Keskustelujen arkisto

Greetings from Canada...

This summer I stopped in at Disney Stores in Edmonton and Calgary (operated
by the Walt Disney Company), and asked why they don't carry Disney Comics.
At both stores I was told that they receive a fair number of inquiries about
Disney Comics, but unfortunately none are being published in North America.
I told them that I had heard that they were again being published here, but
was told I had been misinformed.

The Walt Disney Company does a good job of keeping its staff informed....

Quoting "Sigvald Gr?sfjeld jr." <sigvald at duckburg.dk>:

> Hi all!
>
> This week a 16 page mini-booklet is attached to the weeklies in
> Scandinavia.
> This mini-booklet contains 3 stories in English:
>
> b) Was this a wise thing to do by Egmont? (Remember I have previously been
> told to avoid "colorful language" in DCML.)
>

Well... now there's a difference between the DCML and the weeklies/monthlies...
AND there's a difference between the language Donald uses and the language YOU
have been using... ("sufferin' catfish" and "dipshit" are two VERY different
words!) I feel that slang expressions in a comic adds colour and spice, and
makes the story more interesting... Isn't it silly that both Goofy and the
Beagle Boys talk exactly like Grandma and Rockerduck? They ARE from different
groups of the society, so using slang expressions/dialects is in my opinion a
good way to express that... Even though the Norwegian translators've never done
that. Well, except for one story, of course - "Lost in Andes"...

So, I think "colourful language" and slang in stories is a GOOD thing. But, to
answer your question: NO, I don't think this was a wise thing to do by Egmont.
For two reasons.

1) They are calling this an English course - but only a few of the words are
explained. Sure, "Busybodies" is printed in the magazine in Norwegian, so one
could easily just compare them... But hey! The Norwegian translator has not
translated everything word by word! The title "Busybodies" has
become "Neighbour is neighbour worst", "the planet Neptune" has become "the
Milky Way", "I'm a monkey's third cousin" has become "I'm a stool", in one
occation "atom bomb" has become "spy equipment" and "Mata Hari" has
become "woman person". Not to mention that the mountains of Bolivia are
translated into the mountains of the non-existing Hutaheiti. And this was just
a few examples... Can this booklet possibly be used to learn English? Only if
you know a lot already, and wants to learn slang a la Van Horn. But this
booklet will probably attract those interested in learning English with
Donald... which they can't.

2) Egmont is publishing stories in the original American... Personally I think
that is a good thing, but as a result of what I mentioned above: This is
eventually not good for them. Norwegian magazines have always had terrible
translations - their only advance was that we didn't know how lousy they were.
Now, they're SHOWING US. If not "Busibodies" will, I feel sure that many after
reading this will find their issue of "On Stolen Time" to figure out what was
the Norwegian equivalent of "sufferin' catfish", "have you popped your cork"
or "greenbacks" - and discover that there aren't any.

So basically, I think it's good to get to read this, but I think Egmont is
hurting themselves by doing it and that it also should not be marketed as
an "English course", but rather as a special pearl for those of us who wants to
read stories in the original language every now and then.

Two questions about this booklet...
1) Donald says "take a gander!" The translation says "throw a look at", with a
following paranthesis "(gander really means goose, and is the surname of both
Gladstone and Gus in English)"... I know Gladstone's name is Gander, but is
GUS' as well?

2) Donald says "Straighten out and fly right!" The translation says "Line from
well-known song!" Aw, please help me out here... WHICH ONE?

Olaf the Blue

>From: Olaf Solstrand <olaf at andebyonline.com>
>To: "Sigvald Gr?sfjeld jr." <sigvald at duckburg.dk>
>CC: dcml at stp.ling.uu.se
>Subject: Re: Slang in US Disney comics
>Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 09:08:24 +0200

>Two questions about this booklet...
>1) Donald says "take a gander!" The translation says "throw a look at",
>with a
>following paranthesis "(gander really means goose, and is the surname of
>both
>Gladstone and Gus in English)"... I know Gladstone's name is Gander, but is
>GUS' as well?

