Keskustelujen arkisto

Here's a scan i made of Goofy's genius nephew Roderick who seems to be
Gilbert's predecessor. Maybe they're brothers? They're at least cousins.

http://users.cwnet.com/xephyr/ART/RoderickGoof.gif

I know Guilles and some others have expressed some interest in seeing it
in the
past. I'll leave it up for a week or so.

Thanks,

Rich Bellacera

PRESS RELEASE
DISNEY COMICS TO SEE PRINT AGAIN STARTING JUNE, 2003 FROM GEMSTONE, GEPPI
SPEAKS
by Jonah Weiland, Executive Producer
Posted: December 13, 2002

It's a well known fact that the US comics market is dominated by super-hero
comics target to a young teen market. While enjoyed by all ages, the target
audience of these books is generally considered to be adolescent males. There
are other sectors of the industry geared to a more mature audience, with
books from Vertigo, Marvel's MAX line and most independents intended for
adults. While those two audience groups have been served nicely in recent
years,
one area left very much behind has been the children's market. Only Archie,
Bongo (publisher of "Simpsons" comics) and a handful of independent titles
are intended for children. In yearspast you could count Disney as part of
that group as well, but for almost five years Disney books have not been seen
in this market. That is until now.

Starting in June of 2003 Gemstone Publishing and Disney Publishing Worldwide
will bring back to comic books the classic Disney characters. Mickey,Donald,
Uncle Scrooge and other Disney favorites will once again be featured in a
series of monthly comic books to be published by
Gemstone. "Walt Disney Comics and Stories" and "Uncle Scrooge Adventures" are
the first titles to see print, with plans to expand the line shortly
thereafter.

In addition to the Disney Titles, Gemstone Publishing is the home to "The
Overstreet ComicBook Price Guide," "Comic Book Marketplace" and an assortment
of other niche magazines and guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comics
Distributors President and CEO StephenA. Geppi, who spoke with CBR News about
this announcement. "I'm a big believer in 'timing is everything' and while
this deal could have been done sooner, I
personally feel now, call me the eternal optimist or whatever, the timing was
just better now than it had ever been," Geppi told CBR News Thursday when
asked why the delay in launchingthis new venture. "All during the period
that we were negotiating, if you will, while the intent
was there to do a deal, I never had quite the same level of confidence that
the timing was right. That said, we look at my situation now as it relates to
having a
distribution arm that services the book store market, vis-?-vis Diamond Book
Distributors, recently formed, that gives me a whole lot more confidence
about the potential success of this venture."
For Geppi, timing this launch to maximize its success is the crucial
component to the venture.
Previously Diamond did not have a book distribution arm to move this product
outside the direct market which currently services comic books. With the
creator of Diamond Book Distributors, Gemstone now has an avenue to travel
down in order to get these books into mass market shopping centers where
they'll find the best access to young readers, which Geppi feels is key to
the health of the comic book industry.
"It's a business venture we hope will make us tons of money and all the good
stuff that goes with business ventures, but in actuality, at the risk of
sounding altruistic, the bottom line is Ireally believe, in the position I
sit as the owner of Diamond Comic Distributors, that our industry is in dire
need of some children's comics, and that this is an entry level opportunity
for young kids to discover comics."While Disney books haven't been seen in
the States in recent years, they have continually been published in the
European markets.
"The bad news is we've all be suffering without Disney comics for three years
and four months," said Geppi. "The good news is they continue to be published
by some of our favorite writers and artists in the European market and we are
now able to benefit from that backlog that has built up in that market
because, under the Disney license, all that material is available to me.
While technically a reprint, it is brand new material as far as this market
is concerned. Even the artists themselves are thrilled to see their stuff in
English."
Fans of Duck artists William Van Horn and Don Rosa will be treated to
material not seen before in the US market. Van Horn, best known for his
10-page sotries, and Rosa, best known for his epic adventures, will both seen
their material printed in the US market. Additionally, more recent creators
well known in the European market like Mouse creator David Gerstein and Duck
creator Daan Jippes will also see their work published in the States

"I've already been in communication with David Gerstein," said Geppi, "and
Jippes is another guy I personally think is a tremendous artist. Quite
frankly, there's a large number of other artists that I didn't even know
existed, who have been brought to my attention by Disney and as well as
[European Disney publisher] Egmont, that I think people are going to be quite
pleased to see how talented these people are." And fans of legendary Ducks
artist Carl Barks need not worry. There are plans to bring his work back to
print as well. "The Carl Barks legend needs to be preserved," said Geppi. "I
know sometimes people will say, "You know those stories have been reprinted
to death!' You have to remember, Carl produced over 6000 pages of original
art in his illustrious career and it takes a long while to publish that. So
by the time the stuff has been republished it's hitting a whole new
generation. That's the concept here.
"Remember, reaching children and getting them to become comic readers isn't
just a matter of putting a four-color comic book in their hands with familiar
characters and a bad story. In order to retain them the goal is to get them
to pick up the comic books and when they pick them up they'll be enchanted
just as we all were by the wonderful stories that Carl wrote and drew, as
well as his modern day contemporaries, and hence we'll be able to keep them
hooked, if you will, on comics."

