Keskustelujen arkisto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brigitta McDuck" <BrigittaMcDuck at go.com>

>If you handle any book or comic in the proper way, you can manage to read
everything. I believe that new readers could be discouraged by big hardcover
volumes, for the comic is often considered a "quick" reading, but I am not
intimidated by a good quality book.

What I think is that Egmont have released som many expensive hardcover-books
the last years, that you have to be (nearly) as rich as uncle Scrooge to
afford them all. I think hardcover-books may attract people who already read
Disney-comics, but a well made (but cheaper) album series even could attract
entirely new readers. I mean, you would not buy an expensive book that you
don't know about, but if you find it as a pocket-book, for maybe a tenth of
the price, maybe you would buy it to see what it is.

>I do not agree, I am afraid. It is not easy to develop new and original
stories with so "traditional" and "closed" environment. Personally, I have
loved and I have several edition of "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck",
and I think that it has helped many readers in re - discovering Disney
comics.

I think that what makes the world of Disney-ducks to what it is, is just the
thing that it has no limits and that it isn't "traditional" and "closed", so
maybe we have a little bit different wievs on it. I also think that "The
Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" may have helped many readers, at least to
re-discover Barks-comics, but, as I said, I think he could do that without
writing comics. I don't think he's a bad writer, but I don't think he is
such a good one either.

>...he cares answering our questions and debating his work. Not so many
authors are like this.

That is good, but I think that is just because he is writing in such a
donaldistic way, and also has a greater bent for donaldists.

Per Martinson

Are there any Israeli comic-fans here?
Or does anybody know anybody from the Israeli comic-scene (if there is one)?
I'm looking for some answers only a real (local) insider could answer...
;-)
Harald

Per Martinson <per.martinson at home.se> wrote:
>
> I have to say I disagree. I think Egmont have
> released too much hardcover books already, and
> it's time to release some cheaper albums.

Don Rosa albums is also a great idea!

> I also think, I know this might be provocative,
> that Don Rosa isn't such a good comic writer.
> He is a good donaldist, but he doesn't write
> anything really new and innovative, he only uses
> things that Barks created.

But at least he doesn't comes up will ridiculous stuff
like in Marco Rota's story about Donald's life when
Donald comes out of an egg laid by an ordinary
wild-duck in a nest which is blown down from a tree
during a storm.

> Why is everything Barks made seen as law?

It think because he invented the Duck-universe as we
know it.

> There is many other writers today that
> makes this much better than Don Rosa.

Really? Why are they less popular then?

> Why is people today only talking about him?

I think because he has revitalized the Duck-universe
and at least my interest for it.

> If everyone would write comics based on Barks'
> facts we wouldn't have anything new to read and
> discuss. That's why I think Don Rosa shuold just
> stay as a donaldist, and not write comics...

I think that last sentence is the worst bullshit I've
ever seen on DCML so far. Anyone doing great comics
should off course be encouraged to continue doing so!

> I even want to point out that Egmont alreadey has
> released "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" in
> hardcover, isn't it time for someone else now?!!

There has been published more Rosa-stuff in other
countries (like Finland, Germany, Netherlands, etc.)
than in Scandinavia. So why shouldn't Norwegian,
Swedish and Danish fans have the same right to se the
stories of their great idol in proper publications?

I would like to see good Rosa books/albums in stead of
all the re-prints of lousy stories from the 80's.

Sigvald :-)

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Sigvald Gr?sfjeld jr." <sigvald4 at yahoo.no>
To: "DCML" <dcml at stp.ling.uu.se>
Sent: den 30 juli 2002 18:10
Subject: Rosa books/albums

> But at least he doesn't comes up will ridiculous stuff
> like in Marco Rota's story about Donald's life when
> Donald comes out of an egg laid by an ordinary
> wild-duck in a nest which is blown down from a tree
> during a storm.

You mean like LO$?

