Keskustelujen arkisto

From: andrea salimbeti (andrea.salimbeti at tin.it)
Subject: Re: DCML Digest Issue 32
>>>Next time I 'll try to be more precise I did't realize that in the
Disney comics fans universe could have been also people that can be
incense with rage so easily and for a such relaxation argument...

No, you wouldn't think so, but there's always a radical minority in any
group. And I didn't mean that such people are in this ML, but you have a
public website (a superb one, in fact!) and there's a few out there in your
potential audience who will seethe with resentment when you make certain
claims about their personal cherished heroes, so choosing your phraseology
carefully is always wise.

Don Rosa wrote to Andrea Salimbeti:

> >>> I did't realize that in the
> Disney comics fans universe could have been also people that can be
> incense with rage so easily and for a such relaxation argument...

> No, you wouldn't think so, but there's always a radical minority in any
> group. And I didn't mean that such people are in this ML

I am one of the people who are not pleased when people mix up the "Barks/Rosa universe" with the "Barks universe", and present facts from either of them as absolute truth. I wouldn't say that I would "incense with rage", though.

In any case, I'm not sure that I am radical, or part of a minority. But I *am* on this mailing list.

--Harry.

Harry Fluks -- TNO Telecom -- Delft -- Nederland
h.w.fluks at telecom.tno.nl -- http://dd50.inducks.org
"Wie ben ik? Wat doe ik hier? Waar is mijn Roddelflop?"

Don wrote:

[about D.U.C.K. on "Letter From Home"]
> It's always in the splash-panel, first panel of the story...
> meaning not on the prologue page. Keep looking...

Found it easily. And I also found it on the splash panel of the second part. 8-)

H> Don has the habit of drawing his text balloons over several panels.
H> Probably to get the effect like in the movies, where you still hear a
H> previous scene while already looking at the next scene, or
H> vice versa. But to me, it simply looks *ugly*. A page would look *so* much
H> better with all the panel borders being intact.

> I'm not sure why panel borders should be "intact" -- often I
> and all other
> cartoonists omit the borders on a panel or two on a page
> altogether...

Omitting borders is okay, esthetically. But crossing the borders with balloons looks ugly to me.

> I don't believe that artsy-fartsy page
> lay-outs serve any purpose other than to make a story use up more pages than
> needed... whee -- extra page fees for nothing! -- my only mission is to cram
> as much of everything onto each page and into each story as I can.

Too bad that that is your mission. I agree that I get a lot of contents on a page, but I'd rather have more pages with the same content, when the pages *look* better. And to me they look better when they are less "crammed".

BTW, with your popularity, getting "extra page fees for nothing" would not be a problem at all.

Anyway, I know I can't change your style of making comics. So I have to live with what I get. 8-)

--Harry.

Harry Fluks -- TNO Telecom -- Delft -- Nederland
h.w.fluks at telecom.tno.nl -- http://dd50.inducks.org
"Wie ben ik? Wat doe ik hier? Waar is mijn Roddelflop?"

DON ROSA, 31-03-2004:

> Now, correct yourself and make sure you mean to say that only in
> the "Don Rosa Universe with Donald and his Nephews/relatives takes
> place during 1950-53" (or thereabouts), or there are people you're
> going to incense with rage. I base my reality on my personal
> interpretation of Barks' works, but my reality is NOT intended to
> be an exact duplicate of Barks' nor is it the reality that will be
> seen in any other writer's Duckworks. (And I like it like that!
> I have my own lil' Universe.)

I don't understand why you need Barks's ingredients and legency, to
build your "own" li'l Universe. That's an impossible thing to do. It
will never be your Universe, because many of your stories are based
on the work of *someone else*. Barks, to be exactly.

And if you structurally re-use Barks's story elements to force them
into your own stories, then I don't find it surprising that a lot of
Barks fans feel hurt and are angry at you for "raping" Barks's Universe.
(Note the quotation.)

I think that such criticism is something to expect. And why not?

You're known to throw a tantrum when a translator misinterprets some
parts of your dialogue, or when a colourist doesn't follow your
instructions when colouring this-or-that historical boat, uniform or
building.

