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FRANCESCO SPREAFICO to MICHEL PRIOR, 15-08-2003:

> Tthere's another thing to keep in mind: there are stories only drawn
> by [Scarpa] and there are stories written and drawn by [Scarpa].
> Don Rosa once wrote:
> "I think any comic that is written and drawn by ONE person, even if
> it's mediocre, has a quality that puts it somehow above the best
> comic written and drawn by two different people."
> And I think he's right... in this case it's not even mediocre comics
> we're talking about, but great ones.

There are many great comic book teams, within and outside Disney.
Daan Jippes and Freddy Milton, to name just one team. I think it
depends on how people work best, and on their attitude. Some people
like to work alone, and other people like to fill in each other while
creating a story.

I think the most important criterion to create good comics (or
anything else), is an inner power that insists that a new creation
will be an improvement on the previous one.

When I asked a Dutch songwriter to tell me his best song, he humbly
answered: "I still have to write that one." And he already was one
of the best songwriters in The Netherlands! I think his answer
perfectly explained how he got that far.

So far my thoughts about "the secret of success". :-)

> Scrooge is the Scrooge I love (100% Barksian, if you like it so, but
> not only so).

Shouldn't Scarpa gets credits as well, if he creates a good Scrooge?
It can't be 100% Barksian, because the story isn't created by Barks.
I often see great efforts by artists, and then their fans let Barks
take all the credits. Personally, I find that unfair and confusing.

> He feels lonely so he gets this bird, the Kaibi', and then does
> anything he can to feed him.

Barks's Scrooge in the gag "Playmates" (US 38), and Barks's Scrooge
in "The Pixilated Parrot" (OS 282) contain a quite different, less
friendly Scrooge when it comes to taking care for pets, IMO.

Are there Barks stories in which Scrooge has a generous attitude to
pets and animals? At the moment, I only remember a gag about Scrooge
accidently feeding money to a horse. (US 23)

--- Dani?l

P.S. Just in case I'm giving a wrong impression, I want to emphasize
that I've enjoyed your enthusiastic account of Scarpa's work. After
reading it, I feel uneasy not really knowing much of his work. Maybe
I should feel ashamed? Well, what do you think? :-)

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone is fine, after the heat wave in Europe & the NE US & Canada
blackout.

Dani?l:

>>>Can you name five favourite artists?

Let's be litteral and consider art only first (in no particular order):
- Carl Barks-- late 40's & early '50s (still a long beak, but nicer, then
shorter, to climax at his best style)
- Floyd Gottfredson-- the early manner (Blaggard Castle, Seven Ghosts, ... ;
credit should also go to inkers such as Taliaferro) and that of the Bill
Walsh era, which so perfectly fit Walsh's stories
- Al Taliaferro-- I can't pinpoint the era, though; I like the "squarer"
beak less
- Daan Jippes-- can do Barks & Gottfredson perfectly, and has a nice style
of his own
- William Van Horn-- not model sheet grade ducks, but smooth, fluid lines &
action that make them lively; a perfect fit to his own fluid & energetic
style of story-telling & word-jugggling

That's five, but others deserve mention as well:
- Romano Scarpa-- can't pinpoint the era either; earlier style?
- Giorgio Cavazzano-- three styles that I know of, that really look like
three different artists; I like the early ('70s?) one (longer beak, "longer"
heads, rounder bodies) and the intermediary one ('80s?); I don't like his
new, round style
- Keno Don Rosa-- I remember Don Rosa himself saying something like "I
can't draw", and members (?) saying his characters are stiff-looking, that
the panels look like still pictures; and then, there's the unequalled amount
of detail (in Disney comics-- as far as I know); while his style certainly
isn't as fluid as Van Horn, I like it (and I don't mind the detailed
shading); nice cinematogrpahic staging too

Let's now consider "artist" in the sense of "story-teller" (still in no
particular order)--
- Barks-- simple & efficient tales, high adventure, humor, ...
- Gottfredson-- don't forget he's the one who came up with the plots, up
till...
- Bill Wash-- quite a change; the ghosts are now real; weird people walk the
streets, ...
- Don Rosa-- a work of love, and it shows; finely crafted stories; I love
the science in the SF; the historical approach is as rigorous as the
scientific one; humor; not afraid of doing melodrama (and does it well)

>>>>- What are your favourite stories by these artists?

