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Quote from user: Robb_KThe fact that Don Rosa puts references to much of his research in his stories, listing historical facts, doesn't mean that others who don't document their research in their stories, by listing facts, haven't done research that has provided flavour and mood and realism to their story setting.
I think this is the crux of the problem.

Rosa's stories have mini-lectures as you say, not just to give some historical background for local color but because several of his stories make extensive use of such background, to play with it.
A case in point: "The Last Lord of Eldorado", which I reread last week; the story of the various expeditions is included because the whole adventure derives from it; Rosa constructs a "what may have happened" from there.

He often stresses in his notes that the background information give in his stories is true; it's a springboard he uses to create duck stories; since much of it is rather specialized knowledge, he includes those mini-lectures; he is pretty aware of all this: Barks introduced the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook to supply information and get the story moving; Rosa does the same, and often included a little joke of Donald dreading the JWG lecture, being bored by it, even falling asleep (at the Coot memorial Library in "His Makesty, McDuck"-- this time, the background history is of his own invention).
At the beginning of "The Last Lord of Eldorado", Donald gives a summary of what has led the ducks to the point the narrative starts, and Scrooge reproaches him this unnecessary recapitulation of something he obviously knows, as if they were in a comic book.

Thus, I would say Rosa considers those mini-lectures as a necessary evil, and tries to add some gags along the way, knowing they are artificial, potentially boring "talking heads" moments.
It would be interesting to compare similar stories by Rosa, Barks and others, to see how they handle it. Maybe also Rosa goes into more detail than others because he's afraid of not giving enough information for everyone to follow the story; we need his own input on the question.

All this leads to this conclusion: those dense mini-lectures make the research apparent in the most blatant way, and may lead some to conclude Rosa is the only one to do this, or to go to such an extent, when obviously, any serious artist drawing a jungle scene or a Scottish castle, or an exotic animal, must make some research as well-- and before it reaches the drawing board, any serious writer must have checked the facts.

And then, of course, "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" implied a lot of rereading and note-taking (and editing) to weave everything together; others have done stories that used details introduced by Barks, naturally; the difference is "simply" that Rosa wrote 12 (then a half dozen more) stories which collected and tied everything together.
It's a bit like the mini-lectures: if you don't include any, or make it short, it seems like "that's all there is", but if you make it one-page long more, it seems you have done more work; if you reread all of Barks' stories to check a few details and write only one or two stories using them, it seems like little work, but if you use the same notes to write twice as many stories, you appear to have done a lot more background work.

I love Rosa's stories, and I love the stories of many other writers besides Barks (to take just one example: Van Horn invented a half-brother for Scrooge, and I like this character and the stories featuring him, even though they clash with Rosa's family tree; it's just another appraoch), and the following conclusion of my remarks does not mean anyone is superior or inferior: the way things are presented affects the impression on the reader, and the amount of preproduction work cannot be simply inferred from appearances, because a sort of optical illusion makes things presented simply appear simplistic.

Art-wise, the conclusion is the same.

I like Rosa's style, and I like Van Horn's-- they are the most extreme examples I can think of right now: one is very detailed, mathematical; the other is loose, cartoonish/caricatural (in a positive sense).
Surely, Rosa must spend infinitely more time than Van Horn penciling and inking his stories, but this does not mean Van Horn is a hack; his ducks are very lively and expressive, there's a lot of energy in his art. They're just different; yet all of Rosa's details, like his mini-lectures, make his style seem superior, quite unfairly to other, equally talented, artists.

In fact, artists (musicians, painters, ...), often say simplicity is deceiving and that it's often the apparently simpler things that are the most difficult for them to achieve; writing an hour-long symphony for a full orchestra is very hard, but writing ten minutes of film music for a small ensemble can be just as difficult, because you have to achieve several effects with fewer instruments and more constraints.

Quote from user: Robb_KI wrote several long epic stories for Gutenberghus (but, unfortunately, they were shelved). I have a 26 pager and 22 pager that are still pending. They required a lot of historical and scientific research, and additions to The McDuck and Duck family trees, and Scotland's and Calisota's history.
I hope they will finally get drawn and printed; I'd love to read them.

This reminds me of something very much to the point: Robb has done an incredible job of researching, noting down, and putting together, hundreds of details regarding Duckburg (and its vicinity) (all culled from Barks' stories), to create maps of Duckburg.
If Gemstone's plans go through, the new Barks collection would be greatly enhanced by the inclusion of this work, which would finally get the recognition it deserves. I would gladly pay $5-10 more for one of the volumes to include a fold-out version of these maps.

Come to think of it, maybe another Barks, Rosa, Van Horn, Jippes, ..., has tried submitting stories already, but they have not been read yet, or have been dismissed because they needed more work, or the editor did not like a plot.

Ooops; I need to re-read the origin stories. A bad example, then.
How old is he by the way? Rather, how much younger than Scrooge is he?
Without having thought much about it (my mistake), it seems to me the only possibility for him to exist would be for Fergus to have had him with another woman after the death of Scrooge's mother; yet he seems to me (according to Don's stories) that he lived only with his brother and daughters at the castle-- though at one point Scrooge's sisters accompanied him, and Jake vanished (passed away?).

Quote from user: cacouDon Rosa did some extremely good stories, but usually very different from Barks (especially the way characters like Scrooge or Donald behave). Yet, the stories that are closest to Barks are in my opinion the late 70s Jippes/Milton short DD stories. I find Van Horn or Rota very different from Barks, and I can't remember any recent 100% Jippes stories.
It seems to me that the TNT stories are more in the line of the Kinney stories than Barks (but obviously Barks never used Fethry). It's not just because I know Lars (on the internet), but I appreciate these stories a lot.
Yes. I agree. I think that the 1976-1981 Jippes/Milton stories were the closest to Barks in both artwork and writing. Too bad they confined themselves just to 10-pagers. I wonder what they might have done with 24 or 32 page epic adventures? It would have been nice to see.

Quote from user: OlivierIn fact, artists (musicians, painters, ...), often say simplicity is deceiving and that it's often the apparently simpler things that are the most difficult for them to achieve; writing an hour-long symphony for a full orchestra is very hard, but writing ten minutes of film music for a small ensemble can be just as difficult, because you have to achieve several effects with fewer instruments and more constraints.
On the other hand, most artists would agree that a Jan van Eyck or a Rembrandt inspires an awesome *technical achievent* in comparison to a Miró or a Pollack.

Quote from user: OlivierI like Rosa's style, and I like Van Horn's-- they are the most extreme examples I can think of right now: one is very detailed, mathematical; the other is loose, cartoonish/caricatural (in a positive sense).
Surely, Rosa must spend infinitely more time than Van Horn penciling and inking his stories, but this does not mean Van Horn is a hack; his ducks are very lively and expressive, there's a lot of energy in his art. They're just different; yet all of Rosa's details, like his mini-lectures, make his style seem superior, quite unfairly to other, equally talented, artists.
Agreed. I prefer Rosa's style overall since I like a lot of information in a story, both in the art and in the storyline. However, I do like the quality of Van Horn's finished line weight. It appears to take into consideration and lends itself better to the addition of color and therefore comes off as less heavy looking.

And Rosas detailed storytelling and artwork has grown out of his many years in comic-fandom all the way back to his Information Center in RBCC, which may be some of the reason why his style appeals so much to fans and a bit less to other artists and story-tellers. He creates the stories the way he would like to read them, as a fan.

Firstly I must say that I really appreciate Don Rosa's works, I don't think he's the greatest artist, but I really like the stories he has done.
But for me, Don Rosa has taken the same role in the duck universe as Bob Marley has taken in the reggae world. As soon as you mention duckstories someone always has to mention Don Rosa. People tend to ignore that there are a lot of other great artists/writers, 'cause in their world there is only Don Rosa. Everything about, around and by him has been sooo much discussed that at least I get so fed up with it to the point that I almost dislike him.
When are people going to realize that there is more than Don Rosa? That the duck world isn't dead just because Don Rosa won't do any more stories?
Yes, Don Rosa is a really great comic creator, but he's also one of the most hyped ones.
Sorry for the crappy language, but it's late and I'm tired and a bit frustrated ;)

Quote from user: MorequackQuote from user: Asger AndAnd Rosas detailed storytelling and artwork has grown out of his many years in comic-fandom all the way back to his Information Center in RBCC, which may be some of the reason why his style appeals so much to fans and a bit less to other artists and story-tellers. He creates the stories the way he would like to read them, as a fan.
It has become my observation from visiting this forum during the past year or so that quite a number of the regular posters seem to resent Don Rosa and or his work. They take every opportunity to diminish his creative achievements and his epic storytelling and drawing style?that which so many fans around the world hold to be overwhelmingly their favorite since Carl Barks. At first I tried to ignore or deny this phenomenon. But it has become increasingly obvious. Now, I suppose this is OK since we are all entitled to hold to our personal opinions. But these folks should not be too surprised at having been presented the opposite side of the coin than the one they recognize.

Many of these are legitimate Duck artists themselves, others are wannabes. Is it envy, frustration? Whatever it is, it strikes me as self-indulgent. It has been suggested that as professional Disney creators within the circle they are destined to know that which the average lay fan cannot. If one finds Rosa's work *better* there had better be a qualifying testament accompanying the declaration and the pertinent *facts* had better be put forth.

These individuals obviously have a passion for Duck stories?as we all here do?and a knowledge of the history and of the art, and some have great talent of their own. But might as they try they cannot hope to preach persuasions to the loving fans?for whom the Duck Universe was created?regarding their favorite son. We know what we like. And we are legion.
Sources for all of this, please?