Keskustelujen arkisto

Gerd, Timo and others:

>According to what I have gathered from various sources, it was indeed Al
>Taliaferro who first came up with the idea of giving Donald three
>nephews (possibly inspired by the Three Little Wolves story which
>Taliaferro drew for the Silly Symphony strip). I do not know if
>Taliaferro and/or Osborne had already worked out this idea to a more
>complex story concept. However, it seems that the character design was
>done entirely at the animation department; also, the names Huey, Dewey
>and Louie were not Taliaferro's idea.

I've got WDC&S 523, with an extended article about Al Taliaferro.
Among other things, it confirms all of your facts:
* Taliaferro "suggested that the [Disney] Studio create three
nephews for Donald and feature them in a short. The idea was accepted, and
in February 1937, the story department sent Taliaferro a memo congratulating
him on inventing Huey, Dewey, and Louie."
* Mrs. Lucy Warrick, Taliaferro's widow, explains that Mickey's
nephews and the Big Bad Wolf's original three sons served as her husband's
inspirations.

Reading between the lines here: Taliaferro simply suggested that
nephews be created, without going into any more specifics than we can be
sure of. The cartoon story crew then created the names (and models?) of HDL,
which Osborne and Taliaferro used.
This explanation would make story man Joe Sabo not the guy who came
up with the idea for the nephews full stop, but the guy who simply shared
Taliaferro's February 1937 suggestion with the rest of the story crew.
Sounds sensible to me.

David

Detlef or Friedolin wrote:

> There still *IS* a complete reprint of all Mickey
> Mouse daily strips 1930-1955 published, produced 20 years
> ago, in a small edition of 300. Unabridged, starting January
> 13, 1930, with the very first daily strip story "Mickey Mouse
> lost on a Desert".

Some months ago, Poul Fr?kj?r sent me the following text.
It's a summary of the information that he collected on DCML and elsewhere.
His comment: "I think it is a fascinating story of all clasical ingredients in a good drama: hope, love, greed, betray, etc... Read for yourself."

Here it comes.
--Harry.

The story of the various editions of:

"The complete Daily Strip Adventures of Mickey Mouse. 1930 - 1955".

-Information collected and edited by Poul Frokjar.

Among Disney fans it is still today widely unknown that a collection of the MM daily strips from 1930 to 1955 exists. It does indeed and moreover in various editions. Even among those that knew such collections existed, there has been much confusion as to who printed what and when it was done. Also which of these collections were actually finished.

In an attempt to throw some light on this subject, questions were asked through the Disney Comics Mailing List in late 1999. Many people contributed with very valuable information. But information has also been collected via private correspondence with both Thomas Andrae and Horst Schr?der (both heavily involved in the MM projects). The information these people has supplied has especially been invaluable, and it is in particular thanks to them that enough information has now been collected to justify making a page on this subject.

1st edition, 20 hard bound copies

In the mid-1970s Thomas Andrae came up with the idea for reprinting all the Gottfredson adventures. He starts a project collecting the strips for reproduction. The project is a non-profit business, only involving an inner circle of a few die-hard fans of the Gottfredson mouse. Disney is not contacted for proofs, mainly because the cost of these would probably have killed the project instantly. Moreover Disney's own proofs from the earliest years are done from microfilms and quality is often worse than original printed newspaper strips.

Andrae himself remembers that he collected all the strips and then took contact to Bruce Hamilton about finding some way to have the strips reproduced. Hamilton should then have put Andrae in contact with Byron Ericson. A small deviation from this is that Horst Schr?der, who supplies proofs for the years 1946 - 55, remembers that he was contacted by Byron Ericson - not Thomas Andrae.

According to Andrae proof copies of a few stories (like "The Whaling Story") were acquired from Mickey Mouse artist Bill Wright. However, most of the material from the years of 1930 to 1945 were done from original newspaper strips coming from a collection that Andrae himself had just acquired at the time. Some of the earliest strips from 1930 were supplied by San Francisco Academy of comic Art. A published Mickey fan card from 1931, also came from Thomas Andrae's collection.

Horst Schr?der is contacted because he is rumored to have a connection to a Swiss collector who has proofs of the years 1946 - 1955. Schr?der arranges with the collector to loan the proofs for the reproduction. The quality of the proofs is very good for the years 1947 - 55, but paper quality for 1946 - 47 is less good (probably due to limited quantities of high quality paper during the war/post war years). Still, all the proofs for these years are used as masters.

As a guarantee for return Schr?der and the collector makes a deal that if the proofs are not returned within a settled time frame, Schr?der is to buy the proofs for an amount of (approx.) $2,000; this regardless of who has the proofs at that time.