There are too many. I'll just list those I think of right now, knowing I'll
forget some I may like even more
- Barks adventures: Sheriff of Bullet Valley, Only a Poor Old Man, Land
Beneath the Ground, A Christmas for Shacktown, Lost in the Andes, ...
- Barks ten-pagers: late '40s - early '50s; quiz show, nightmares, golf,
sunken yacht, insurance policy, Gladstone's secret, money crib & tornado,
coin collector, spending money, ...
- Gottfredson: The Seven Ghosts, The Syndicate of Crime, The Moook Treasure
(I still have the French reprints of those three from the early '80s), The
Pirate Ghost Ship, The Monarch of Medioka, The Black Crow Mystery, The House
of Mystery, ...
- Don Rosa: L&T (esp 2, 5, 6 1/2, 7, 8, 9 if only for the ending, 11, 12),
Treasure of the Ten Avatars, Son of the Sun, His Majesty McDuck, Space
Varmints, The Universal Solvent, The Black Knight, Quest of The Kalevala,
...

>>>>Why do you like these stories?

I should have added a note in parentheses after each, but it would have made
it hearder to read.
All: very imaginative (Barks: Terry-Firmy; Walsh: Mook; Rosa: varmints)

>>>>What are your favourite scenes?
A few thrilling scenes--
- riding the glacier in "Last Sled to Dawson"
- I think nothing beats the finale of "A Little Something Special"
A few melodramatic scenes--
- the death of Scrooge's father
- Scrooge & Goldie finales in "Hearts of the Yukon", "Last Sled to Dawson"

>>>>Which jokes did you like the most?

- Crown of the Crusader Kings: the dolls scene
- Shacktown: raising money (cowboys, ...)
There's a lot of hilarious stuff in Barks & Rosa stories, and I can only
think of these? :b
I'd say Barks has the most funny stories (ie, has written more stories that
are funny throughout), while Rosa has the funniest bits (side gags, mishaps,
...); both have loads of snappy replies
- Van Horn: plenty of visual gags, and (characteristic) fun with language
(not as much as Walt Kelly, but still a lot of fun)

May I take this opportunity to propose a quote quiz?
I can't remember in which Barks story it, but I know it's there somewhere.
Donald leaves Scrooge's office, slamming the door; there's a sheet of paper
taped to the door:
"Merry X-Mas! Beat it!"
I lvoe that one :D

>>>>What are your favourite characters?
Regular cast:
Donald
One-shot creations:
- The Smugnsnorkle Squatty-- such a name; along with him, li'l Tagalong
(such an odd dog)
- Terries & Fermies-- great idea

>>>>Are there situations in life which remind you of things you've read in
comics?

Can't think of any

>>>>What's the first story you ever read?

No idea, especially since I've always read them over and over and over.
The earliest one I remember: Walsh & Gottfredson's "Dr X"; it was lost a
looooooong time ago (I was really a wee lad when I read it), and I only came
to read it again a few months ago, when I finally finished reading my MM
anthology for the first time-- it was the antepenultimate story.
I remembered one scene: a very intelligent Goofy (quite a genius, in fact),
wearing a suit & glasses, sitting at a table; Mickey talking to him; the
lights went out, and Goofy disappeared; the scene was set in a tree-house.
When I read it, I found out I had mixed it up a bit with another story (the
tree-house bit).
The earliest Barks stories I still have (in Super Mickey G?ant) are the
"Waltz King", the "Swimming Contest", the "Cantankerous Cat", the "Salesmen"
story

Rich:

>>> Something curious. Yesterday while I was at work I was listening to the
>>> News when the Electricity Blackout occurred on the East Coast
[...]
>>>But that aside, at one point, during the day,
>>> the newscaster mentioned the names of two of the facilities or grids or
>>> something that provided the power and called them "Terry" and "Firmy."
>>> I'm sure someone was a Barks fan working for the power company.

:D Surely . That's a very good instance of fan-given names.