Stefan

Going to France was, sorry all french friends, only the second most
important thing I did this summer according to the comics we like here.
The biggest thing is only just over and started one week ago, when I
drove to campus in the afternoon to go to the library, have dinner with
a friend and go to bed just to wake up 2 minutes before the beeper
started at 5.30 am on tuesday morning. Up I went, had a quick bowl of
ereal and got some tapes with me in the car and drove to Hanstholm
which I reached some time too early.
But the ferry did come on time and there he was - a friend who's also a
member here, and who i met for the first time one of last years short
spring-holidays. Sigvald Gr?sfjeld jr, easily recognisable with a cap
that followed a DD weekly from the seventies, and me also recognisable
with a DD t-shirt that I recently bought from the comapny.
We had arranged to combine the following weekends summer meeting in the
half-year-old danish donaldist society with Sigvald coming earlier so
that we could see some interesting places and visit another list
member.
After saying nice to meet you again we got Sigvald's luggage into the
back of my dad's car and drove to campus, where I have just moved into
a larger, combined room, which i wanted Sigvald to see. We started by
stopping at the local store to get some morning bread, butter, danish
salami and such things.
After showing my room and eating we took a walk in the area - actually
one of the only real campusses in Denmark, consisting of quite many
buildings where we live, are educated, where adminsitration is and so -
the college includes both teacher's college where we become bachellors
of education and a high school-education.
We ended at the local offset-printer, an elderly lady who's the dearest
friend of the school magazine of which I'm editor - Sigvald got an idea
for the meeting I was in on it, so we made 12 A3 color-copies of a
poster for the summermeeting in DDF (the donaldist society - hereafter
shorted like that).
The poster was made from the new school shedule from finland, the
2001-one, and I do think it'll be online soon.
After securing that my door was locked we drove to Holstebro, a bigger
city where the International Volkssports Vorbund (Sports for the People
society?) has a permament trip around the town, on 10 km, est. 1,3
miles - this was Sigvalds trip no. 1556. The trip led us to see many
places and sights in Holstebro that i, who have lived nearby for all my
life, had never seen, so thanks for the initiative of proposing we'd
take a walk there, Sigvald!
The walk took longer that we had counted on, as there were not many
signs, so I had to check the map very often, but we only got lost one
time (for some reason i know when I'm lost and turn around?!).
After a trip to a local shopping center in Holstebror we drove
direction Vildbjerg and my mother's house.
On the way we visited the local bookstore where I've many of my
childhoods weeklies, pockets and the like. When I started swapping a
lot in 1999 it was also there that i bought eg. nine issues of no.
9-1999 for friends in different places. In the store we met some
norwegian football-players (it's a puzzle to me why soccer is suddenly
called football all over - I though soccer was soccer and football was
american) - and Sigvald told the Vikings (a popular team in Norway) had
just won an important game (?) - well, they just laughed - cause they
were young girls...
After a nice dinner with ham, potatoes and vegetables we took a long
look at my collection. Sigvald was impressed. And being a person who
wants things to look nice he started to sort my Rosa-doubles that i had
layed on the living room table. I have too many of them :-)
As bedtime reading Sigvald chose the danish version of Lost in the
Andes - which he could compare with the norwegian one in the great
hard-cover book Carl barks' beste that he had brought for me. Sigvald
had also brought the norwegian Lo$. In return I gave Sigvald exactly
the same books in danish.

Next day we got up at 8 to have a solid breakfeast and drive to
Legoland, one of the sights Sigvald had asked to see. He hadn't been
there since 1973 so a lot of things had happened (about half of the
park has been added since). On the way there we drove past the area
where my last name has it's origin - my father was born there and on a
side-twig of the family we find John Sivebaek, a danish footballer who
was one of the players on the team in 1992 - where they won the europe
cup.
Legoland was great. It even combined two of Sigvald's interest from the
70'es lego and Star Wars - We took photoes of both Darth Vader, R2D2
and Bobba fett, all build in lego. We spend some time in the area where
you find thousands of legos to build models with. Sigvald build the
Money bin with not as many grey stones as planned, because there simply
weren't enough - he then build some other houses. I tried to build my
usual Uncle Scrooge.
After that we went in the park to see eg. models of Sitting Bull and
Mount Rushmore (as you'll remember Theodore Roosevelt is one of the 4
american presidents there - and he's in 3 stories by Rosa) In Miniland,
the oldest part of legoland we saw models of a norwegian wooden church
and of a harbour area in Bergen, where we're both planning to attend
the raptus festival in september. On a both trip we saw models of among
other things Capitol Hill and the Statue of Liberty. On the local
competitor to McDonalds we bought each our hamburger and Sigvald got a
Faxe beer. When it was time to go home we first bought lego for
Sigvald's nephew Tobias and then asked in the information about how
many guests they have on a day like that. They only had numbers for
seasons, and they 1.5 million guests a year. A lot of them were there
on that day :-)
The trip then went to Kolding were we meet with Thomas around 5 pm.
I've meet Sigvald and Thomas before, but my two friends from duckhunt
hadn't before meet each other so it was nice. We meet in Denmarks
nextbiggest shopping center in Kolding (The biggest is in Odense).
Sigvald bought a cd with danish Eurovision hits, and I a comic album
and a book about Harry Potter.
We didn't succeed in finding pizza in the centre, so we drove to town
centre and found a nice place where we did a thorough study of a map of
Italy, trying to find both maniago and Vesuv, for obvious reasons.
Later we drove to Thomas' home where we saw his impressing comic
collection. Thomas brother Martin, a huge anim? and manga-fan,
succeeded in making the taped Interview (about Gyro's first invention)
with Sigvald into a cd.

