Keskustelujen arkisto

Dani?l, Stefan:

You are both right on some points. But I think this discussion is becoming too technical for DCMLers.
Let's continue this on our "ddb" indexers list.

Dani?l:
> Harry Fluks, where are you when I need you the most???

On my way to Amsterdam to get my first Gemstone comics...

--Harry.

Hi!

Daniel:

>>> As a reply to my Barks trivia quiz, Arie Fachrisal listed the
>>> following Barks stories with hypnotism:
>> 1. The Littlest Chicken Thief (WDC 219)
>> 2. The Hypno Gun (WDC 145)
>> 3. The Swamp of No Return (US 57)
>> 4. Back to Long Ago (US 16)
>> 5. Cave of Ali Baba (US 37)
>> 6. The Lost Peg-leg Mine (DD 52)

>> Still, there are at least three other stories.
>> Who knows them? And who knows more?

I never would have thought of Ali Baba & The Peg-Leg Mine. :(

One more: "You Can't Guess!"-- Christmas story where Donald will buy the
nepehws their erector sets if they can guess what he wants for Christmas;
Scrooge takes him to a man who hypnotizes him into believeing he's a
chicken.

My turn--

1/ "Donald, come ove rhere! I've got the world by its tail, and it's too BIG
to handle alone!"
2/ "Uncle Scrooge, you rope us ducks ino some of the GOSHAWFULEST deals!"

It has probably already been mentioned before, but here it is: I found a bug
in a Barks ten-pager when I read it a few days ago, a mistake he made when
drawing a panel-- nothng serious, just one more trivia item.
WDC&S 100 (Jan '49; "Truant Officer Donald", WDC&S Album 14); p 9 panel 1,
one of the nephews says "I'll get the wasps out of these earphones"; the
bug in fact is a cricket (or a grasshopper?).

Have a nice week-end!

Olivier

Say, are there any German Duckfans on here? Any that are willing to help me
out?
Ehapa (Germany) is planning a special presentation of my "Life of $crooge
series... they are the only major Egmont company that did not go along with
the Lo$ hardback of some years back, and they plan one now, an expanded
edition including all of the extra chapters as well.
What I need to be able to tell them is where the original German printings
of those stories contained alterations of my original scripts. I have always
been told in those days that the German editions of my stories were the most
inaccurate, and I fear that all the dates in my Lo$ were changed or omitted
and all of the names of actual people and places were changed to goofy names
for kiddies and other elements may have been altered. Now Egmont/Ehapa has
agreed to allow me to have more editorial control over how my work is
presented, which would include guaranteeing that all presentations of my
scripts are accurate, but I need help in this regard since Ehapa will
probably reuse the same German scripts they used previously.
All I can know for sure is that the accurate version was printed by
Gladstone (since those are the ones I can read, and I supplied them with the
original scripts directly). Is it at all possible that anyone here can do
some comparisons between the German version (in the weekly or the Rosa
albums) and the Gladstone version, at least where names and dates are
mentioned? It would be a big help. Maybe I could get a free copy of the book
for whoever can help.

>My friendly suggestion is that our friends in Gemstone should learn >from our
>friends in Egmont.

A fine idea, except you're not considering that (A) Gemstone does not do their own distribution. Those books (and nearly all, if not *all* comic books in the USA) are distributed by Diamond. To my knowledge, there are no other distribution houses that handle comic books in the USA. Therefore, there's no real reason to improve their service, as they have no competition in the distribution game. And (B) the idea of finding Disney comics in every local supermarket and on every newsstand is wonderful, except, most people simply don't read comic books, let alone Disney comic books in this country. In a country with over 290,000,000 citizens, Gladstone was selling 6,000-7,000 copies of WDCS and US during their last print run. You can debate the reasons for that from now until doomsday, but the ultimate reality is that gaining new (especially young) readers in the USA is an uphill battle, and it's going to be tough to convince the local supermarket that they ought to carry you
r books. That's simply the way it is.