So, apparently, it is indeed possible to get very angry about ducks
and "Universes", on a public mailing list. But as long as people are
open for politely and patiently discussing their personal views, there
is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I *welcome* such discussions.

--- Dani?l

"Stop! You don't know what you're doing to yourself"
(Which Barks story?) :-)
Hint #1: These words are spoken by Donald.
Hint #2: Donald is talking to an animal.
Hint #3: Loss of hair.
Hint #4: Junior Woodchucks

> From: <H.W.Fluks at telecom.tno.nl>
> Subject: Philosopher's Stone
> In Rosa's "Letter From Home", the people who touch the stone
> don't turn into gold themselves. How come?

Because, as stated in Barks' story and in all legends of the P. Stone, it
only turns "base metals" to gold... but it was shown in Barks' story that
apparently extensive (greedy) handling of it would start to do strange
things to a person's body. The secret was to handle it sparingly or wear a
glove.
Speaking of which, that's where I do have an error in the story. In "A
Letter from Home", I show a Templar holding the Stone -- he's wearing a
metal gauntlet, but it does *not* turn to gold. I could blame the colorist,
but no, I never remembered to put that coloring note into my script. On the
other hand, I could blame Matilda since *she* is the one imagining the
scene. Actually, I more or less purposely forced her to make another error
in that same panel... the Stone could not have been in Solomon's basement.
It would have been an item that the Templars obtained elsewhere. But I
needed to mention all the pertinence treasures right at that moment, so I
had her erroneously place the Stone in Sol's cellar.
And another discrepancy... in Barks' story, the Stone was wandering the
world since about 1110, which would be 8 years before the Templars were even
formed, so if that was true, they could never have had the Stone as part of
their Treasury as the tales say. But then that fact came not from a
flashback but out of an ancient book in Barks' story, so rather than ignore
a Barksian Fact (which I do when I'm forced to), I can just consider that
ancient report to be in error.
As for the Stone being "yellow"... I just think it looks better as a
contrasting stone-color if it is turning other stuff *into* gold. So I
always instruct the colorists to make it gray.

> Too bad that that is your mission. I agree that I get a lot of
> contents on a page, but I'd rather have more pages with the same
> content, when the pages *look* better. And to me they look better
> when they are less "crammed".

My mission is to cram as much as I can on the pages I am *given* by the
editor. I don't decide on the page count. So I put an average of 10.5-11
panels on each page whereas other writers/artists use an average of 7. I
have 50% more stuff going on per page. If I could tell my 30 page stories in
45 pages, I wouldn't need to cross the borders with balloons, but that's not
how much space I am given, so look forward to more border-crossings

Dear Don Rosa and fans,
On a German Don Website, I noticed a news item today reporting that Don
Rosa will work on Chapter 11B of LofS after he finishes his current story.
The site is www.don-mcduck.de/index.php . Of course, this information is
what I can gather from my very faulty translation from German to English. I
just wanted to know if my translation is accurate and if so, what Chapter
11B will entail. If this is true at all, I'm very excited at the prospects.
Sincerely,
Anthony

>>>>>>>I don't understand why you need Barks's ingredients and legency, to
build your "own" li'l Universe. That's an impossible thing to do. It
will never be your Universe, because many of your stories are based
on the work of *someone else*.

A *perfect* example of what I mean, eh? Even when I tried to diffuse what
someone else wrote, tried to make sure nobody interpreted his wording to
imply that he or I claim that my view of this Duck Universe is anything
other than only MY personal view, even when I do that, someone complains
that I didn't even word that *precisely* to his particular liking. So......

>>>>>>I think that such criticism is something to expect. And why not?

As I have frequently told people, I *do* expect it. As a passionate Barks
fan, if I were looking at the undeserved popularity of my work, I think I'd
resent me, too.

>>>>You're known to throw a tantrum when a translator misinterprets some
parts of your dialogue, or when a colourist doesn't follow your
instructions when colouring this-or-that historical boat, uniform or
building.

"Throw a tantrum"? You are so charitable with your interpretations of
"objecting". And I will *always* object to errors made on one of my
stories -- no one else can, no one else knows when the error was made. I'm
supposed to say "thank you for that error"? I also lavish editors and
colorists and translators and letterers with praise when they have done a
good job. But have it your way, I "throw a tantrum". Uh-oh -- look! -- I'm
throwing one now by reacting at all.