The following day (thursday) we got up at 8 and after breakfeast and
packing we drove back to Vildbjerg (Sigvald, Thomas and I, that is).
After relaxing a bit here we went to the station to fetch S?ren, the
cofounder of DDF - we went because of the soccer cup in town. (Having
lived here a whole life, not being interested in soccer and having
classmates crazy about it has made me have quite strange attitudes
towards them - but they do give some money to the town...). S?ren was
on the train and we went home again. S?ren took on himself the job to
sort my collection of other doubles! Poor guy! That was a job that took
long, but he did succeed in making a list of them. We made different
preparations for the meeting, watched the movies on Sigvald's cd (Der
fuehrer's face and Spirit of '43), and Sigvald started making his quiz
for the meeting, with questions in categories such as Barks, Rosa,
history, geography and others.
This was a very secretive process of course, as Sigvald would be
quizmaster and all of us others would be competitors.
At some point we must have gone to bed (untill now the house was big
enough to have us all - as my mother was looking out for my father's
house while he was on a biking trip)

Then the big day came - the day when the first summermeeting in DDF
would start to take place. A couple of days before Lars from the
comic-lodge in Aarhus contacted me and asked if he and Jesper from the
same lodge/club could come. Promissing to cover the meeting with camera
for their fanzine Nerd news they were allowed to do so :-)
First member was Jacob, whom we first called and who then came a bit
later - he was on holiday at his grandparents, and it's a small world -
they know my parents. Jacob lives in Copenhagen.
As myself Jacob was wearing a DD t-shirt, but Donald's head was bigger
on it - so maybe the costs on blue and yellow paint have gone up?
Next member to come was Jesper, the webmaster of webdisney.dk - He
arrived by car and brought a very interesting port folio, or whatever
it's called with examples of his own drawings and comics, of which I
especially liked to read a sequel for both Barks' and Rosa's Pigmy
Indian-stories.
At this time Sigvald got up - having gotten no sleep on the ferry and
having to get up early the two days before he did deserve some sleep.
We all had some lunch (yes, Sigvald, lunch - or breakfeast to you ;-))
Sigvald offered copies of the Pied piper of Duckburg to the arrived
members - as this story has not been published in Denmark it was
interesting object. While we others swapped like we had never done
anything else Sigvald went again to his quiz which had to be finished.
a bit before 2.30 I drove to the station, and hooray, I found a parking
spot so that i could be on the platform when Mads came in. Mads who is
cowebmaster of www.disney-comics.dk. We drove to mother's house where
we only missed the two members-to-be from Aarhus.
They arrived a bit later and after having been welcomed by the others
we made the ritual (it had become this day) to see my collection. I did
have some interesting things. But coming from a comic lodge they had a
more wide interest than my Disney and Milton-collection.
We were starting to get ready for the meeting and at 4 pm I had the
honnor of welcoming all 9 attendants to the first meeting in our
society. I let all the members present themselves - with a little
necessary translation of Sigvald's utterings ;-) - and then i read a
speech from Olaf Solstrand, also a member, but one who couldn't be
present. After this we had some talk about the term donaldist and about
our homepage and the problems there.
Honestly I don't remember if this was when we had dinner, in form of
one pizza for each bought at the local pizza pusher. But in any case we
had salad and soda or bear with them and they were very fine.
The first part of the quiz was then started. The 2 of the first 3
competitors were quite equal so they went on. Then came Thomas and won
his group and I myself won over Jesper (D, as we called him, having
both a D and T and the meeting) in a quiz which had many Rosa
questions.
The 2 from group 1 competed after the method sudden death and had to
guess what was on the Rosa christmas calendar from 2000. Surprisingly,
since Jesper was the least Rosa-fan present, he won.
In the pause between the first rounds and the final we saw The two
cartoons again, on my PC-screan - the result was almost standing
ovations - as some had never seen these two masterpieces in the history
of american probaganda before. We all wondered if Barks was still in
the studios when The spirit of '43 was made - and if so, was he
inspired by the scotsman in the cartoon when making Scrooge??
The final of the quiz - well, there's an unwritten law in Denmark
against being proud, but I guess I'll take the punishment - I am proud
:-) Jesper went out as no. 3 - Thomas as no. 2, after having troubles
with some certain years from Rosa-stories (I have no idea how I
remember just a couple of them...) - and I am quoting Sigvald when
saying that I was crushingly superior.
So I got a diploma - you should have seen the scene when I received it
- pretending not to have seen it when i wrote my signature on it (being
cofounder) - Wow? a donaldist, but I already am...
No, it stands for ... S?ren said (And we both intended this to be
exactly as the Rosa-story WHADDALOTTAJARGON where Unca Donald does the
same). We made a great short of Donaldist in danish and it worked in
norwegian too. In english it would say: Smart And Precise, Allknowing &
Leading
Donaldistic Information Seeking Timewaster
SAPALDIST - oh that's what I am?? A sapaldist - (please tell me if
that's even a word!)