All the best,

Olivier

This is a reply to Sigvald's mail:
http://stp.ling.uu.se/pipermail/dcml/2003-August/024282.html . For some
reason I did not receive that mail myself, but had to look for it in the
archieves after S?ren mentioned it for me. Was I the only one not to
receive it?

>GEMSTONE CODING
>---------------
>First I have a question about Gemstone. Can Gary Leach or anyone else
>enlighten us about what Gemstone's story- and other codes look like. Is it
>an AR 300-series or something completely different?

To my knowledge, Gemstone has so far not made any new Disney stories. There
are two Van Horn covers (1st WDC & 2nd U$) which haven't been identified
from other publications. I see that Van Horn obviously is working for
Gemstone as a letterer, so maybe the covers were made for Gemstone as well.
Does anyone know anything more about this?
|
>And maybe our friend Harry Fluks can enlighten us about how Gemstone
>publications are coded in the INDUCKS/COA databases.

Country: us
Codes: FCBD, WDC 634+, US 319+

Stefan

_________________________________________________________________
Hitta r?tt p? n?tet med MSN S?k http://search.msn.se/

Sigvald wrote:

> Anyway instead of arguing in favour of, or against the value of the nice
> Polish web-poll I have done my own *scientific* popularity check by using
> Google to search for the name of various well-known Disney creators/artists.
> The search was done with the full name of the artists within quote-marks
> like this: "Carl Barks". Here are the results:
>
> Rank Artist Google-hits %
> ---------------------------------------
> 1 Carl Barks 25100 (41,1%)
> 2 Don Rosa 12600 (20,6%)
> 3 Vicar* 6850 (11,2%)
> 4 David Gerstein 2790 ( 4,6%)
> 5 Floyd Gottfredson 2280 ( 3,7%)
> 6 Marco Rota 2200 ( 3,6%)
> 7 Romano Scarpa 2080 ( 3,4%)
> 8 William van Horn 1880 ( 3,1%)
> 9 Al Taliaferro 1280 ( 2,1%)
> 10 Olaf Solstrand 1140 ( 1,9%)
> 11 Paul Murry 1110 ( 1,8%)
> 12 Tony Strobl 947 ( 1,6%)
> 13 Freddy Milton 676 ( 1,1%)
> 14 Dan Jippes 106 ( 0,2%)
> ---------------------------------------
> * As Vicar is a very normal word I had to search for "Vicar" + Disney
>
> Hope this is clarifying when it comes to the ranking-matter.
>

I was a bit baffled at #14, particularly the spelling, so I have just Googled "Daan Jippes", and I got approximately 1790 hits. So, with the correct spelling, Daan Jippes gets 9th place, thus pushing Olaf Solstrand out of the top ten (sorry Olaf).

Also, Freddy Milton is known in the US by the name Fred Milton. I have Googled "Fred Milton" and got 640 hits, while "Freddy Milton" got 689 hits. There may be some doubles, but I believe Freddy's total score should be somewhere between 689 and 1329.

These simple observations may serve as one indication why such a simple poll is not considered by all to carry much weight.

Another observation is that some artists do not appear on the list, simply because they have been omitted from the poll. I don't claim that you have done so deliberately, Sigvald, I just assume that you have picked the names that sprang to your mind. To my mind sprang one obvious omission from your list, so I Googled "Giorgio Cavazzano" and got 2350 hits. "Luciano Gatto" got 1880 hits, and "Luciano Bottaro" got 875.
I could go on and on, and I probably would, had I thought of a Google poll as having any significance at all.

Martin.

On the other hand, there are more than one person named Fred Milton, so one should be very careful in interpreting the number of Google hits as any significant number regarding a specific person.

Just for fun I Googled "Martin Olsen" and got about 4790 hits. Of course, Martin Olsen is not an uncommon name, and I suppose only a couple dozen of the hits are really *me*-hits.

