanksgiving to
Christmas. The Chicago Tribune has been running them and last year's was
a story with the Little Mermaid.

best -- Merlin Haas

From: "Fluks, H.W
> ??? Is that a joke? I mean, have I done more than 50 stories yet?

>>>>>Up to the "Black Knight" story, you have done 59 stories, plus 1
script-only, 4 art-only, and 4 onepagers/twopagers. 68 in total.

Oh, so? Thanks!
And to me, that's really only 59 stories (or now 61 after the two after
"Black Knight"). I naturally don't think of the 4 art-only or the 4 one-two
pagers (which were all also art-only) as "mine". I would much, much sooner
count the two stories that I have written and which have been rejected as my
own stories, making the total 63. Those stories were the Disney/MGM studio
promotional story that Hamilton had me do to please Disney (who rejected
it)(and that's okay... it was a "fictional" tale to me since my Ducks live
not in a universe with Disney nor in modern times), and also a story that I
did for Egmont about the travels of a certain coin from $crooge's Bin... I
really liked that latter one and I hope to draw it for someone someday...
Egmont rejected it only on the grounds that it had no specific focal Duck
character, and the coin was the "star", which was against their editorial
policy.
No, I won't count the 4-pager I wrote for that DuckTales kiddie-magazine.
That was a sad, regretable decision... I'd accepted their offer because I
was outta work having recently been forced out of Gladstone by Disney's
mandate that they not return freelancer's artwork... and having already
liquidated my family construction company, I was stuck. And then, on top of
that, I had trouble getting the kiddie-mag company to pay me!

Were there really 4 art-only Oberon stories? I can only think of 3. (I guess
I should go check your index!)

RICH BELLACERA:
<<Probably a character I would really NOT favor a revival for is the western
hero, Sheriff Buckaroo "Buck Duck". Anyone familiar with this forgetable
character was probably not very sorry when he, and his "May West-esque"
girlfriend, Calamity, from the western town of Hotlead Hollow, disappeared.>>

Well, I could take or leave Buck. Calamity, on the other hand... :-) :-)

DON ROSA:
<<No, I won't count the 4-pager I wrote for that DuckTales kiddie-magazine.
That was a sad, regretable decision... I'd accepted their offer because I
was outta work having recently been forced out of Gladstone by Disney's
mandate that they not return freelancer's artwork... and having already
liquidated my family construction company, I was stuck. And then, on top of
that, I had trouble getting the kiddie-mag company to pay me!>>

Well, we DUCKTALES fans appreciate the effort, in any case. DT comic-book (or
kiddie-mag comic) stories aren't so numerous in this country that we don't pay
attention to all the stories that appeared, in whatever format.

-- Christopher E. Barat
(Email removed)
http://members.aol.com/cebarat/home.htm

From: "Anders Chr. Sivebæk"
>>>Have any of you dutch or american people read Rosa's
"Well-Educated Duck"? Please tell about it!

Yeah, I think I read it once. It was alright, as opposed to the other Oberon
stories that I did the art-only on, which, I hope I can be allowed an
opinion, were pretty lame scripts. But the thing that bothered me about
"Well-Educated Duck" is that the writer depicted HD&L, not simply as
mischievous youngsters who play hooky from school on a rare ocassion -- I
don't use them that way, myself, but I am still not opposed to that idea --
but he depicted them as chronic slackers who found a way to try to blackmail
their Unca Donald into getting off their back about going to school, and
they didn't hesitate to blackmail him with glee. I really disliked drawing a
story that showed them as being maliciously nasty little brats.

From: Daniel van Eijmeren
>Furthermore,
> as Don has said, this was an early story that contains many "facts"
> that aren't in sunc with "our" Scrooge, and should be regarded as
> "fictional fiction".
(Dan vE.:)
>>>>>Your comment made me check the existance of this story in my Barks
collection immediately, but fortunately it's still there. :-) No, I
don't agree on the "fictional fiction" you mention. For me, either
*all* Barks-stories really happened or *none* of them happened at all.

You seem to ignore the fact that Barks' stories in a few instances (not
many, but over the 5-year-development and 15 year use of $crooge, there were
several) contradicted themselves such that it's not possible to regard *all*
Barks' stories as really happening. It would be a paradox. I never changed a
fact in Barks' $crooge-history unless I had no choice. Even when it was
merely difficult to make sense of certain facts, I would force them into
logistics and found ways to *make* it make sense in the "Lo$".
There's no reason why a reader has to regard these Ducks as being contained
in a continuity-universe... some choose to regard it all as simple escapist
fun, no two stories needing to agree with each other, and that's fine. I
choose to have my own private fun and place Barks and my stories into a
general continuity, but I am still forced to ignore about a half-dozen of
his 500 stories for that to be possible. But to claim to regard 100% of
Barks stories as being 100% continuity-feasible is not possible. Therefore,
since there are definitely self-contradictory facts within Barks' 500
stories so that accepting 100% of them is paradoxical, but that you insist
that one can only accept either 0% or 100% of his stories as being part of
his own "Universe", you're therefore saying that you accept 0% of his
stories. Do you *really* want to say that? Why be such a radical?
I've even contradicted a few of the "facts" I put in my own early stories.
It's unavoidable, and it's no big deal.
But... sometime I think you're trolling. In your own previous message you
wrote:

>>>>But nescessarily *believing* in it as blindly the one and only sacred
truth... no. Having seen Monty Python's "Life of Brian" years ago
(which could be a view on fandom as much as religion), made me clear
how annoying that would be - most likely not in the least to the maker
himself.

And then you next say that 100% of everything Barks ever wrote about $crooge
*must* be accepted literally. Maybe you're pulling our collective leg here,
and I'm too dense to catch the joke?

DON:

As we're talking 'bout the "Well-Educated Duck", I've been meaning to ask
you: were the "High Society" references in the original script, or are they
your own additions?

Jes' curious, is all!

/Mattias

*** Mattias Hallin ** Brussels ** Belgium ** <(Email removed)> ***
* *
* "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! *
************* A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" *************