We'll now take a break so can choke over my pride or whatever you want
;-)

My mother took some pictures of us all together - colletced around our
small sofa with my diploma and the poster for the meeting. She also
took one of Thomas, Sigvald and me, the duckhunters.

After this we read comics and comics - One of the doubles Sigvald had
brought made us laugh especially much the rest of the time - It was
simply Barks old Trick or Treat - but the norwegian title (Knask eller
knepp) sounded extremley funny, and with some undertones that I wont
explain here, and that made us laugh quite a lot this evening. Sigvald
was right in presuming it is not something you should ask anyone in
danish.

In the end of the evening we saw the interview with Barks from
Copenhagen 1994 and the interview with Don from Louisville 2000. The
last interview was 1 hour and 45 minutes long and I have watched it
some times before so before mentioned Jepser T was the only attender
the whole time. That made him do some name-calling after us socalled
Rosa-fans after he had seen the whole interview :-)
Jacob was fecthed by his grand-dad and came again next morning.

For this meeting my father and I had raised the tent in the garden and
some of us camped there in the quite warm night, some in the house. It
did take some time before we fell asleep imagining how a busdriver
would react to our new danish trick or treat sentence, and other
strange things.

The next morning we got up early, at 7, to get ready for going to the
bus (Lars and Jesper went by car). Honestly it's the first time where
there's been so much queing at our bathrooms... :-)
Some of us had norwegian myseost (check barks' classic about the
Lemming and the Locket) on our bread this morning. After running a bit
we did catch the bus after walking to the station. And in herning we
went the long road to the second-hand bookstore I've visited so many
times.
He opened some 5 minutes after scheduled opening time and was
positively surprised to see so many eager donaldists. The shop has a
wide selection of albums, comics (heroes, donald, funnies). even
weeklies from the 60'es was found and many of the 100-page pockets we
had untill some time ago.
I decided to buy the costiest goldbook, no. 4, with Barks stories - 300
kr below catalgue value.
We satyed at the store untill around 11.30 or so - only sigvald didn't
cary a bag with comics from the store - S?ren compensated by carying
two. Per, the owner even gave me a discount of 100 kr for bringing all
these buyers. We said goodbye to Lars and Jesper a bit before leaving
the store ourselves.

We took the train home to Vildbjerg and for a while we stroled the main
street were a flee market in town had absolutely no weeklies at all.
S?ren was lucky to find a small 313, but with Scrooge in it.
At home Sigvald took pictures of the remaining 6 members with our
filled bags. Then we relaxed, again by reading and talking about comics
- and packing since grandparent, parents and train leaving started to
wait ahead. All members who were at the meeting got a poster with them
home.
After saying goodbye to the last 3 at the station I drove back to our
house were Sigvald was starting to write postcards to friends and
family in Norway. Sigvald also read some Paul Murry-classics and the
last Barks-story, King scrooge the first, inked by Tony Strobl -
Sigvald hadn't read this story before.

About 8.30 pm we left Vildbjerg after having said goodbye to my mother.
In Hanstholm we found the last postcard which I posted the following
day. - After having talked for a while in the waiting room we found out
that the fery was late because of bad weather the previous days. As I
was all to tired I said kindly goodbye to Sigvald and we'll meet soon
in Norway.

All in all, the week with Sigvald, Thomas, S?ren and all the other
members was great. It's awesome to be sorrounded by very nice people
who have the same interest as yourself - you don't have to explain so
much. I drove to campus knowing this, and the day after I drove back
here again.
Sorry it took some time before I send this, and it might have taken
time to read too.
I can very much recommend meeting with other donaldists, DCML'ers and
so forth - I hope the other meeting I read about here wnet fine too?

A. C. Sivebaek
acsive at mail.mira.dk

It goes without saying that several of us habitual lurkers on this list do that mostly to check what Don at any time is working on, as we find him by far the most inventive and knowledgeable (in the full Encyclopedic meaning) Duck writer/artist since 1967.

