Keskustelujen arkisto

MADS JENSEN, 16-12-2003:

> I read the timeline in "Carl Barks Conversations" by Donald Ault,
> and very surprised to read that Barks 2nd wife had also helped
> lettering and doing backgrounds on some of his comics. I think
> I've seen some lettering that looked different than both Gar?'s
> (the thin style) and Barks' (the more thicker style), and I've
> been wondering if that might have been Clara's style !?

Can you give clear examples of what you recognize as being lettering
by Carl, Clara, or Gar??

> How much did she actually help with regarding the comics ?

In the Barks interview by Donald and Lynda Ault, conducted on 13-14
June 1997, Barks mentions she started out doing his blacking, solid
blacks, and even inked the borders around the panels. She did that
for a while, before she became an alcoholic. (page 181)

It would be nice to discover that Clara did some lettering, too.
But the different lettering may also have been done by Barks's
editor. So, that's why I would like to know where exactly you've
found instances of that elusive, mysterious third letterer.

> Can someone give me more info on this ?

I'm curious, too!

--- Dani?l

"Yikes! How can anything that stuffs itself with HAY be so HARD?"
Which Barks story?
Hint #1: cowboys
Hint #2: Donald's nephews
(Finally a quote that no one seems to recognize!)

Daniel:
> (Finally a quote that no one seems to recognize!)

Oh, I recognize it. I just can't remember what story it is. :-)

DANIEL, JOHNATHAN

>I'm sorry for being so hot-headed, but I'm thinking of all the money I'm
>paying to get the same stuff over and over again.

Well, I thought Gemstone deserved a few months of adjusting
before making a comment myself on this, but it seems the
time has come...

And I agree with you guys, too, on more general terms than
"just" the Barks re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reprints...

And no, I'm not exaggerating, I really have up to TEN reprints
of some Barks' stories, and I bet I'm not the only one...

It is fair to say that a european point of view is probably
not very important in Gemstone's plans at the moment, of course
we've read most of what they're currently publishing YEARS
ago, here on the other side of the Pond (and, more often than not
in my case, didn't like them much the first time 'round...)

I willingly make exceptions for Don Rosa, whose stories in the
original language are worth the horrible (still from a european
point of view) price of the comics by themselves, and for Cesar
Ferioli and William Van Horn, whose stories are a bit mistreated
in their italian publications, unfortunately.

Another artist I like a lot is Noel Van Horn, and again we don't
get much of him here in the peninsula.

So, I DO appreciate a good part of what Gemstone does at the
moment, but I'm still hoping for a change rather sooner than
later...

I think the all-time classics of comics should be reprinted
regularly for the sake of the younger generations, there should
actually be a LAW which enforces that for publishers, and
government funds to back it, and Barks certainly belongs to the
category, but the ideal format for this kind of reprint should
be the album/book chronological collection, not the "regular"
comic.

I too advocate the reprint of the "lesser" classics, Murry, Wright,
Strobl, Bradbury, Taliaferro, and more Hubbard, please, seeing
Fethry on an american comic after all these years was such a
joy...

Gottfredson is out of the picture for the moment, as Gary explained
some time ago, for... bureaucratical reasons (sigh!), but that is,
again, album/book material, not for comics (imho, of course), also
because of the strip format.

And some european classics should find a place in there, I won't
mention again Scarpa (oops... just did... :-), but there's also
Bottaro, and Carpi, here in Italy, who wrote pages of history
in Disney comics... and I'm not referring to the "grey area"
of their Studio Program collaborations, the stories already
published by Gemstone of Scarpa, for instance, are not altogether
bad, but still not representative of the real greatness of the
author.

I think some of the british material from the '50s could be
very interesting to see again, too, that's stuff which was NEVER
reprinted anywhere, afaik, and some artists like Reynolds, Ward
and Neilson are very good.

But what I really hope for a not too far future is that Gemstone
would make their own production... the authors would be mostly
the same, of course, and quite a few of them are American anyway,
after all, but I'm sure the "atmosphere" of an american-produced
story would be somehow different from what the same authors would
do for a european publisher... dunno, maybe I'm not making sense,
but I have this feeling...

