Keskustelujen arkisto

Shortening
This conception was used by the old publisher
of the weekly in Denmark, Gutenberghus in the
70'es and 80'es.
There are two different sorts of shortening,
the first one, from the 70'es is story-shortening.
Many of Barks stories were published not honoring
the stories. many 10-page-stories by him were
published as 4-page-stories or 6-page-stories
(pages were cut out) And some stories has been
published with e.g. the last page cutted.
Other longer stories, e.g. The Twenty-four Carat
Moon (US 24), The Gilded Man (OS 422) , The Paul
Bunyan Machine and possibly some more, were cut
to pieces by the publisher/editors. In the story
about The Paul Bunyan Machine (US 28) 22 panels
were missing, (6 of them was used for summaries of
what happened last week, that's what they did/does
to both Barks and in 1990 to a Rosa-story!)
The Golden Moon had of course all the foreigners cut
out, as the in DK, famous codex said it should be
(it was the same codex that prohibited love, wine,
drugs and violence to appear in the series) moreover
there were also other cuts and the last five panels
aren't in the real story, they are put together from
different places in the story. The story about The
Gilded Man was treated in just about the same way,
except that cuts were made all over the story, and
some of the things in the panels were removed, all
appearences of the "Eldorado-man" was completely
removed, as was the indians! There's also exmples
of stories from the 60'es were scenes with ghost-
birds (Ghost town Railroad - US 56) were removed,
and in "So far and no safari" (US 61) such scenes
werealso removed, and replaced by bad drawings by
another artist!

The shortening from the 80'es was of another thing,
namely beaks! As some of you would now, that norwgian
Jon Gisle wrote a book, where he introduced his own
concession "Rostrilongitudequotient" (initials RLQ here)
It is the scale between Donald's head's hight and the
length of the beak. Donald's beak was longer in the old
Barks-stories and that meant according to the author that
he was more curious and hot-tempered than now.
The editors at Gutenberghus must have read this book,
because they shortened the beaks by retouching the drawings.
There are many exmples of this through the years, I even
remember having seen shortened beeks in a magazine from 1968.
But the place I "discovered" this phenomena was in the extras
in the mid 80'es, they followed the magazines and contained
only Barks-stories.
The first Gladstone-stories was brought in one of those, and
that's the best example: Gladstone had a very long beak in
that story (I know that because I have a copy of the issue
from 1949 where it was published for the first time in DK);
In this publishing both Donald's and Gladstone's beaks are
shortened. You can see that be messuring on things in the
panels, and the beaks don't reach as far as they do in the
original!

Luckily this story was published together with Don's "Sign
of the Triple-Distle-Fink" and the beaks in the Barks-story
had the length they had at that time.
But what was wrong with Gutenberghus, why did they shorten
those beaks, were they affraid someone would discover the
stories were "old" (of course some are from the 40'es and
50'es but they are still very fun and interesting, aren't they?),
or had they just no respect for Barks' great work. It
suddenly seams that they didn't have that in the 70'es!

Luckily they changed the name, and with that many other
things and I'm very happy that Barks now plays a role in
the magazine and that it's announced when there's a story
made by him; Egmont really understands what Barks did for
the Disney magazines in all Europe/World. But that does
not hold you from still taking two or three panels out
for the summary. Couldn't you do as you did one time,
or as they do in Germany (Ehapa) move the panels a half
page down and then make a half-page-summary? Or put the
summary on the previous page?

I hope some Egmont-folks could answer the questions,
and I must say I am glad that the stories in the Gold-books
are published without any shortening, but in the full length,
thank you!

Anders Christian
(Email removed)

I'm currently updating my Norwegian Marco Rota index.
There is a story in Pocketbok 64 (Jumbobog 65)=20
with no story code in the database. The danish title is=20
"Effektivt v=E5ben."
In this story Donald receives a gun which makes things=20
disappear (for one hour). It features DD, HDL, Gyro,
the Beagle Boys and Scrooge.
Could some Italian help me with a story code?

BTW... there was a nice Rota story in last weeks DD&co
(D 97380) in which Donald meets a vampire

In this issue was also BARKS' "Moving money" (US 15C).
In the new translation Scrooge has to move his bin because
of the new Duckburg-Spitsbergen postal rocket.
The first time I read the story (in Norwegian) the rocket was
going to Madagascar
Why the change? What does the original version say?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vidar Svendsen http://home.sol.no/~vidasven

And he said all those numbers=20
made him numb,=20
which (he thinks) is why=20
they're called numbers

Hello again,

OWEN HEITMANN:
>Mickey's face was a light
>pink, which Gladstone has also as white. The changes occurred even
when
>the same colourists worked for the different companies. I think that
>Gladstone has it right for the duck's eyes, but, personally, I prefer

>Mickey's face to be a light, pastel pink.