But the process of having the books printed takes longer than expected. Whether the delay is at the printers or in delivery from Byron Ericson is not known. But eventually the Swiss collector demands that Schr?der pays him the $2,000 as they agreed. It ends up that Schr?der pays the amount and later, when the books have been printed and the proofs are returned to Schr?der, he also become the new owner of these proofs.

The layout of the books are 3 strips per page and page size is A4 (horizontal). All in all 20, numbered, but not (originally) signed, hard bound sets of 26 books are printed (one for each year of dailies). In addition to these at least one extra non-bound set seem to have been printed. This set, together with two full bound sets for Schr?der (#6) and the Swiss collector is mailed to Schr?der as part of the original deal. According to Schr?der the unbound set (most likely not numbered) is a sort of compensation from Byron Ericson for the delay on the return of the 1945 - 55 proofs. To regain some of the money paid for the proofs, Schr?der sells this unbound set to a German collector, who should then do his own binding.

At this stage, with 20 (21?) sets printed, the case seems closed. None of the primary involved people have any serious plans of further print runs of this collection. The sets were only thought done for a few die-hard fans of the Gottfredson Mouse, and these fans were not that many in the late 70's.
The "Leipzig books"

Still, not long after the Hard Cover books were done, a project reprinting the dailies in a non-official edition is started up. This time bound in soft cover books, brownish, with the simple cover title "Mickey Mouse", a Mickey drawing and the years for which the content matched. The title page was a little more informative as it printed the title as: "The Complete Daily Strip Adventures of Mickey Mouse 1930 - 1955. Also year and volume was mentioned for the individual years. Contents were 3 strips per page. On the back of the book it said:

Verein Kultur der V?lker Leipzig
Printed and manufactured in the German Democratic Republic
Print run limited to not over 300 copies

This is a pure boot-leg edition, and not approved by Disney in any way. The main difference between this and the original 20 set edition is that the "Leipzig" books are made to be resold -to earn money!. But the printer don't need a permission as this edition is done in the Eastern Germany where anything that (at the time) could annoy the capitalistic US would be just fine.
It is not known for sure but it is possible that the extra unbound set that Schr?der sells is used as the master for this edition. The edition, however, is never completed, but at least 12 years of the total of 26 are done. These are: 1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1952.

The year 1937 contains duplicate prints of the strips 2-15, 2-16, and 2-17, and the strips 2-18, 2-19, 2-20 are missing.

Why the "Leipzig" books are being scattered over the period is not known. Schr?der has no involvement in the startup and printing of these books, but he later become the projects terminator. But that story, together with the story of the "Mickey Mouse portfolio" (MMPF) from the company "Comic Book Club, Germany" (CBCL), actually begins with "the Carl Barks Portfolio" (CBPF).

The Carl Barks Portfolio

A few years after the original 20 sets of MM 1930-55 were done, Horst Schr?der get in touch with Peter Orban, owner of "Comic Book Club, Germany" (CBCL). And suddenly he finds himself the new owner of "Comic Book Club, Germany".

Horst Schr?der explains: By sheer happenstance I later bought the CBCL from Peter Orban...... In the 70-ies Orban had been a well known success story in Comicdom, both as a dealer who got into the business at ground level, and as a fan-editor......Of course, I got flim-flammed. Orban falsely claimed that the CBCL had been a large success with 300 or more active subscribers, and I, being eager to make some money myself, did not check up at all, but just trusted Orban's rep. I forked over a hideous bundle of money (I seem to recall 30,000 DM? [$15,000], probably less, but still a hideous amount) for 17 active subscribers, and a small warehouse of unsaleable back issues 1-39 of the Carl Barks Portfolio.

Moreover some of the prints were done directly from comics -not from proofs. This inspite proofs of almost all Barks' stories were available from Disney. Orban might well have been aware of the tenuous viability of his license, because he never did alert Burbank by asking for proofs.

Trying to make the best of things, Schr?der manages to build up the subscriber number to something over 100 for the Carl Barks portfolio. But at that time (beginning of the 1980?s) rumours started to circulate that what was later to be known as the Carl Barks Library in b/w, was in the planning. This in better quality and at a much cheaper price than Schr?der could sell his portfolios for.

Eventually this Barks project that was planned to cover 106 portfolios, is stopped at #96 -just 10 issues short of completion. Moreover Schr?der had planned to reprint the poorest pages Peter Orban did. This also had to be abandoned. More on the reason for that in the following.

The MM Daily Strip Adventures. 1930 - 55. Comic Book Club Germany edition.