Martin.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Persson" <reimersholme at hotmail.com>
To: <martino at olsen.tdcadsl.dk>; <dcml at stp.ling.uu.se>
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: Sigvald's Google poll

> >From: "Martin Olsen" <martino at olsen.tdcadsl.dk>
> >To: <dcml at stp.ling.uu.se>
> >Subject: Re: Sigvald's Google poll
> >Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 12:17:25 +0200
>
> >Also, Freddy Milton is known in the US by the name Fred Milton. I have
> >Googled "Fred Milton" and got 640 hits, while "Freddy Milton" got 689 hits.
> >There may be some doubles, but I believe Freddy's total score should be
> >somewhere between 689 and 1329.
>
> Searching for '"Fred Milton" OR "Freddy Milton"' returns "about 1,320" hits.
>
> Stefan
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Hitta r?tt p? n?tet med MSN S?k http://search.msn.se/
>
>

STEFAN PERSSON to me, 16-08-2003:

>> I'm forwarding an email that got "scrubbed".

> Ah, that was a serious mail? The subject made me sort it out as
> spam without opening it.

Without even opening it??? Wow! You must be an email expert!

I've seldom seen so much Disney references in one email, and you
pick it out as spam...

Well, then it's the first that a spam email has a subject of my
*interest*, and even *answers* my questions.

> EVERYONE: Please put better contents in the subject line!

STEFAN: Please think before you write!

--- Dani?l

SIGVALD GROSFJELD to OLE NIELSEN, 15-08-2003:

>> I have strangely lost recollection of where Barks stated that
>> Scrooge was born in Scotland.

> Barks stated many places that $crooge is of Scottish descendense.

Indeed. In "The Swamp of No Return (US 57), Donald says about Scrooge
who temporary lost his identity: "For a SE?OR, that old Duck sure had
a SCOTCH accent, like Uncle Scrooge's!" (panel 7.7)

In the previous panel, Scrooge said "laddie" to Donald. From what
I've understood, that's a typical Scotch word.

This is just an example. There are also other Barks instances in
which Scrooge uses (variations of) the word "laddie".

> His last name McDuck shows the same.

On principle, *that's* no proof that Scrooge was born in Scotland
himself. It may have been his anchestors, instead. (Please notice
that I'm nitpicking.)

--- Dani?l

(BUZZZZ) "I'm all rattled! WHERE am I?"

Sigvald:

> No, what I was actually trying to say is that the Italian > artists seems to have so strong feelings for their own
> Disney universe that they seem to
> forget that the American Disney universe is the original.

Well, hm, then maybe this is what you should have said
directly, instead of trying to give an example and
proceeding to generalize from it. And I also get a strong
impression that "Many people think Rota failed" is only
your way of *politely* trying to state your own dislike of
*one particular story* by Rota.

Considering your statement above, I think the Italian
stories keep in fact very close to the American originals.
Did you know that Italian Duck-and-Mouse stories, contrary
to the way the stories are represented in other European
countries, are set in an American context? Did you know
the currency used in Italian stories and translations is
the dollar? The police station in the Italian Mouse
stories I've read is an American police station. Most
irregular supporting characters have English names like
Bob, Arthur, Arnold, Billy and 'Scottish' surnames like
McSop, McPerson, McTedious. Topolinia, as Mouseton is
called in those stories, has an American outlook, with
skyscrapers and watertanks on roofs. (And Duckburg is
called Paperopoli. Does Norway have separate names for
Duckburg and Mouseton?)
Gilles' site shows a map from an Italian story in which
Topolinia and Paperopoli are situated in America.

Furthermore, I try to see the efforts of all those
different artists in different countries as pertaining to
the same 'universe', rather than dividing this 'universe'
in different universes for different countries, although I
admit that different artists give a different 'feel'.

Maybe I could illustrate this with an issue of "Zio
Paperone" which I bought in Italy last June [#165] which
has stories from very different countries, instead of
being an all-Italian-issue. All in the same issue are
stories by Cavazzano, Barks, Taliaferro, Milton, Branca,
Scarpa, Strobl and Vicar, all beautifully coloured, with
nice lettering and printed on nice non-glossy paper, and
what's more, this way they're represented as forming an
*unity*, the use of dollars giving an *American* feeling,
even to the stories of Milton and Vicar, which always look
'Dutch' to me.

Maybe you should try and look for similarity, instead of
differences.

Michiel Prior.

P.S.: Did you know that in Italy Pete's still called
Pegleg Pete, even though he has two normal legs? His
Italian name is Pietro Gambadilegno, which means Pete
Wooden-Leg. Don't you think that's just LOVELY? I do!