You mean Gus Goose? No "Gander" in his name.

Stefan

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Eta Beta wrote:

> I have a much worse feeling... this piece of info (including
> the confirmed ban), together with the news about a complete
> "restyling" of our poor rodent announced recently by some upper
> echelon at Disney, make me think that what we could read between
> the lines would rather sound like...
>
> "Guys, just forget about seeing Gottfredson's classic mouse
> reprinted in english language ever again..."
>
> Gary, am I being pessimistic or just plain realistic ?

This coincides with a recent topic on dcml-talk: How inportant is it for
a work of art to remain inside the cultural kanon? In other words: If
nobody can buy it, it will soon be forgotten.

More here: http://www.dcml-talk.org/read.php?f=1&i=164&t=160

Cord

With the amount of traffic on DCML, it's hard to keep up. But I tried anyway, and I read almost all messages until now...

Dani?l wrote:

> -- this email has been fully double-ckeched twice --

I guess this sentence is a direct invitation to nit-pick about typos and spelling mistakes. 8-)
(A very funny one, Dani?l! I assume it's a deliberate typo.)

Dane wrote:

> > Kelly did draw many covers for the Disney comics
>
> The ones I've seen are great, featuring cover gags almost as
> clever as thoughs of Barks'.
>
> Thoughts?

I had to read this 3 times before I understood what you meant, Dane! I had never seen the word "those" written as "thoughs" before! And it's only 1 letter away from "thoughts", but pronounced very differently...
(I don't mean to be rude to you or anyone; I just thought this was a very funny typo.)

And here are some more off-topic statements about the mails of the past week, just "for the record":

1. The spelling of the pseudonym Moebius is not Mo?bius.

2. Everyone can use Inducks whenever they like, but no-one is OBLIGED to use Inducks. Not even when mailing to DCML.

3. I think the words "respect", "friendly", and "serious" have been misused too much lately.

4. The number of occurrences of "David Gerstein", "Olaf Solstrand" and "Don Rosa" on the Web indicate how many webpages and messsages are not only ABOUT them, but also TO and FROM them.

5. I think the work of Mau Heymans and Daan Jippes should be discussed more on DCML.

6. Inducks is not "a great example of Scandinavian co-operation". It's a cooperation of many people, including Scandinavians.

7. Gemstone covers will get Inducks codes starting with XUC, unless Gemstone comes up with their own (printed) codes.

8. The French pin-ups in PICSOU MAGAZINE have never stopped: there's still one in every issue.

9. Two people have now used the term "self promotion" on DCML. I have no idea what it means, but to me it sounds much more negative than the writers must have intended.

10. "Harry Fluks" gives 3710 hits on Google. The combination of "Sigvald" and "wrong" gets 194 hits, "Sigvald" and "right" gets 471 hits. This proves nothing at all. 8-)

11. The term "Little Bad Wolf" (in Dutch "De Kleine Boze Wolf") has rarely been used in the Dutch Disney publications since the mid-80s. The logo on the stories became "De Grote Boze Wolf", and Li'l Wolf is just called "Wolfje" ("Little Wolf"). I guess the Dutch editors found the term also too confusing for the readers.
This, however, is no reason to advice a different publisher to change the character's name accordingly. That would be ridiculous.

12. I've never heard of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but the name sounds delicious.

--Harry.

>Not for now. It appears that the Disney comic book license no longer
>covers the reprinting of comic strips - that's now a license in itself.

Well...weren't many Gottfredson stories printed in early issues of WDCS? Could those versions be reprinted? I understand that it wouldn't be exactly the best way to print the stories, but it would be better than nothing.

rodney.

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Gary Leach:

> It appears that the Disney comic book license no longer
> covers the reprinting of comic strips - that's now a license
> in itself.

How do they know the difference between a comic strip and comic book work? What if you, for instance, want to reprint a Mickey story from an old WDC&S issue, without "knowing" that it originally was made for the newspapers?

--Harry.