> I can see that some people are disappointed with the distribution of
> Gemstone's comics - no wonder as it seems (from my Scandinavian point of
> view) that so far they have done a pretty poor job.
>
> My friendly suggestion is that our friends in Gemstone should learn from
our
> friends in Egmont (like Byron Erickson or David Gerstein) who are very
well
> experienced in effective distribution of Disney comics. In the Nordic
> countries there are no problems what so ever to find a copy of the
weeklies
> as they are even sold in every supermarket and in other grocery stores.

I must confess that I love the concept of comic stores. True, I've always
bought my Donald Duck & Co at supermarkets or kiosks. But I've longed for a
magazine that BELONGS in comic stores.

I think there may be one major difference between American and Scandinavian
Disney publications: The American ones are made for devoted Disney comic
fans, the Scandinavian ones are "buy me"-products. Over time, the magazine
has been shaped and changed to get more and more popular amongst the great
masses. Well, but does this give us a better magazine? In my opinion... no.

I can naturally see that Disney comics have great advantages in a world
where comicbooks are sold in grocery stores. People buy them. But how many
of its readers have devoted to it? How many readers of the Donald Duck & Co
are truly interested in Disney comics, making it a part of their life like
us?

Or, to take an example: Of the two countries Norway and United States of
America - which one has most members on this list? The Norwegian weekly sell
in 150.000 copies EVERY WEEK. In a country with 4,5 million inhabitants.
Still - there's more devoted Disney comic fans in USA. Why is that?

The Scandinavian weeklies are made so that many people will like them enough
to buy them. The American Disney comics are made so that a few people will
love them.

Because American comic readers are readers who care. They can't just pick up
an "Uncle $crooge" with their milk, bread and tomatoes. They have to go to a
special store - where they find a comic made specially for them.

In short: IF the American Disney comics were to be distributed in grocery
stores, that would in my opinion have one of these following results:
a) Nobody would buy them anyway, so the supermarkets would refuse to take
them in.
b) Gemstone would have to make a magazine the general mass would buy, to
make supermarkets sell them. That would effect Disney comics as Americans
know them - in a BAD way.

Nah - if we're to pick a favorite - a magazine made so that fans would enjoy
it or a magazine made so that everybody would buy it - I would pick the
first one. And I guess it wouldn't be profitable to distribute them through
supermarkets. (Besides, how do you spread 10.000 comics across the probably
millions of grocery stores in USA?)

Another discussion is of course whether all serious malls should have a
comic store, which I'm for with practically no doubt in my heart. (let's
face it - that's where the best comics are!)

O l a f t h e B l u e
...who hopes to be in a Gemstone publication someday

Barks' Christmas story, "The Thrifty Spendthrift", US #47.
Donald makes a gadget to hypnotise Scrooge into
giving him lots of Christmas gifts, but HDL meddle with
it, and when Scrooge is hypnotised, he gives all the gifts
of "The 12 Days of Christmas" to a dog. Scrooge is
hypnotised through most of this story.
---Larry Giver.

Barks' Christmas story, "The Thrifty Spendthrift", US #47,
has a hypnotised Scrooge giving all the gifts of "The 12 Days
of Christmas" to a dog. Donald had devised a gadget to
hypnotise Scrooge into giving Donald lots of Christmas gifts,
but HDL changed something in it before Donald took it to
Scrooge, and that changed the giftee from Donald to a dog.

Hi,

From Gemstone's newsletter F.A.C.T.S. #1:

> The official website for Gemstone Disney comics is now up and running.
> Visit www.gemstonepub.com/disney to subscribe on-line at anytime! In
> addition, you may also view upcoming covers for soon to be published
> titles, links to our sister companies, or visit our pressroom. You may
> even send gift subscriptions. This site is easy to navigate and full of
> information for the Disney Comic enthusiast!

Kind regards,

Arthur
DCW: http://www.wolfstad.com/dcw