Keskustelujen arkisto

At 2000-11-28 15:42 +0100, S?ren Krarup Olesen wrote:
>I don't understand that calculation, Frank, but it may be because I am a...
>
>>non-mathematicians ready to argue that a cubic acre is the volume of a
>>cube whose side has a surface of one acre.
>
>1 acre = 4047 m2, hence the hight of three acres must be the square root
>of 3 times 4047 m2 if we assume the bin to be a true cube. This gives
>us 110 meters--certainly a high building--more than 30 floors or so.

I refuse to perform any arithmetic on barbarian non-SI units such as
"acres" and "feet" so I'm not going to recheck the accuracy or lack thereof
of your mantissae, but I believe that the source of the trouble may be the
confusion between the following two interpretations of "three cubic acres":

(1, perverse): three times one cubic acre, so a volume equal to three times
the volume of a cube whose side has a surface of one acre.

(2, even more perverse): a volume equal to that of a cube whose side has a
surface of three acres.

Both violate basic mathematics insofar as they consider the cube of a
surface to be a volume, but the second adds the extra evilness of applying
the "cube" to the value instead of just the unit. (Is this bad? Yes. A room
of 18 square metres is not a square room of size 18 metres by 18 metres.
Those who believe otherwise will be unpleasantly surprised when they
attempt to buy a house.)

>Anyway, I complety agree with Vic. All these considerations are more or
>less meaningless. Who cares if there are one or two doors from the office
>to some library. Perhaps a certain splash panel would have looked empty
>without two doors, so Barks put them there. He probably hadn't imagined
>that years later someone would go and ckeck if those two doors were
>consistantly used in all his other stories. The very same goes for the
>butler situation etc. etc.

I, too, agree with this. To enforce and reconstruct this continuity is the
hallmark of Don's _libido colligandi_, which is one of the most interesting
aspects of his style -- but is certainly *not* something that Barks himself
did. This does not make Don's stories any less enjoyable for me, though --
in fact I enjoy them even more, as his own creations that nobody else could
have crafted with such a meticulous and loving attention to detail. I wish
I'd written all that book stuff in English in the first place -- there's
nothing more boring than translating your own writings, so I'll probably
never get round to doing it.

Frank (filologo disneyano) http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/

Don't get me wrong, Don, I like your stories very much
(or at least I did while they were still being printed
in English). But I must confess that it was the
stories and characters that interested me, not the
height of the walls of the Money Bin. I don't seem to
be able to appreciate that angle, somehow. But, all
the best for your plans, anyway.

VIC

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KLAUS HARMS to me, 25-11-2000:

> It is very difficult to attribute authorship of a comic book story
> to a certain author, and it is almost impossible to do the same with
> a one page story consisting of few more than a gag.

If we give it a try, we might at least find the most likely candidates.
For example, in case of the "tennis match" gag (mentioned in my previous
email), we can try to find all the gags which contain tennis. As it was
submitted on October 15, 1953, it should most likely be somewhere in a
1950s comic, published in or after 1954.

(Such an investigation has been on my "to do" list for a long time,
as well as finishing a project which attempts to find the cuts in
Barks' stories which were shortened by the editors.)

> If there is some certainty that one of the cover gags IS written
> by Barks (and Barrier's bibliography usually is very accurate, and
> the printing scedules of Western Publishing usually matches with
> Barks' records at that time), then the parrot sketch would be the
> likeliest candidate (though I haven't seen the other ones).

Barrier indeed is very accurate, but since Barks' vouchers were not
nescessarily intended to be used for historical research, but
apparently mostly to keep track of his payment administration,
some answers are not instantly given. In some instances, the
vouchers even raise *questions*. For example:

- The cover for WDC 140 is listed on two dates. Barrier does not
know if the first date refers to the cover idea, or to some
unlisted cover-dates from that time.

- Some art-only stories contained unlisted heavy rewritting, for
example "Delivery Dilemma" (WDC 291) about which the CBL says
that it almost is a story done by Barks himself.

In other instances, the additional credits seem to heavily
depend on Barks' additional notes, like "Got this story idea
from my daughter" under "The Wax Museum" (WDC 231).

