Keskustelujen arkisto

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Topic: 200704

(78 messages)
D.M. Van Eijmeren
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:29:43 +0200
From: "Fluks, H.W. \(Harry\)" harry.fluks at tno.nl

Arthur:
> the Dutch magazine Katrien [..]
> from 2006 the publisher suddenly started reprinting
> old issues. I think that this is fine, but they
> should be honest about this and print it on the cover. Isn't
> this wrong?

Harry:
> The editor's answer to this is that people who complain about this,
> always get their money back.

Then the customers first need to complain. How many people do this? And how
many people KNOW they can complain?

Anyhow, it shows a brutality that seems to be in fashion at the Dutch
editors in recent years.
What I find remarkable is that the Dutch editors just don't seem to care
about their customers. At McDuck I've seen some disturbing comments by them,
in which they use rough language to (for example) kids requesting
information. In one of them main editor Thom Roep used the words
"kankerpittten" (cancercores) and "kut met peren" (translate this yourself).
The latter comment was censored by the kid showing the comments on McDuck.
("k*t met peren")
I've had lots of respect for these editors, but it seems to me they are
terribly out of touch. It seems to me that since people like Daan Jippes and
Ed van Schuylenburg left as editors, Thom Roep is now showing off his lack
of innovation, care and artistic creativity.
In retroperspective I wonder how it's possible that a main editor of a
(still) very popular Dutch comic book, has never been bought away by another
company, or never promoted to an adults magazine. How is it possible that
Thom Roep is on the same place for more than thirty years? After reading his
rough comments I'm wondering why he is still working for the Dutch weekly at
all. Apart from some rough words, Roep just doesn't seem to care about
either his production or his readers. Maybe Roep is a bit tired, lazy and
longing for retirement?

My prediction is that the Dutch editors would soon stop their Dutch
production. I guess Thom Roep waits for his retirement. When Roep retires,
I expect them to close down. The quality of their production is imploding.
It looks to me as if they're squeezing the money out of their production,
just before they'll get taken over by Sanoma editors completely.

I've understood that the Dutch production is important because of seasonal
"Sinterklaas"-stories (Dutch Santa Claus stories), but I don't think they
keep on a production facility just for that. I've heard their total of total
pages is 1000 a year. (And that Egmont has 5000 a year.) I just don't
believe the Dutch editors will keep producing 1000 pages for an occasional
10-20 pages about Sinterklaas. Certainly not from a moneymaker's point of
view. (Imagine Scrooge McDuck doing that!)

To me it seems like an ordinary matter of stocks. John Cleese made a movie
about such matters, titled 'Fierce creatures'. Difference is that Cleese (in
the movie) is at least a bit creative. In The Netherlands they just seem to
close down whatever is too expensive or not popular enough.
The text-stories have almost entirely been scrapped from the weekly for
being unpopular. Kids don't read anymore, seems to be a reason. But then,
how come thick Harry Potter books are selling like peanuts all over the
world, for years already? Don't the kids read anymore? Or do kids rather
read books that are made by people still aiming at them, taking them
serious? Harry Potter books are so thick, that it's an offense to just state
that kids don't read anymore. I'd say that kids read more than ever.

I guess Disney comics are just at the end of the line. It's at the end of
its life cycle. In the USA, the Disney comics are not aiming at kids but at
collectors. And even then they use reprints to reduce costs.
Could it be that Disney comics are getting less popular because of bad
marketing and bad production? Why blame the audience for being ignorant in
buying books and comics? Could it be that the editors are missing the point
of selling an attractive product? If thick Harry Potters are popular
nowadays, then why not a comic?

Anyhow, I predict the production for the Dutch weekly to quit within
5 years.
(When will Thom Roep retire?)

Dani?l
Wouter Van De Zandschulp
>The editor's answer to this is that people who complain about this,
>always get their money back.

That's a strange way to do your business. The man behind the Dutch Donald
Duck weekly seems to think there is enough variety, but we only see Vicar,
Murray mouse stories, Stobl and ComicUp work. Often a bit 'tame' stories,
which are perfectly capable of getting boring. Makes you a bit less
interested in a new weekly every week. It's getting kind of sad this way.

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Leo Schulte
Greetings!

As I wrote earlier, you have to be careful of reductionism: television and video machines of all kinds are one cause, but not the only cause, of the decline of comic books.

Reading in general is down: I have read statistics showing that all book buying in America is done by 5% of the population. Remember that here, if a book sells a million copies, it is therefore read by less than 1% of the population.

Videoization is one factor, but others are: longer working hours, longer driving times (especially in larger cities), the spread of Attention Deficit Syndrome (possibly connected to environmental factors), the lack of a reading example set by parents and families (i.e. if the child never sees parents reading, how will he/she develop the habit? Reading will seem unimportant, despite the lip-service), and the publishing of so much junk (which people are better off not reading anyway!) possibly preventing good to great authors never finding an audience.

How many companies today would publish Leo Tolstoy or Thomas Mann or Marcel Pagnol? An experiment was done some years ago in fact, where somebody typed a copy of a famous novel, and it was not only rejected by all major companies, few of the companies even recognized it as a hoax!!!

To be sure: some European countries were somewhat behind America in "videoization". I remember trying to watch German and Swiss television in the 1970's and 1980's and found it fairly awful. (Not all TV shows are dreadful, just most of them!) Now of course things are parallel with satellite TV and cable.

Whatever the cause for the decline, I am happy that the Finns at least keep Don Rosa's bank account healthy! Perhaps he will still write a few more stories at least for them!

=
Search for products and services at:
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JOHN CHADWICK
I love this! I just learned about this on Jeopardy this morning, but apparently Forbes has been doing this for years, so I apologize if it's already been covered.
The Forbes Fictional 15 is an annual listing of the 15 wealthiest fictional characters, and a certain duck came in at number three in the most recent list, although with three cubic acres of cash, I don't see how he could possibly be behind Warbucks and Burns.
JOHN CHADWICK
Here's a link to the most recent list, if anyone's interested in seeing who else made the cut. If you poke around you can find previous years' listings as well.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/20/forbes-fictional-richest-tech-media_cx_mn_de_06fict15_intro.html

They list Scrooge's age as 80, wonder how the came by that figure.
Olivier (M&D)
John:

>>>> They list Scrooge's age as 80, wonder how the came by that figure.

Using Don Rosa's timeline, which he made by trying to arrange Scrooge's reminiscences throughout Barks' stories into a coherent and plausible whole which could work, Scrooge was born in 1867 and died in 1967, when Barks retired.
This makes him 30 when he strikes it rich in the Klondike, and 80 in December 1947; by then, he has become "The Richest Duck in the World".

(It so happens I completed my Life & Times chronology this afternoon)

Olivier
Wouter Van De Zandschulp
>But the real reason for the decline is sales was the decline in QUALITY --
>in both story and especially art!

Exactly. Give us something good and we will read.

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Vidar Svendsen
I'm going to Vienne soon - any good comics shops there?

---------------------------------------------------
Vidar Svendsen http://vidarland.com

And he said all those numbers made him numb,
which (he thinks) is why they're called numbers
Timo Ronkainen
Hello

I hope this helps:
http://the-master-list.com/International/Austria_Germany_&_Switzerland/index.shtml
and don't forget this:
http://www.karikaturmuseum.at/programm/vorschau/carl-barks
Krems is quite near of Vienna, I believe.

Timo

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vidar Svendsen" <vidar-svendsen at c2i.net>
To: "dcml" <dcml at nafsk.se>
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2007 1:16 PM
Subject: Comics shops in Vienna

> I'm going to Vienne soon - any good comics shops there?
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Vidar Svendsen http://vidarland.com
>
>
>
> And he said all those numbers made him numb,
> which (he thinks) is why they're called numbers
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://nafsk.se/mailman/listinfo/dcml
>
Chuck Munson
Hi DCMLers,

I hope that you all will forgive this large off-topic
post, but I'm guessing that I might be the only
Virginia Tech graduate on the list and, since we all
are connected to this world by more than a love of
Disney comics, I'm guessing that a large number of our
"outside-the-US" membership may be wondering about
this tragedy that seems to reoccur here with
frightening frequency in one form or another.
Obviously, this all hit a bit too close to home and
has occupied many of my thoughts over the past two
days.

I don't pretend to have any answers as to why this
troubled young man chose to end his own and so many
other lives so senselessly. I also don't pretend that
I can reconcile the debates around a) our 2nd
Amendment to the US constitution which absolutely may
or may not grant anyone in this country the "right to
keep and bear arms", b) the statistics that I have
read that up to 30,000 in the US die in incidents
involving firearms, and c) that what laws limiting gun
purchases here really don't seem to keep any criminals
from getting guns or anyone on the edge of sanity who
has never previously broken the law.

I can tell you that among Tech students, faculty, and
alumni there is general shock that this could happen
at our university. A hopelessly naive thought
perhaps, but for a university with a fairly good
reputation for research, academics, and sports, set in
a pretty southwestern Virginia mountain town where the
students outnumber the townsfolk 2-to-1, this type of
event is just not something we could easily imagine.
However, I am not naive enough to think that the
parents of the elementary school children in Beslan,
or the school in Scotland, or Columbine, or another
school in California, or any other school shooting
would expect it any more than the parents of the Tech
students who died. The disturbed young man who did
this lived only ten miles away from me and graduated
from the high school right next door to the recreation
center where my daughter Kathryn took swimming
lessons. Kathryn will start kindergarten in
September. Sending your child to school is not
supposed to be something that will have you worrying
about their safety.

I have very fond memories of my years at Tech; it
disturbs and saddens me to know that now my university
will be known by so many simply as the site of a
terrible tragedy. Yes, I have connections many years
removed to the sites. While studying Architecture, I
had engineering classes in Norris Hall where most of
the victims were. The architecture building is less
than 100 yards away, so I walked by Norris almost
every day over five years. I was always pleased that
I was in one of the smaller dorms on Upper Quad, close
to the architecture building, rather than the much
larger dorms like West AJ which I considered to be
rather dehumanizing and was told were places where it
was more difficult to bond with your neighbors.
However, I knew plenty of friends who lived there. But
Tech is so much more than this tragic event.

There is so much irony in the reading the portraits of
the victims in as much as many appear to have
represented what is best about the US. One professor
was a Holocaust survivor who stood in the doorway to
his class to give his students a chance to escape; a
few of the students were International Studies majors,
something that some would say the US so desperately
needs in these times; two of the victims graduated
from the same high school as the shooter.

The good news is that we Hokies (the nickname for
Virginia Tech students and alumni) are a pretty
positive group. Tech doesn't have a monopoly on great
faculty and students, but I expect to see a lot of
support and effort to recognize and actively pursue
the traits that trigger these decisions in mentally
disturbed individuals. Also, if you care to show
support for my alma mater, I read that the Student
Association and the Alumni Association are asking
people to wear the school colors, orange and maroon,
on Friday.

Thank you for your indulgence. I wanted our friends
overseas to know that neither Tech nor this incident
should be reduced to cliches.

Take care everyone,
Chuck Munson
Herndon, Virginia

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Nils
Dear Chuck Munson,

thanks for writing about this in such a direct and
heart-felt way. I do agree that our DCML forum
occasionally should allow itself (but briefly) touching
topics outside Duckburg, like on this sad occasion.
There is a sense of shock and grief in Academia
generally, a surely too naive thought that "one thing
is a deranged maniac at some strange high school
in Nowhere, but a real student at a real high-quality
university...". Among Europeans I think a common
reaction is also "how can the President (and other
leaders) respond to this by only praying for dead
students, with not a word touching _why and how_
they died".

With apologies for turning from something so Deadly
Serious as the Virginia Tech to something completely
innocent (?), in an effort to turn on-topic again, let
me ask, out of DCML-curiosity:

In which (and how many) Barks and Rosa stories
do we see our Ducks with real guns (hand-guns,
pistols, revolvers, rifles) in their hands? Duckburg
is (or has been) in several ways a reflection of
main-stream USA, so there would be quite a few
Duckburg citizens with guns in their houses. We
do see various crooks and bandits and weirdos
brandishing their guns (but rarely the Beagle Boys,
who prefer other tools and plans, most of the
time -- apart from that time in the car). But our
Ducks themselves? A very partial list on incidents
would be

** DD as Sheriff of Bullet Valley (FC 199) -- but then
Donald is of course very legally entitled to wearing
his gun and to shoot it out with Svartgorm McPisk
(his Norwegian name).

** WDC 89, Donald's safe (Oso) -- not with the
gun aimed at a person, though.

** US 57, the Swamp of No Return -- how did Scrooge
get the handgun he used to save the world on the
last two pages?

Nils Lid Hjort

> Hi DCMLers,
>
> I hope that you all will forgive this large off-topic
> post, but I'm guessing that I might be the only
> Virginia Tech graduate on the list and, since we all
> are connected to this world by more than a love of
> Disney comics, I'm guessing that a large number of our
> "outside-the-US" membership may be wondering about
> this tragedy that seems to reoccur here with
> frightening frequency in one form or another.
> Obviously, this all hit a bit too close to home and
> has occupied many of my thoughts over the past two
> days.
Vidar Svendsen
Nils Lied Hjort skrev:
> DIn which (and how many) Barks and Rosa stories
> do we see our Ducks with real guns (hand-guns,
> pistols, revolvers, rifles) in their hands?
*There may be more stories, but have a look at:

Barks:
OS 79 **MM and the Riddle of the red Hat*
OS 291* The magic Hourglass**
US 29 Island in the Sky* *WDC 51 Donald?s Sea-side Home* *
US 32 That?s no Fable*
*WDC 52 The trade Rats*
WDC 78 *Donald?s Safe**
WDC 87 The Pilgrim Turkey Hunter**
WDC 110 Goldiducks and the three Bears*
*WDC 114 **Serum to Codfish Cove*
WDC 17*6 **Hiccuping Ghost*
*WDC 278 **Have Gun - Will dance
JW 12 **Hound of the Moaning Hills

Don Rosa:
AR 102 Son of the Sun
D 92008 The Buckaroo Of The Badlands
*
Kimba1962
Chuck,

A very eloquent and very fitting tribute. I have professional friends who teach at Tech, my wife Nicky attended Tech for one year, and her half-brother and his wife graduated about 5 years ago, so this ghastly business hit home for us as well.

Chris Barat
Olivier (M&D)
- Chuck -

>>>> I hope that you all will forgive this large off-topic
>>>> post, but I'm guessing that I might be the only
>>>> Virginia Tech graduate on the list and, since we all
>>>> are connected to this world by more than a love of
>>>> Disney comics, I'm guessing that a large number of our
>>>> "outside-the-US" membership may be wondering about
>>>> this tragedy

There is nothing you need be forgiven; your message was perfectly warranted.
Reacting to such tragedies is always difficult, as a few messages on the Net
seem nothing in comparison and little comfort, however sincerely affected we
may have been.

I don't want to launch a debate on firearms here either, and will only say
this might well occur in other countries as well, despite wholly different
arm legislations : some teachers have been assaulted and stabbed in their
classes in France, classes have been taken hostage (once by a man carrying
live explosive, not fake devices), and several people were shot to death in
a town hall a few years ago. It's not "just in the U.S.A. because..."

It is all the more worrying and tragic as there had been plenty of
disturbing signs and several warnings by professors-- all to no avail.

This is terrible.

Olivier
Robert Hutchings
Chuck,

Thank you for your letter. We here on the DCML are in
fact united by our love for Disney creations, but as
you point out, we are first united as human beings.
These kind of things touch us all. What I hope you
know is that all of us are thinking of you, regardless
of where we call home. We all hold you in our thoughts
and--for those to whom it applies--our prayers. To say
that this is a difficult time is the grossest of
understatements, but I don't know how better to put
it. Just know that we are with you as you go through
it.

Robert Hutchings

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