And this could boost the chances of having NEW american authors
in the future...

In the end, I still have mixed feelings about the current Gemstone
line, to which I subscribe in whole, that's 5 monthly titles plus
the specials... man, that's A LOT of money, again from a european
point of view, for appreciating about a half of every comic book,
and not reading the rest at all...

For the moment being I've only cut the digest DDA, it's about
one third of a "Topolino" at five times the price, and it really
doesn't make economical sense (must be admitted that a good half
of a "Topolino" is ads, though... and I don't buy that either :-)

But I'll keep the rest going for some more time, in hope and
trust to the Gemstone staff goodwill.

Cheers!

Eta Beta

All:

On the whole, I wouldn't argue with what's been said in the past couple
of digests about Gemstone's reprintings. (Except about going to e-Bay
- I don't remotely agree with that reasoning.) I know why we've done
some of these seeming repetitive repetitions, and wouldn't argue the
reasons, but we are very conscious of wanting to avoid overuse as much
as we can. In the past two weeks we've been setting up the contents of
the next several months of issues (starting with the ones shipping in
May '04), and I believe we've come up with some nice mixes that will
include some of the "lesser seen" Barks.

As to the print quality of some of the Barks we have reprinted, I would
like to see that improve, too. We're working on it?and not entirely
alone, either. If all goes well, this next year may well bring about
some significant developments concerning the entire Barks canon.

Eta:

Sorry you don't care for DDA. That's pretty much my show, and along
with lettering and color touch-ups, I spend a great deal of time
filling plot holes - as they come across in English, anyway - in many
of the original scripts. And the covers - boy, I wish I could claim I
color those!

Gary

Sorry,
This quite bit early, but just wishing everyone happy Christmas!

http://www.geocities.com/gearlost/xmastimes.html

- Simo

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HALVOR SANDVEN to OLAF SOLSTRAND, 18-12-2003:

> ['Christmas for Shacktown', OS 367] I didn't say that Scrooge didn't
> deserve to be punished. He really did, but later stories show that
> all his cash is intact, so it would be logical that he got his money
> back some other way than using the toy-train. Rosa's explanation of
> how this was done, works fine with me.

In an August 14, 1997 email to DCML, Rich Morrissey (Rich Morrissery?)
wrote an interesting explanation which I consider the best one I've
read so far. It's so terribly logical and simple, that I would *never*
have thought of it, myself:

"If you'll recall, the crust over the quicksand *was* solid enough to
keep all those tons of money from falling...it was just so delicately
balanced that sending buckets down, as the kids suggested, might have
broken it. Once the train had removed a ton or two, though, enough of
the weight would've been removed so $crooge *could* send buckets down
to recover the rest more quickly."

--- Dani?l

Howdy everyone,

I've received an early Christmas present of an old hard cover Donald Duck
book that I would like to learn more about. I've had a quick look through
COA but cannot find it there. It features the long beak style Donald with 4
buttons on his sailor suit. The title of the book is "The Donald Duck Book"
and inside the front cover it says published by Birn Brothers Ltd in England
via arrangement Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Ltd. No date given. Excluding the
rigid cardboard covers it is 47 pages and features mostly stories with
illustrations. There are a couple of comic strips as well. Characters
include most early Disney cartoon characters. The full colour cover art
features Donald holding a book with the title "Wisequacks by Donald Duck".
The first three stories are titled "The Beginning" (8 pages), "The Unlucky
Highwayman" (Looks like a Porky Pig type character), "Ode to Donald Duck by
Minnie Mouse" (a poem). Sorry for the lack of detailed info on the rest of
the book, I haven't even had time to read it myself yet.

If anyone has any info on this publication I would be very interested.
Unfortunately I will be away on holiday between now and Jan 19 so I will not
be able to answer any questions until then. Wishing everyone all the best
for the New Year.

Shaun Craill

(28 degrees C in Auckland and looking forward to a month on the beach in the
sun)