Barks made notes in about 1969, in his voucher-based list
for Michael Barrier, but I have no idea if he did that from
memory or by using (for example) additional notes on the
vouchers.

- According to the vouchers, "King Scrooge the First" was a
24-page story instead of 21 pages as published, about which
Barks wrote to Barrier that this was a mystery to him as well.

As Barks' vouchers apparently never have been publicly shown, it is
unknown (at least to me) if they contain additional information and
clues which remain unseen or unnoticed.

For example, maybe there could have been instances in which Barks
was paid a different amount to correct an earlier payment, like
unspecified additional work for which he still wasn't paid?

Since Barks is a legend, with historical importance, I hope that
one day his vouchers will be reproduced either in a book or for
research reference in (for example) a Barks museum / archive.

Best wishes,

--- Daniel

>From: "Don Rosa" <donrosa at iglou.com>
>The building shown in "The Golden Fleecing" with 20
>stories is clearly NOT the Money Bin.

Well, it must be that "McDuck Building", skycraper that he owns. I guess US
owns most of the buildings in Duckburg (?).

>I'm getting the impression that hardly anyone is finding that COMICS
>JOURNAL from last month with the Barks tribute. Too bad -- I thought TCJs
>were easier to locate -- it's the best English-language comic-art magazine
>what am, after all.

I say this once more to all Finns here: You MIGHT get your copy of TCJ from
Good Fellows Comics Store in Helsinki. (at the moment TCJ#227 seems to be
out of stock). I wonder if this is the only place in Finland to get this
mag...(?) It´s sad. It truly is really good mag.
http://www.goodfellows.fi/

Timo Ronkainen

.................................
"Rumble on, buxom bumble bee!
Go sit on cowslip - far from me!"

timoro at hotmail.com
timoro at sunpoint.net
http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/timoro/
http://members.nbci.com/timoro/pamaus

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At 2000-11-28 18:29 +0100, Daniel van Eijmeren wrote:
>I also would like to know if Barrier still welcomes additional
>information or suggestions, because I would like to write him
>about some of my ideas and possible discoveries on certain entries.

It would be great if this were the excuse for a reprint, if not a new
edition, of that fine book. It's damn hard to find (I have it in photocopy)
and, as the most significant source of first-hand information on Barks, it
hasn't been replaced by anything comparable.

Frank (filologo disneyano) http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/

Akropolis Trikourakis 8-) :

DR> Nope. $crooge does it in 1902 style. Single room floors
DR> with seas of desks.

> But you said there are many floors with offices. So, there
> must be many employees working there.

That's what Don says. Many employees, all working in a few, big, rooms.
My employer calls that "office gardens", and pretends it's very modern.
Don calls it "1902 style". 8-)

--Harry.

With regard to Timo's comment on Scrooge's building that is not "the Money
Bin": It is clear (based on Barks' drawings of clearly different edifices
in different locations) that Scrooge McDuck had several different large
self-standing "Money Bins" in Duckburg. Some were on Killmotor Hill, some
on flat land, some by the Duckburg River. He may have had more than one
(or even several at the same time). In addition, Barks drew several office
buildings owned by Scrooge (in DDOS and Christmas parades and US 1and
several later US ("Golden River", etc.) that included giant built-in safes
or money "bins". It is clear by Barks' drawing that he owned several such
buildings (known as "The McDuck Building" ("Built with your money")). If
we use Don Rosa's timeline for Scrooge's return to the Duck Family in 1947,
he didn't have the "classical "Money Bin" until mid-late 1951 (depending
upon whether one uses the date of Barks' finished inks, or publication. I
am referring to WDC &S 135, in which Scrooge invites Donald & HDL to view
his new "Money Bin" for the first time. The Boys are the same size and
very close in age to all other Barks pictures of them. That means that the
entire period of his stories must have taken place over a few years. Given
that, Scrooge must have had his money stored in one, or several "McDuck
Buildings" from 1947 most of 1951. Then, he moved most of his money to his
new cubic "safelike" Money Bin on Killmotor Hill. Through the years, with
his new earnings piling up, he added new money bins (or changed its
location).

Therefore, shouldn't we be describing the plot plans and making blue prints
and elevations of SEVERAL different money bins (and also McDuck Buildings
(with office descriptions))???

Rob Klein