Keskustelujen arkisto

Excluding the genealogical trees.... who stated, in any story, that HDL are
the children of a sister of Donald?
thanks

Mickey

An interesting website:
www.homeforducks.com
Manfred Ahl exposes his collection here. With lots of scans of original Disney comics artwork (currently Bottaro), and some interesting photographs.
--Harry.

Michael Lavigne:

> thanks to the
> inducks database, one can find most if not nearly all
> credits for the Dutch stories as well. This is
> astonishing but true.

Let me also mention that the Dutch editors have never been secretive about the creators of their comics. Unlike Egmont (Gutenberghus) in the 1970s, who refused to reveal names.

Anyone who asks the Dutch editors about credits, gets an accurate answer.
In the 1980s, credits were printed in Dutch and German fanzines (Stechweij in Striprofiel, Spillmann in Der Donaldist).
In the 1990s, we Inducksers got access to all available information.

But to the question why they don't print credits in the comics themselves, I have no satisfying answer.

--Harry.

HARRY FLUKS to MICHAEL LAVIGNE, 11-06-2004:

> Anyone who asks the Dutch editors about credits, gets an accurate answer. [...]
> But to the question why they don't print credits in the comics themselves,
> I have no satisfying answer.

I think it's because credits devide the entirey and the believability of the
characters' "real" existance. In the Dutch comic, Donald Duck and the others
are as real as Sinterklaas (Dutch December tradition) and Santa Claus. That's
part of the atmosphere.

The main target (Dutch children) writes letters to Uncle Donald as an existant
character. Or to other Disney characters, but also as existant characters.

Only grown-ups would write letters to "the editor". Collectors and completists,
for example. But they're not the main target of the (Dutch) Disney comics.
So, that's why I'm thinking of the (retorical) question: Why ruin the warm
all-age escapist entertainment of a real existant Uncle Donald, in exchange
for some credits under each adventure, telling on which drawing-board the
particular character's adventure in fact was created, and when?

In my opinion, credits are suitable in Dutch book comic albums, which are
intended for the more interested kids and grown-ups. (Fans, for example.)
In the Dutch Duck albums, credits ARE given. It began with Carl Barks in
the "Beste Verhalen" series, which started in the mid-1970s. And now, more
recently, it happens with Daan Jippes, Bas en Mau Heymans, Sander Gulien,
Jan Kruse, Frank Fronker, etc.

I think it's nice already, that editors have become open about credits.
People who want to know more about them, can now go to internet archives,
where the information can be explored and listed.

Maybe it would be nice to mention an (Inducks?) internet URL in the Dutch
comics, which the average readers just can ignore, like all the other
editorial stuff at the bottom of the letters page.

Additionally, a shortlist of creators could be given, as part of all the
editorial information. This way, creators do get credited, but without
taking away attention with who did exactly what. That's where internet,
fanzines, and magazines are for.

These thoughts are only based on Dutch comics. I don't know the situation
in much other countries. I believe countries like Denmark and Sweden do give
credits, just a small line under the first page of each story, but still I
think it creates a distance between the main target (children) and the story
characters. But in the USA, with editors like Gladstone and Gemstone, the
Disney comics have become adult-oriented, and the letter page contains
complain about Don Rosa story this-or-that not being (re-)printed, or a
forgotten classic by Floyd Gottfredson. It works, but it's a whole different
approach than in The Netherlands.

In a Dutch comic it has never happened. On the letter page, readers ask
for stories with a certain character doing this-or-that, or at most a
story identified as "the one you once had with the square eggs". Artists
have never been mentioned, or only indirectly. (As far as I know.)

I like that approach. As a Disney comics reader, I want to believe in a
"real" Duckburg, existing in a unknown place somewhere on this planet.
No matter how much Duckburg changes in every other story.

Children don't really want to know why Santa Claus suddenly looks different
than last time. As long as Santa Claus acts like a good Santa Claus, he
really IS Santa Claus. That's the whole point of his existance.

When people look through it, it's just Uncle Ernie with a hired suit, giving
away a present payed with the group's yearly budget, the magic is gone. And
I think it would be the same with the Dutch Disney comics.

As a guess, I doubt the Dutch policy will change, because the Dutch editors
are insistent in being a traditionial family comic. This formula makes it
attactive for parents to give their kids the same experience as in their
own youth, anxious waiting at the door every week, for new adventures of
"their" great flawsy Uncle Donald Duck.

That's the feeling I still get when receiving the comic. But as a freak, I
already recognize a lot of creators at first sight, even without any credits.
That's a price I've paid for looking behind the curtains of the comic book
show. I've learned a lot by reading about backstage activities. But as a
result, Uncle Donald will never be the same for me. At such times I wish
I could just "switch off" the credits knowlegde I have of the different
creators of the stories.

But I have to carry it around with me, as some kind of comic book curse,
having eaten forbidden comic book fruit. :-)

--- Dani?l

"For goodness, sake! Who's that guy - the PIED PIPER?"
(Which Barks story?) :-)

hint #1: It's NOT the unfinished Gyro story 'The Pied Piper of Duckburg'.
hint #2: "Hold on, boys! I had no idea it was THAT tasty!"
hint #3: "Look at the mice go for that cheese!"
hint #4: "Into the toolbox with you, young fellow! You cause too much
MISCHIEF!"

Travis:

> One answer to your question would be to check out Mr. Rosa's "The Sharpie
of the Culebra Cut,"

Sorry, I should have specified... excluding Don Rosa! :D
In the first appeareance, HDL are children of a cousin of Donald. You know
better than me.
Then, everybody seems to have forgotten this fact! I wonder why...

Mickey

Frank:

>I guess Rosa is the only one.

I guess so!

>Barks stated that HDL are the children of a sister of Donald as well.

Only in his notes or in a story too?

> (I'm sure this must have been discussed here before.)

I'm sure too :) But how could I find the thread, so far? ^_^;;
bye

Mickey

> From: "Mickey" <mickey at iol.it>
> Subject: About the Caballeros
> I'd like to know from Don Rosa what the past, untold adventures
> of the Three
> Caballeros should be, since the movie is quite unsuitable with his
> conception of the Duck universe

The past, untold adventures of the Three Caballeros can be whatever I want
them to be or whatever you can imagine them to be. I'm actually puzzled by
why you think the 1945 film is unsuitable for me to fit into my stories --
it was not a "story" film, it was simply a (wonderful and inspired)
fantasy-travelogue. The characters were constantly doing impossible things,
talking or performing to the camera/audience, and otherwise existing and
acting in a totally imaginary environment. All that leaves are the
characters whose personalities and backgrounds I can interpolate from their
dialogue and actions in the film, and put into actual stories with plots and
logic, etc.
As I've said, there were decades of stories that already existed of Jose
Carioca which had always been unavailable to me, either because the very few
that ever appeared in America did so long before I was born and have never
been reprinted, or they have appeared in only Brazilian or Dutch comics
which I'd never seen. My research into these strips indicated that Jose was
depicted as a "lovable bum" who lived in a slum and was always involved in
plots to cheat people out of money, landing him in jail, and so forth. I'm
sure I would have loved that character if I'd grown up with it, but I
hadn't, and it was definitely not the sort of character I wanted to tell
stories of... which again lead me back to interpolating characters based on
the original film that I love so much.