From: Eta Beta (psersimmon at eega.net)
Subject: Re: Andrea si e' perso... :-)
>>>>I receive DCML messages in the digest "edition", and in recent issues
I can't quite understand what Don Rosa and Andrea Salimbeti are talking
about, since I've never seen Andrea's messages in any of the previous
issues... how's that ?

I finally noticed that myself! Hm. A Google newsgroup search alerts me when
my name appears on other newsgroups than this one, so as to get a broader
view of fans. And sometimes when doing that I'll see "advance" messages
(before they appear in a Digest) sent to the DCML and if I am asked a
question in such a message I will reply to it from there so that my reply
will efficiently appear in the same DCML Digest as the query. Andrea's
messages are appearing in the Google list, definitely sent to the DCML, but
perhaps some filter is blocking them from the Digest. I dunno. If he sends
anymore, I'll assume he'll want me to echo them onto the Digest for him...

I define here the notion of Masquerade by a universe where the appearances can be wrong with a fake construction of reality.
1) The dreams: a part of the plots which happen in Duckburg happens in the world of the dreams; the dreams stories exist in many italian ones but also in Carl Barks (in old California, Cave of Ali Baba, Back to long ago, in these stories the frontier between the dreams and reality is blurred).
2)Double identities: the double personalities play a substantial role in Duckburg (pi?ge pour le sou f?tiche d'oncle picsou mickey parade 1199bis, all the content of the mickey parade 1301 bis, see also Topolino, the gothic horror story The golden fleecing Carl Barks 1955); sometimes this double personality appears to be the work of Magica De Spell (for old dime's sake 1962, Magica is used to taking a lot of different personalities), sometimes the double comes from the magic powers of the witch Carabosse (Donald paladin de Picsou VI, mickey parade 951 bis, 1971); the double appears to be a substitute of the comics super-heros of the sixties (the character of super-duck). In a story of Carl Barks, some unknow strangers play the part of guardians of a lighthouse on a coast where a lot of Scrooge's boats crash; these guardians prove to be the Beagles Boys; sometimes this is the time dimension which is responsable of a splitted personality (paperino anno 2001 - Donald De Picsou en l'an 2001 - a story where Scrooge is both everywhere and nowhere, everywhere because his image goes through the entire story and people talk constantly about him, everywhere too through the Donald of the future as well as in the video screen of the beginning; nowhere because his real personality is materialized nowhere, so, the best representation that we can have of him in this story is the representation of a ghost, here and nowhere at once; for summarizing, paperino anno 2001 or the art of talking about Scrooge without Scrooge); other italian stories play with the double and the ambiguity of the personalities: l'antipaperone, in the excellent ludicrous story of the sixties Zio Paperone e il richiamo turistico this is the own secretary of Scrooge who plays the masquerade in order to fool Rockerduck (Flairsou) for selling him an unproductive Scrooge's hotel lost in the mountains and inhabited by no one.
3)The money bin: a real fortress? One thing which seems to be interesting about the money bin is that it seems to have accelerated the solitude and misanthropist side of Scrooge; in the Carl Barks' pre-money bin stories, we are still seeing a lot of people agitated around him: his numerous employees; following these stories, and later, in the italian stories, we are seeing Scrooge rather alone in his fortress; in the sixties italian stories, we often see him with just a secretary and a majordomo (this consideration is a generality, the contrary is proved by a fifties Scarpa's story Picsou et le sage de Ulah Ulah, mickey parade 30, where the money bin contains an army of accountants); however, the money bin isn't the impregnable place which is supposed to be; in some stories this is almost an open place where people -strangers- go and come; a lot of villains succeed in reaching Scrooge easily, and sometimes thanks to the help of brillant disguises (Magica De Spell, the beagles boys in many stories); an another analogy in the game of the masquerade: there is an important number of stories where the things don't work quite well for the characters or are simply illusion: onc picsou au pays d'Alkali, repetitive failures in the Gyro's inventions, quests for some money or treasures which end badly and without success (the surprisingly bitter end of The Seven Cities of Cibola Carl barks 1954).