Keskustelujen arkisto

Fellow Quackeroos:

It all started back in 1989 when I picked up a Gladstone comic and read my
first Rosa story. That "journey" reached a milestone of sorts when I
finally met Rosa in person last Saturday, April 15, 2000.

The meeting took place 2 months before the anticipated date! I was planning
to drive to Lousville in late May, after the Spring semester was over here
at Binghamton University, but the Gods had other plans...

Last Thursday, when I turned on my P.C. and checked my e-mail messages, I
never expected to find a note by my "neighbor" Gary Pantzer who lives in
Oneida, NY, a two-hour drive north of Binghamton. Gary was informing me
that he planned to drive down to Reading, Pennsylvania, in order to attend
an event by a group of Donald Duck memorabilia entusiasts who had invited
Don Rosa in their inaugural happening. Gary asked me whether I wanted to
join him, and I half-heartedly (just joking!) agreed!

Gary arrived in Binghamton on Friday afternoon and we met in my office. We
had agreed to spend Friday night at my place and drive to Reading on
Saturday morning. We spent the afternoon and evening visiting a local
comics store (where Disney comics were very few and far between), going out
for dinner, and going over comics I brought here from Greece and the ones
Gary brought over with the intention of asking Don to sign them!

We headed south the following morning being in a great mood: the sun was
shining and we were going to meet Rosa in a few hours! For Gary that was
not the first Rosa meeting; he had the chance to meet him 3-4 times in the
past, in Boston and in Niagara Falls. For me, it was something I'd been
looking forward to for many years!

The ride was quite pleasant, excepting a missed exit in Reading that made
us lose 30 minutes. Once deep in Pennsylvania, the weather turned sour on
us and it started to rain. The event would actually take place not in
Reading, but in Lancaster, 30 miles to the south, in the heart of Amish
country.

When we arrived at the "Donald Duck museum of Collectibles" Don was already
hard at work signing away autographs on comics and drawing B&W faces of
angry or happy Donalds or Scrooges. The crowd was not very big, but there
was a steady line in front of Rosa's table. After saying "hi" and
introducing myself, I waited patiently in line to have 3-4 comics
autographed for me and my kids--I could only find 3 with Rosa stories among
the very few I brought along from Greece, and Gary was very nice to give me
a forth one! I had the ZIO PAPERONE printing of "Lost Dutchmen's Secret",
the German edition of the "Kalevala", Gladstone's edition of "Cutty Sark",
and an older Gladstone Gary gave me.

Most of the people attending the inaugural event were not comic-book fans
per se: the owner of the museum had a great collection of Duck memorabilia,
including many comic books and knew the comic-book Ducks very well.
However, most of the members knew very little, if anything about the comics
themselves and Don's work, but were still very happy and eager to get a
drawing by him!

Highlights during the museum session: (1) seeing Don Rosa at "work" was a
nice treat; he would repeat that drawing dosen't come naturally to him, and
that he trained himself to do these Duck faces for Duck fans at such
meetings, (2) at some point Don took a short break and pulled out of his
bag copies of his most recent story, "The Three Caballeros"! It looks
great, guys! :-), (3) having an improptu meeting with DCML-member Chuck
Munson, who had driven from Washington, DC, (4) taking lots of pictures
outside just before leaving for dinner.

Dinner would take place in Reading among the group members and I thank them
for their kind invitation to join. During dinner we were lucky to sit face
to face with Don and discuss things Duckey.

After dinner we all moved to the hotel where Don would be staying the
night, and gathered in a room where there would be a showing of an old
Donald cartoon, members would trade Duck memorabilia, would play various
games, and would raffle off a Rosa drawing! It was during that period that
Don took the time to do something special for me (actually for my son!
:-)), and I thank him for that. It's not every day that I have the chance
to witness Don Rosa "bring to life" from scratch a beautiful drawing!

We left Reading ~11:00 p.m. and reached Binghamton ~2:00 a.m. Gary spent
the night at my place and headed for Oneida later the same day. When we
parted we agreed that it was a worthwhile trip!!!

Now that I've met Don Rosa, what can I look forward to? Well, if all goes
as planned, I should make it to Lousville, Kentucky in late May. I hear his
place is like a comic-book shrine! :-)

Cheers,

Archontis

------------------------------
Archontis L. Pantsios, Ph.D.
Visiting Associate Professor
Department of Economics
Binghamton University
Binghamton, New York 13902
USA
tel: (607)777-4726
fax: (607)777-2681
------------------------------

Yes!!! I second the motion of putting more classic stories on the web!
Now that I have "real" internet access (none of that juno stuff) I can
actually take advantage of them! Especially interesting is Gottfredson
stuff we've not had reprinted in the US before, and Don Rosa stories that
we've not had too, would be oh so appreciated.

Rodney Bowcock

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Don:

> It can't be in the panel you suggest because it would appear,
> left to right, *after* the word balloon containing where you wish to place
> the off-screen person's reaction to hearing it.