Well, don't forget that the ORIGINAL Mickey from comic strips (who,
IMHO, is a completely *different* character than the one from the
cartoons) has a white face, and not just because their gags were
printed on a b/w newspaper: when some years later Gottfredson drew one
of the best-looking stories of all times, The Plumber's Helper YM 036,
with many close images of MM's face it was without any doubt white.
BTW some times ago I read on a book a theory in which were reported
that the very first MM was a black guy, does anyone has any opinion
about this? Maybe David?

SOEREN:
>Did you know, BTW, that there exists a "Blege Bengel"
>(= something like "Light Lout") as well. He is The Phantom Blot's
>brother and he looks exactly like him, except of course he is
>completely white - like a ghost. He was used in D 95071
>(probably drawn by Bancells), runs a restaurant and pretty much
>seems like a nice guy ;-)

...Phantom Blot's brother???? Dressed in white????
This is the WORST news I read on the latest messages! :-(

Ciao,

- Paolo
http://www.confor.it:2222/disney

Hello,

After some days away from Rome, I'm back again, ready to answer to
some of the questions appeared on the list. After 3 days of reading, I
just started to reply to the various messages, so expect some more
mails from me in the next days... you have been warned, keep the
scroll-down button ready! ;-)

ANDERS and SOEREN about Eta Beta in Italy... no Franco, it's not about
you! ;-)

>> Eega Weega, maybe he's called Eta beta too? He is Mickey's friend
from
>> outher space, and was he not created by Floyd Gottfredson?
>> Well, please give me some answers!

>Your're absolutely right. He has been used a lot in Denmark
>especially in Massoimo de Vita's (IMO stupid and childish)
>Comet-stories. In those stories he is called Alpha Beta (in
>Danish) and the comet is called Beta, and the dog that
>adores Beta is called Pluto - sigh!

100% agree on these stories being childish, but there are some notes:

1) Eega Beeva is NOT from outer space,
he is from the future, and to be more precise
he is from 3 OCT 2447 at 9:00Am

2) He was created by BOTH Floyd Gottfredson and Bill Walsh

3) Maybe there is something wrong with you version of the story
by Massimo de Vita, since in Italy the characters have all their
usual names: Eega Beeva is Eta Beta, Pluto is Pluto. An
interesting thing in this very poor story is the animated tree
that captures Pluto, that is IDENTICAL to the one appeared on
"Mickey Mouse and Eega Beeva in The Atombrella and the Rhyming
Man" (YM 115).

TOM MOSS wrote:

>Of course, all of Scrooge's girlfriends
>have full heads of hair (maybe wigs?) when Daisy has no hair at all.

In his last stories, Barks gave Daisy a *giant* blonde wig, check
W WDC 312-01 (The Not-so-Ancient Mariner).

Ciao,

- Paolo
http://www.confor.it:2222/disney

Some burning questions have appeared in recent digests which I can't stand
to see unanswered:

ANDERS SIVEBAEK:
>As a fan I know that Don Rosa's story D 97052 is called
> W. H. A. D. A. L. O. T. T. A. J. A. R. G. O. N.,
>but what do all those letters mean. I know what the
>danish title mean, but that doesn't help.
>Could anyone help me here, what about Don Rosa himself?

"When Huey And Dewey And Louie Originally Thought To Adapt Junior-woodchuck
Attitudes, Regulations, And Grandiose Organizational Nomenclature." The
treatment of "Junior-woodchuck" may be confusing, but there aren't many
words with the letters "jw" together, are there?

>US 81 in this comic is about Gyro Gearloose. He faints in this story and
>his hat and WIG falls of, and it is revealed that he's totally bald; one of

Gyro's "real" hair is hair, in MOST Barks and ALL Rosa stories, but during
the post-Barks stories of the late 60s, someone (Vic Lockman?) got the idea
that it was a wig, misled, if I recall correctly, by the one time that BARKS
made this mistake. Lockman has continued to draw Gyro bald in a few recent
stories--see "The Dream Transformer" in UNCLE SCROOGE ADVENTURES 32 (1995)
and "Beagle Bug-off" in USA 34 that same year.

THOMAS MOSS
>
> Now that you mention the subject, I remember a story with =
>Donald=20
>Duck, where he was trying to make money from a hair restorer salesman. =

This story is from DONALD DUCK 35 (1953), written by an unknown author and
drawn by Dick Moores. It has no title and our database aptly refers to it as
"The Hair Grower". The last reprint of this was DD 226 in the early 80s
(Whitman's death throes). That in mind, I'd even go so far as to ask
Gladstone to reprint it. While the plot is not exactly memorable, it has
some funny gags in it, and Dick Moores draws an okay Duck--IMHO much better
than the much more popular Tony Strobl, who always came across to me as
two-dimensional and stiff. DD 226 contains another Moores story as well,
"Robert the Robot" from DD 28, which is also hilarious, if simple. (This was
even suggested to Gladstone in the letter column of 1993's DD Adv. 24.) How
about it, Gladstone?