When Schr?der buys CBCL he does not realize that besides the permission to print the Barks portfolios, he also acquires a right to do a limited print run of 500 sets of portfolios with Gottfredsons Mouse. Both licenses Peter Orban had obtained through the German Disney Company at Frankfurt, and the head of this company at the time, Horst Koblischeck.

Because sales of the CBPF are likely to drop heavily with the startup of Another Rainbows Barks Library, Schr?der decides it is time to activate the sleeping license to print the MMPF. But as he does not want any competition on this slim marked, he takes contact to the printers of the "Leipzig" edition.

The printers of the Leipzig edition could (of course) not advertise their books in western countries, so sales had been very low. For a reasonable price they are happy to give up their project and pass over the remaining stock of the printed books to Schr?der. Schr?der also takes over the subscribers -all 23 of them!

A minor problem for Schr?der with the "Leipzig" edition is that it is done as (soft) bound books, where Schr?der in reality only has a license to do portfolios. Still, he uses the unsold stock as his basis for the print run of 500 copies. Depending on how many books there are for the various years in the stock he buys, he tops up the number to 500 with portfolios. This is not done immediately, but over the years as the project runs.

As Schr?der is now the owner of the proofs 1946 - 55, he uses these as masters for these years. About the remaining years they have mainly been printed from his bound set. Still, in connection with editing the German books "I Goofy" in the mid-70's (also editions in many other countries), he had received some proofs from Disney, Burbank. Today Schr?der does not remember whether some of these found their way into the MMPF or not.

The Portfolio sleeves for the CBCL edition are red/orange. Contents are double sided prints with 3 strips per page. The layout of the cover and title page is the same as the Leipzig books had. On the back of the portfolios it says:

COMIC BUCH CLUB GERMANY
SAMMLER AUSGABE LIMITIERT AUF 500 EXEMPLARE

It is here worth noting that despite the "Comic Book Club Germany" was originally started up by Peter Orban, his involvement in the MM dailies is limited to negotiating an agreement with the German branch of Disney. All printing etc. has been done by Horst Schr?der.

Schr?der recognizes that the success of the sales of his MM set is hinged upon the American market. This because the American market, in contrast to the European in general at the time, did have a ready made nostalgia audience.

But it soon became clear that Disney, Burbank were far from happy with their property being handled by a fan non-entity like CBCL.

Schr?der explains: The response to MM was very good, esp. in the USA. However, this proved to be my undoing. An ad in Comics Journal or Buyer's Guide came to Disney Burbank's attention, and they came down upon me like a ton of bricks.

What Schr?der had failed to note at first -or ignored the importance of- was the fact that Disney in Burbank, California, had not counter signed the license agreement between CBCL (Peter Orban) and the German Disney Company (Horst Koblischeck).

Despite not being happy, Disney acknowledged the CBCL's license. However - only for the time Disney believed would be needed to finish the CBPF. That meant a time period of approximately 12 -18 months. Also, Disney forbade all further advertising in the USA.

That meant that the planned time frame for finishing the two projects had to be severely shortened. Schr?der obtained a good price with the printer, if the remaining portfolios were prepaid. The agreed price of approx. 180,000 DM (about $90.000) covers all the remaining issues of CBPF up to 106, reprints of Orban's worst CBPF pages, plus some extras - censored pages, unpublished, Woodchucks; remaining MMPF sets, MM Sundays and Silly Symphonies). Schr?der pays but before he receives anything the printer goes bankrupt -with Schr?ders money.

Despite this major loss, Schr?der manages to finish the MM dailies, including the additional approx. 200 portfolio-reprints of the Leipzig edition. This means that according to Schr?der 500 sets were done of his edition. The remaining 10 CBPF, MM Sundays and Sillies could not be printed. The latter because an Italian, who were to supply masters for these pages never did send any reproducible copies.
The Portfolios were not numbered from the start, but when sold the subscribers number was filled in. But at least a few of the "Leipzig" books were numbered from the beginning, which means that two different numbers are stated in these.

It is estimated that probably only around 50 full sets of the CBCL edition was sold. Some sets were portfolios through all the 26 years; some with "Leipzig" books for some years. Some sets were not finished as subscribers quit during the run. Of the remaining sets some were water damaged (destroyed) when the L'il ol' Lady in the flat above the storage forgot to turn of the water when leaving for her vacation...

On his involvement in the MM and CB portfolios Schr?der says:
I had lost - all in all - approximately 200-230,000 DM (mid eighties value!) on this misbegotten venture, as well as quite a bit of rep with those collectors who correctly felt they got burned..... I always felt Burbank should at least have granted me the 6 months needed to print those 10 issues [of CBPF]. Of course, being the editor, the contractual responsibility for the failure is mine. But ethically, Burbank is responsible. An additional 6 months would have been no big deal, and been a nice gesture towards those 150-200 collectors who had invested into a Disney licensed collectors' edition, and who now were left with in the lurch.