And it couldn't be excused with Donald being the "central" person (in several
ways) in the same panel?Just wondering (at least not beating "my" dead horse).

> Cripes, why keep trying to figure this out?

Because I'm interested in "the mind behind". Ever since I read the first of your
stories as a kid I've been trying to understand the art of comics. Like a bolt
out of the blue it became so obvious to me that there is lots more into it than
just writing and drawing. Thanks for taking time - now as well as all the other
times. I truly appreciate that.

> >>>>Assuming, of course,
> Grette/Kerstin/Mildred, also known as "the Fuckin' Sec" (a perfectly
> timed movie reference, btw - but can *you* recognize it??),
>
> Nope... I don't think that sounds like a line from anything on *my*
> "favorite films" list... unless... that isn't what Humphrey Bogart called
> Lee Patrick in "The Maltese Falcon", is it? (I think not.)

It isn't. It's from "Analyze This", starring Robert de Niro and Billy Crystal
(from last year, I think). It's definitely a movie of your taste, being a
semi-parody of older maffia-movies (even with a great "in-movie reference" to
the Godfather #3) and yet with a story of its own, full of gags that still
doesn't make the movie itself nor the maffia-concept silly. It's not even a pure
comedy. Anyway, in one scene Billy Crystal's character (who is a psychiatrist)
needs to introduce himself to the bosses. After a long weird and meaningless
explanation he comes up with a few of his (faked) aliases and sums up: "...also
known as The Fuckin' Doc". I couldn't keep from drawing a parallell to our
discussion about the "sec". I'm sure you understand (drat, here I go again! ;)
).

/Jakob Soederbaum

I finally created a web-page and put up some of the pictures
from the meetning with Don last week. I am new at this so if
you have trouble with it, please let me know.
http://members.xoom.com/gpantzer/index.htm

Great job and thank you for sharing! Excellent photos and you can just see how much fun everyone was having.

Regarding being vertically challenged, just remember what my Mom used to tell me - you are NOT short, Kathy. Your legs are long enough to reach the ground.

Kathy

> From: "Arie Fachrisal" <cien2 at cbn.net.id>
> > From: SRoweCanoe at aol.com
> > Subject: new Donald USA comic book story
> > I'm out of town for the next week, but I just wanted to point out
> > that the current issue of Disney Adventures features a Donald Duck
> > as superhero comic (part 1)
>
> New Donald USA comic book story? More info, please.

O.K., for a limited time ONLY I have posted the first
ten pages of the new Disney Adventures comic for the
viewing pleasure of our international Disney friends
who typically would have no way to view it.

It is only loosely based on the PKNA adventures, and
I'm sure fans of that comic will probably hate this
rendition. It is very much a watered down version
of PKNA (I have issues #0 thru #3 or #4). Personally
I didn't like how far removed from the regular
Duckburg universe PKNA was, which is the same reason
I lost interest in MMMM (Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine).
I love the concepts of both books, but I didn't like
NOT seeing my OTHER favorite Disney characters. I'm
in favor of introducing all-new supporting characters,
but not at the expense of the older, more familiar
ones. I also liked the vastly different feel and
approaches both PKNA & MMMM gave as a showcase for
the main characters, but again, not at the expense
of all the others. Anyhow, this Disney Adventures
comic, as was said before, is great in the respect
that it FINALLY gives us fans in the USA a brand New
Disney comic that actually stars are "REAL" Disney
character! I also like the revival of "Spike" (a.k.a.
"Buzz-Buzz") the bee as Donald's sidekick! It is
blatantly obvious, as well, that the creation (or
rather "re-creation) of Super Donald here is to take
advantage of the initials "D.A." for "Disney Adventures"
now used for the "Duck Avenger." I don't mind that
really, since Donald as Phantomias or Paperinik was
never officially translated to "Super Donald" (I
think), so at least now we know it is "officially"
translated into English as "Duck Avenger" (something
the I.N.D.U.C.K.S. folks might be interested in).

So, if you are interested, I have posted them to my
site for about a week, but since they take up too
much server space I will need to remove them.

You can find them at:
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA01.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA02.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA03.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA04.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA05.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA06.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA07.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA08.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA09.jpg
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/DA10.jpg

Enjoy, Rich

>Is anybody enjoying the Fethry stories I am
> putting on the Web? > -- Arthur.

Thanks for putting these on the web, they are really funny and I begin to
see why Fethry is so popular over there.

-Kathy

Has anyone heard of a Disney artist named Lee LeBlanc? According to
http://duckstamps.fws.gov/rw40.html, he designed a US Duck hunting stamp -
"Opaque watercolor of Steller's Eiders by Lee LeBlanc, formerly a Disney
cartoonist and MGM Studios executive became a freelance artist in his later
years. (Deceased)". I'm writing an article for Hogan's Alley and I'd like
to independently confirm his career. Alberto Becattini thought he might be
a publicity artist and suggested I contact Disney's archives. I'm doing
that, but hoping for a more immediate answer so I can start working on this
part of the article.

Thanks,

Mike

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