One may discuss whether taking Barks as Gospel is wise or constructive, still its a great homage to one of the very best storytellers ever, and something which takes a lot of effort to do consistently, and hence has a great appeal to a lot of us;-)

And Don has several stories with no specific reference to the Barks canon, though utilising Barks' settings and characters.

So, please produce more Rosa books!

And even more Rosa stories, Don.

Please;-)

Yours
Bj?rn Are

In a message dated 7/30/2002 6:30:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
cmhallin at algonet.se writes:

> The Barks references I
> appreciate, but they are not the main reason why I like Don's work.

I am one of those folks who was reading Don back when he did Pertwillaby
Papers --to me his stories ((keeping in mind that i havent read any recent
ones)) are just good stories. I have read plenty of BarksClone stories
(names omitted) and they are tired in both story and art.
While Don states that he has no desire to do non-Duck stories, I
certainly would read anything else he did --- heck, I would welcome a story
set in 2002. I certainly dont need to see any Barks refrence in his work....
But ---- I believe that that is part of Don's enjoyment of doing the
stories.....his challenge to set stories in the 1950s without them looking
like they are set in the 1950s, the fun to him to have Barks elements that
some readers see, but some dont.
I can certainly see why some folks dont like his work. After all some
folks dont like Walt Kelly or John Stanley or Sheldon Mayer or Bob Bolling or
even Carl Barks.... I can see why they don't --- and they have my
sympathy......

steven rowe

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mattias Hallin" <cmhallin at algonet.se>

> >Maybe I was a bit too hard, but the point is, I dont think Don Rosa makes
> >great comics
>
> Yes, that is the point: you *think*. What is under discussion here
> are matters of taste and opinion. You have yours. Perfectly valid and
> acceptable, and not in the least blasphemous just because Don happens
> to get more praise than criticism on this list.
>
> However, although discussing tastes and opinions can be very
> interesting ("I like X because..."; "Why don't you care for Y...?"),
> I agree with your self-assessment that you've been a bit too hard
> here. Your way of stating your opinions make them seem rather
> self-righteous to me, but then again e-mail is a notoriously tricky
> medium for stating opinions, so maybe it's I who am too hard in
> finding you too hard -- je ne sais pas.
>
> Anyway, I, too, have personal tastes and opinions that, when it comes
> to the comics of Don Rosa, are more or less the inverse of yours. I
> like his stuff very much because, in my opinion, his stories are so
> doggone good as stories, on their own. The Barks references I
> appreciate, but they are not the main reason why I like Don's work.
> But that's only my opinion, albeit a perfectly valid and acceptable
> one.
>
> >[...] I think that his work is most appreciated in donaldist
> >circles.
>
>
> This, on the other hand, is no longer opinion but conjecture. I have
> no idea whether or not it's true. However, have you tried the mental
> experiemnt of imagining what it would be like to read a Don Rosa
> story if you're, say , nine years old and don't know the first thing
> about Carl Barks? It might even be that donaldists are *more* likely
> to dislike Don's stories because they will actually catch all the
> Barks references, where an average reader would just see a Donald
> Duck story. Bu that's conjecture on *my* part... ;-)
>
> To summarise what I've been trying to say: in my opinion stating
> one's opinions is perfectly fine, as long as one does not make the
> (all too common) mistake of mistaking one's own for the truth,
> consequentially getting one's knickers in a tremendous twist trying
> to convince the rest of the world they're wrong...
>
> All the best,
>
> /Mattias

The whole discussion started with me saying that I don't want any more
hardcover books, and especially not by Don Rosa. It has then developed to be
about defending or rejecting Don's work. Maybe it's not been clear enough,
but I've only wanted to express my own opinion, and to show that Don Rosa's
position, as it sometimes feels, as "the master of the ducks", not is a
matter of course for all of us.
My utterance about Rosa's popularity outside of donaldist cicles, is only
based on my own feelings, when discussing duck-comics with less familiar
duck-reading friends, and they do not seem to appreciate the storeis as
anything special, it's his drawings that are special, and those haven't been
discussed at all here.
I've never meant to really question his place as a duck-artist, I only think
he has gotten too big space. For example, he is the only artist (except of
Barks) that are mentioned as anything special in the Donald Duck-magazines,
when there really is plenty good artists. I think this may also affect young
readers, when one creator is, kind of subjectively, put as "the best", it's
not fully obvious that it becomes questioned.
Though Don Rosa is such a popular creator, it's hard to express everyting so
it becomes clear enough for everybody, and the reactions on my opinions on
his writing style has been much more than the reactions on my opinions on
hardcover-books, even though I think such a discussion might become more
fruitful, seeing that a discussion like this probably never can get
anywhere.

Per Martinson