This was a fairly brief summary of the story of these interesting Mickey Mouse collections. No doubt more relevant information could be added, but what is presented here should sum up the key facts about the collections and their origin.
Ironically these milestone editions are a piece of Disney history, that Disney themselves would probably rather had been without! Personally, I am very happy that Disney did not get their will in this case...

-Poul Frokjar

Dani?l asked:

> H 97246 Donald Duck: De schat van Zapp / Het geheimzinnige
> schip (23 p.)
> http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/H+97246
>
> Is "De schat van Zapp" the working title, or something like that?

Yes, it's the title that the writer originally gave the story (in other H-code cases, it's an editor's description, when the writer didn't give the story a title).

--Harry.

Hi everyone!

This MM strips conversation is very interesting-- and Harry's forwarded
message from Poul Fr?kj?r looks most interesting: thanks! I'll read it
later, even print it.

Cord:
>>>> You can buy it for $ 900. each of the 26 volumes (1930-1955) has around
>>>> 100 pages. each page has three strips with 5 panels each. So you get
>>>> 2.600 pages at a page rate of 35 cent / page.

A bit more taking into account Rich's remark on shipping (of the safest
kind!)-- 50 cents?
Now, you could probably go to the library, go through hundreds of
newspapers, selecting the best available reprint (no creases, whiter paper,
larger image, ...) and photocopy them, then edit the whole thing & bind it.
I don't know how much it is around the US, but I know for sure photocopies
were 20 cents a page at the Library of Congress in January 2003 (10 cents
in August 2000; it went up in 2001 I believe).
I'm not sure that would be much cheaper. It would be fun (at the beginning,
that is), but it would be a heck of a lot of work! Hours and days and
weeks and months!

>>>> I am thinking about buying all existing copies and dropping all but one
>>>> into the Atlantic Ocean. My copy will be valuable beyond measure *g*

In won't sell mine. So yours will be "only" half what it could be.
Nyaaaaaaaaah :D

>>>>I believe that old masterpieces like the Gottfredson MMs, like Krazy
Kat, like
>>>>Prince Valiant, like Popeye should be public domain. This is the
>>>>only way to ensure their survival, especially if the old copyright
>>>>holders deny reprints. They belong to our common cultural heritage
>>>just like the works of Homer and Dickens.

Good point. Legally, though, the problem would be the definition of
"masterpiece" and "part of the cultural heritage".

>>>>When will I be allowed to scan my edition of Gottfredson's complete MM
>>>>works (which I bought, even though I couldn't afford it) and share it
>>>>with everbody for free on the internet?

It was very expensive for me as well. A splendid present I made myself for
passing the (highly) competitive exams to become a teacher.

Alecto:
>>>>Thanks for that info, do you happen to know how many panels there are in
that
>>>>story (my copy is missing the back page).

Panels? Sorry, but I have no idea dn honestly don't feel like counting them.
The "back page"? Would that be the "last page"?
Here is a short description of the last three days--
Dec 24: saving Minnie
Dec 25: netting the bad guys
Dec 26: party
Then it's a series of gag-a-day strips running till January 17; on Dec 27,
Mickey wants to surprise Minnie.
I can't scan anything right now, I'm re-installing everything after
reformatting due to a mysterious incident-- the e-mail was the only thing
working; other than that, I was connected to electronic nothingess.

Best wishes,

Olivier

In my collection, I have unbound copies of the 1948 and 1949 volumes of the Gottfredson strips. I've had them for about a year. Always meant to bind them and never got around to it.

rodney.

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Thanks for sharing the Poul Frøkjær message. It was extremely interesting though
made me sad to realize I was only 20 years too late to have been recognized as one
of those "die-hard" Gottfredson fans. I would have so loved to have been among
those to receive one of the full editions. *sigh*

Thanks,

Rich Bellacera
(Email removed)

---- Msg sent via CWNet - http://cwnet.com/

H.W.Fluks at telecom.tno.nl wrote:

> His comment: "I think it is a fascinating story of all clasical
> ingredients in a good drama: hope, love, greed, betray, etc... Read
> for yourself."

How interesting! I've printed it out and inserted it in the relative section
of my copy of the Gori/Stajano Gottfredson book!

--
Francesco
http://www.dimensionedelta.net/scarpa/
"Vi faccio vedere *io* chi sono *io*!! *Io* vi compro la fabbrica e
*tutto*!!"
~ Scrooge, from I TL 174-A