OWEN HEITMANN:
>Also, another question: did anybody else notice (or, more relevently,
>did anybody else care) that when Disney were publishing the comics,
>their colouring policy changed? The duck's eyes were always a light
>blue, whereas Gladstone has them white, and Mickey's face was a light
>pink, which Gladstone has also as white. The changes occurred even when

I noticed when it happened, and I applaud both changes. I think pure
blankness of color helps the characters' expressions stand out, and Mickey's
pink face hobbled this.

HARRY FLUKS:
>And I could have written that mail. After all, I only have to punch a
>few keys on my keyboard. So what's the use of saying that YOU wrote that
>piece of text?
>
>Colouring a comic by computer is really more complex than just a few
>points and clicks!

Point taken. A computer throwing colors around randomly would not do for a
comics colorist. Susan Daigle, as well as us list members ("writers" of
these messages) deserve the credit they get. But there are limitations. I
once played with a program that allowed one to "draw" works of "art" by
selecting various premade images ("boy," "girl," "dog, "cat") and arrange
them into a logical setting such as to tell a story. But if Michelangelo had
used this method to paint the Sistine Chapel, would he still have been as
great an artist as he is?

ANDERS SIVEBAEK again:
>To you others too, would someone retell what a wood-
>chuck is, does anyone now the correct word in Danish?

The woodchuck (or groundhog), Marmota monax, is a squirrel-like animal found
in North America. If it sees its shadow on February 2, the next six weeks
will be snowy, according to legend. I don't know about the Danish name, but
I hope this helps.

HALSTEN AASTEBOL:
>Someone on this list has been writing about the censored end of the story
>from OS 108 "The Firebug". The editors altered the last two panels because
>they felt that a Disney character could not be seen behind bars at the end
>of a story. This is a well known fact. But I have never seen any comments
>comparing this with the end of "The Great Ski Race" WDC 62. Here Donald is
>seen behind bars in the last panel! And the two stories were published only
>a few months apart!

To tell the truth, I was thinking about this just the other day! It's even
occurred to me sporadically in the 10 years since I first read those two
stories in Gladstone's MICKEY AND DONALD, but somehow I never wondered
enough to ask the list. It is indeed a delicious irony. ROTFL.

>Barks never stressed continuity between his stories although, like Don
>Rosa's Life of $crooge McDuck shows, things happened to be rather
>consistent anyway. But it's interesting to pinpoint the few occasions in
>Barks' stories where he actually refers to an earlier story. I've come up
>with the these examples:
[...]
>Can anybody tell me if there are more such connections?

1. In "10-cent Valentine" (WDC&S 258), the second appearance of Magica
DeSpell, the Ducks specifically recall the events of MDS' first story, "The
Midas Touch" (US 36).

2. A less direct, but more glaring "flashback," which has been discussed
much on the list, is Beagle Boy 176-167's appetite for prunes, mentioned in
"The Mysterious Stone Ray" (US 8, 1954), and unexpectedly seen again in "The
Giant Robot Robbers" (US 58) a full 10 years later!

--Jonathan Markoff

"Wahn Beeg Rhat, SI'! Duckburg, NO!"
--Carl Barks, "Treasure of Marco Polo"

DAVID GERSTEIN --
I may have mentioned that I have many of those
interstitial elements of the old Bugs Bunny Show on
video. However, my "collection" of them -- "accumulation"
would be a better word, implying less organization -- is
quite haphazard. I'd run the tape to include them when I
could, but there is no attempt at completion, or
documentation, or even avoiding taping the same one
multiple times.

HALSTEN AASTEBOL --
Of course, there's the mention of a particular
Beagle Boy liking prunes in an early Uncle Scrooge story,
reprised in another story eight years later. And there's
the fact that Duckburg was founded by Cornelius Coot. And
Donald Duck's childhood membership in the Little
Booneheads was used more than once.

Quack, Don

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V98 Issue #186
******************************************

My recent post to the mailing list made me want to re-read "The Phantom of
Notre Duck", so I did so. It struck me what a pagan cathedral it is! All
those sinister gargoyles of birds of prey, and a fresco showing a dragon
being slaughtered.... Putting that together with my earlier observation that
the words "Notre Duck" lampoon the Virgin Mary, it's really strange that the
story wasn't censored! Incidentally, does anyone know of any other instances
where religion is alluded to? To my knowledge, this is the only one.

David King.

Is there a Disney Comics breakfast this year at the
SDCC? (Just wondering out loud.)

See you.

Eric

--

Eric Chun
(Email removed)
http://www.geocities.com/soho/cafe/6707
Updated: 8/1/98