While the Gemstone books will see a mix of material from the European market
as well as classic reprints, Geppi and crew are looking to find a whole new
generation of Disney artists for new, original work.
"We have the luxury of being able to get up and running, so to speak, with
the benefit of new material constantly flowing because it hasn't been seen
here, while we recruit and address potential new artists and writers who
might augment this tremendous repertoire that's available to us."
For those who remember the work Gladstone Publishing did with the Disney
books in the late '90s, Gemstone will be picking up where they left off,
publishing the books in a prestige format with other formats coming.
"Initially we will be coming back with the 'prestige format' that Gladstone
was doing at the end of their regime. In other words, the first couple of
issues that will be solicited for June, 'Walt Disney's Comics and Stores' and
'Uncle Scrooge,' will look pretty much exactly like they did so that when you
place them together as a collector they will be contiguous. Worst thing you
can do to a collector is have a comic book run 800 issues one size and then
change sizes in the middle of the run.
"As we gear up for the book store market, mass market if you will, we're
coming to the conclusion that a format that is going to be very popular
there, as we
interview the Wal Mart buyers and people of that nature is, I don't want to
call it digest-sized because that conjures up in a comic book readers mind
the smaller, Archie size, but maybe more of a what CrossGen or TokyoPop is
currently doing in the, let's call it pocket book size. So, the intent is to
have a value pack kind of approach there. Wherein the prestige formats will
pick up with the $6.95 cover price Gladstone left off with four years ago, we
look forward to shortly there after getting these pocket book sized books out
into the mass market as well as the direct market at a morevalue packed price
point. Say, $4.95 with 128 or more pages."
Geppi told CBR News that Diamond is aggressively talking with major retail
chains in an effort to get these Disney books on their shelves.
"Kuo-Yu Lang, our top guy at Diamond Book Distributors, has relayed to me in
his preliminary discussions with the Wal Mart's, Costco's, Target's and
Barnes and Nobles of the world that there's quite a bit of interest. One of
the luxuries we have on this side of first publication is that we can solicit
their input as to size and shape as it relates to their appetite for
purchase orders. We feel confident that we are going to get a good response
there and expect that they'll sell well."
Finally, Geppi has been overwhelmed by the positive response he's received by
comic retailers and consumers since this announcement first made the rounds.
"Going into this I went in with a certain amount of trepidation because
historically the direct market doesn't embrace children's comics, but given
the absence of them for a time period there's come an almost universal
recognition of the need for them. I've been getting letters and e-mails from
some of my long time retailer friends indicating how excited they are about
them coming back as well as the creators and of course the consumers." For
those interested in getting more information directly from Gemstone
concerning theirDisney publications, visit them on the Web at
www.gemstonepub.com/Disney/.

OLA

>In the special Goofy 70 year pocket in Sweden there is a Scarpa story I
>TL 158-A Topolino e il Pippotarzan.
[...]
>So was this really what it said in the Italian original ?

In short, yes.

Cheers

Eta Beta

Rune:

> There's a story code H98235, and the
> illustrator is "Mau Heymans".
>
> The "drawing-style" was quite different from the way "most
> others" draw
> the characters, and not in a Rosa/Barks kind of style. Not sure if I
> liked it yet, but I would like to get my hands on other
> stories by the
> same artist. Anyone got any references?

There are several ways to get a Mau Heymans index from Inducks, for instance
http://bolderbast.inducks.org/inducks/mheymanss.html (and other indexes
linked from http://bolderbast.inducks.org/xxcreators.html).
Your mail reminded me to update those pages, which I did just before sending
this mail. 8-)

I'm a big Heymans fan. Especially the stories that he wrote himself,
together with his former girlfriend Kirsten de Graaf, are very good. One of
my favourites:

H 93154 10 -> MHe BHe DD Een geniale weddenschap (Roddelflop)
| [writ:MHe,KdG]
| no: DD2000-02,KVART01 (Alt er relativt)

J?rgen (welcome back):

> is Bas Heymans Mau's brother? Their style is very
> similar.

Yes, they are brothers. Bas started his Duckwork with inking Mau's stories.
That also explains their similarity in styles.

A small photograph of the brothers can be found here:

http://members.lycos.nl/bolderbast/p01-07.html (the 6th photograph on that
page)

--Harry.

Sigvald:

> around 1990 Mau Heymans did
> parts of the art in the Don Rosa story
> "On a Silver Platter". That indicates that
> Heymans does Don Rosa like art - dosen't it?

If you mean "Heymans does like Don Rosa art", then the answer is: no,
definitely not.

The Dutch editors had Mau Heymans draw some Ducks for page 1 of "On a Silver
Platter", to show Rosa what a "Dutch style" Duck looks like. It was one of
the first stories that Rosa drew for the Dutch.

--Harry.

Hello there,

Have Carl ever talked about his opinion about the DuckTales series and
movie?

Thank you so much,
Fernando! :-)

Hi!

Inspired by the recent discussion about the Carl Barks font offered on
the German Donaldists' webpage, I decided to extend it with various
accented and other special characters plus the Greek alphabet.

Everything is done by twisting, combining, and in other ways modifying
existing letters of the font (where possible) so that as much as
possible of it would resemble Barks' writing style.

I am almost done -- and when I am, I will of course offer it to the
German Donaldists for them to publish it on their website.

I am no typographic expert, though, so first I need someone to have a
look at especially the Greek letters and tell me if they look right:

http://lokal.prydslauritsen.dk/misc/carlbarks-greek.png

In general I am interest in whether the letters appear as handwritten
Greek letters would, and in particular I wonder about the two small
versions of sigma (which I have made alike since here the small letters
are "just" small capitals) and if I got the omega right from the
description Kriton made some days ago.

Thanks in advance!
Thomas

--
Thomas Pryds Lauritsen

"There is the theory of the Moebius.
A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop."