Keskustelujen arkisto

Dear Don,

I'm away from the comics field from over two years, for a great mess of
work, and family problems (and my novels, too!). So I heard rumors about
some problems you have as a D. creator. Uhmmm... I confess I DON'T KNOW (I
didn't understand!) what is happening, but it's important, for me, to tell
you (and to all the world), that you are, positively, the best living
Disney writer; one of the 3 of all the times; a GREAT comics writer in
general, a great artist, and a wonderful person, too!
I'm sorry my ugly English isn't enough to tell you all what I think about
you and your work. But, PLEASE, give us other duck stories, I can't live
without.
PLEASE!

All the best frome one of your Italian friends!

Leonardo

Leonardo Gori

leongor at tin.it
leonardo.gori at tin.it
l.gori at agora.it
www.leonardogori.com
http://space.tin.it/lettura/phdgori/leonardogori.html
http://space.tin.it/lettura/phdgori/

> I don't know how it works in other countries but here in
> America you can use old bank notes and coins forever.
> Some are collectible so you are better off selling them
> to a Coin dealer, but they are all useable!

This is definitely *not* the situation in Europe. In many
countries they are now using Euro instead of their old
currencies. I guess our friend Harry Fluks can enlighten
us more about these things.

In Scandinavia where we are still using KRONER there
have also been a lot of changes.

And since Scrooge for sure has much more than only
US-dollars in his Money Bin it's very likely that
some of his old money has become invalid.

Sigvald :-)

So... it wasn't a joke? Don Rosa is really "on strike", i. e. he's not
producing any more duck stories?

Well, on my side I can only agree with Leonardo's plea!

But maybe we should write e-mails also to Egmont, Disney Italy and Hachette?

Marco

http://www.cce.unifi.it/~marcobar/Comics

Quack!!!!
I can't believe this!!! I can believe that the man who made me discover Carl
Barks and the rest of the Disney comics universe, who made me become a member
of this list won't draw stories anymore :,( How is it possible??? Don,
please tell us the situation is going to be beter, or at least what's going
on, and what you'll really do.
Gilles Maurice

Pardon my little typo. American civil war was in 1860's,
not 1960's.
---Larry Giver.

For Simon:
I too, am glad to see some messages about artists other than Barks and Rosa.
Regarding my comments on Tony Strobl: Unfortunately, I have not been a reader
or comic fanzines. I have only read a few Dutch fanzines ("Stripschrift"
and "Striprofiel". The latter article was from mid 1970s. The former was
fairly recent (1998 or 1999?). I have them stored in boxes in Den Haag. As I am
in USA right now, I can't look those old articles up (actually, I think that my
cousin may have thrown them away several years ago). Perhaps Harry Fluks can
inform us on that recent article. In any case, I think it was a translation of
an American article. I seem to remember an article on him in Freddy
Milton's "Donald Duck & Co.", but I can't remember which issue. I believe the
information in that aticle came from a combination of older American articles,
and his interview with a Danish fan. Perhaps one of our many Danish members can
inform us about that article. I also remember one in German "Der Donaldist" -
or was it "Hamburger Donaldist". I have all those issues stored in Muenchen,
but even when I return there in February, I won't have time to look it up.
Perhaps one of our German members can enlighten us on that one. ACTUALLY, I
would guess that many of our DCML members should be able to direct you to
articles on Strobl. The only English language source that I can direct you to
is OUR OWN DCML home page. Click on "CREATORS", then on "TONY STROBL". There,
you will see a concise, but decent biography. I seem to remember information
from an interview with him by Klaus Strzyz. I cannot remember if that is the
basis for the DCML bio, or if there is a separate link to it. But, you should
read it (it has been translated to English). Then, below, click on the link to
Anders Berglund's article on Strobl. It has been translated to English. It is
fairly thorough. Unfortunately, the comments that I made regarding the
diminishing of the quality of his artwork were not written anywhere that I know
of. That information came to me from my conversations with Malcom Willits and
Leonard Brown in the mid 1960s, and reconfirmed in conversations with old-time
Disney Animation artists and Disney Comic fans whom I met while working at
Turner Feature Animation and Warner Brothers Feature Animation in the 1990s. I
can't really remember who said what.
ALSO: please note that I forgot to mention that the first reduction in the
quality of drawing paper supplied by Western Publishing in 1955 did NOT seem to
reduce the quality of Tony Strobl's work, but the SECOND (severe) reduction in
the quality in 1959 was a MAJOR contributor. We also noticed that reduction in
quality in Barks' work. That was a SEVERE reduction in quality. The paper
lost most of it's ability to absorb the ink. So, the inker had to work much
more deliberately, with shorter, tighter (stiffer) strokes. This caused drastic
stiffening of the characters, taking much of the "life" out of them. At that
time, Tony's inks were ALL being done by others. However, the reduction of
quality cannot all be blamed upon the paper and inkers. I have seen some
photographs of some of his original pencilwork from sometime during the 1959-
1962 period, and the quality seemed to be significantly poorer (in my opinion)
than those of pre-1959. This seems to corroborate what I'd been told by Willits
and some of the other old-time comics fans.

I think it is VERY interesting that Carl Barks had a Dog-person (Diamond Dick)
being married to (presumably) a Duck!!! I've read the story hundreds of times,
but that fact NEVER jumped out on me! Therefore, it must be reasonable in the
Disney Universe created by the many artists and writers, for mixing the
(races). Apparantly, they are just racial differences, and not different
species. Even so, I don't think I will have inter-"racial" marriages in my own
stories. This does NOT mean that I am a racist. Those of you who know me, know
that I am not. However, as a scientist, it is difficult for me to
believe "people" with pipes for legs and webbed feet are of the same species
as (for example) a moose! Being a Barksist, i have to accept that. After all,
Donald has fallen for many a Dog-face. And what female Duck wouldn't fall for
Deltoid Biceppa???

For Gary: I believe that the reference to Granny's last name as "Clampett",
must have been an error of oversight. The rush to get finished scripts out for
weekly television shows is quite chaotic. Yes, the script is edited and re-
read many times. But NO ONE is looking for such details. The 1960s was not so
far from the EXTREMELY conservative 1950s. I really don't believe that the
producer of that programme would want it intimated that the Hillbillies of the
Ozarks (or Kentucky, the Appalachians, or whatever "hickey" area of USA they
came from) were inbreeding with first cousins. Even though we know that to
have occurred at that time (with some, I dare say) even today; I doubt that a
TV network could afford to offend millions of people. That would have included
all the "Bible-thumpers", who would not want innocent children being exposed to
that idea. It may be true that a few high-brow writers would have liked to
introduce that as a joke. They would never expect that it would pass the
network censors. Perhaps this IS one such example, that was overlooked by the
censors. I, myself, have left outlandish things in a few of my scripts (as a
joke) to a friendly in-house editor (knowing full well that it would definately
be removed). I don't think run-of-the-mill writer would have done that in
1960s Television, as they would not want to risk their "lucky" position.

For Sonia: You are very correct that the parlance employed by the so-
called "Hicks" and "Hillbillies" is closer to the speech of the English of
England in the 17th and 18th centuries. As the relatively remote areas where
that speech flourished during the past 350 years have had much less inmigration
of strangers, and have been touched much less by the changes in the language on
the National level, shared by the overall culture. That is an automatic result.
However, it should be noted that the "New England accent" (dialect?)has kept
its basic flavour which was set in place due to the early establishment of the
Puritans (which spoke a "middle class form of the Southern English dialect of
the 1600s). As I understand from extensive reading on the subject, the
US "Southern" and "Hillbilly" accents were heavily influenced by a large
portion of the early settlement in Southern Colonies having been from Western
England. Many came from the farmland areas surrounding Bristol, as well as
Bristol, itself. That is because that was the major port for commerce with the
American Colonies. There also came large contingents from Devon and Cornwall,
Bath, and other parts of the West. This basis of general speech was overlain by
a heavy contingent of Irish. The amalgamation of those two elements, gave the
Hillbilly idiom its unique qualities. A similar situation explains the very
different Australian accent. The bulk of the early New South Wales population
were criminals, or ex-criminals. By far, the largest portion of THAT
population came from the LOWER CLASSES of London. Therefore, the idiom of THAT
group, as spoken in the mid-to-late 18th Century, formed the basis of that
unique dialect. By the same token, the large emigration of Scots to Nova
Scotia (New Scotland) and New Brunswick, after the French were defeated in
1713, provided the basis of the Canadian English accent (which I speak-even
though I am a Dutch Jew!). For any of you French members that have heard
people speak Quebecois, you may recognise some similarities to Le Francais of
Artois and Picardie (with a bit of Normandie thrown in). Admittedly, that idiom
is closer to the general French of the 1600s. But, it is MUCH, MUCH closer to
the Picardois of the 1600s. That is because a large portion of the original
settlers of New France came from those provinces.

Rob Klein

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Hi!!!
I just updated my website Calisota Online!!!
http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/
I added a new section about real life characters in Barks' and Rosa's stories
:
http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/exist/
and I updated the Cow and the Pete family trees...
Now, it's time to go to bed (4:20 am, here :-))
Gilles