Geir Hasnes on Italian and Danish stories

David A Gerstein David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu
Fri Dec 17 02:17:50 CET 1993


	Dear Folks,

	Geir Hasnes said:

"Vicar and Branca and all those other silly stories Egmont produces, they
are all escapist entertainment and consequently junk. I get sick when I
browse through the weekly Donald Duck that comes in the post for free (yes,
I have to disclaim that I _buy_ the Donald Duck comic book, what a terrible
thought), sometimes it is so bad I can throw up, it is so helplessly
copying what has been done thousands of times before. I mused over one
story the other day by Vicar, the various ideas were either stretched or
unbelievable in view of the rest of the story, the story was badly paced,
no dynamics, only unoriginal ideas, silly no-content dialogue, the nature
laws were followed in one panel and broken in the next..."

	Geir, please don't attack the artists for the faults of the
writers!  Vicar and Branca only very seldom, if ever, write the
stories they draw.  I think the writers' qualities vary wildly.  Some
really are extremely bad, just as you said.  In fact, I will agree
with you that a majority of them are bad.  BUT...

	There are some good stories out there!  They are hard to find,
but if you read through a year of the Egmont DD, bad as many of the
stories are, there are some good ones.

	I find that Barks' work starts going downhill around 1954.  It
starts going REALLY downhill around 1958.  I'd say that 1958 is when
the Scrooge stories begin losing their special quality;  I think that
the ten-pagers do that in '54.  Oh, of course there are some great
ones from after those dates!  But I'm just implying that only for a
brief time did Barks do stories which could be considered PERFECT.

	When it comes to stories like the midget racecar story (WDC&S
166), the story about Donald as a carnival con-artist ("Once Upon a
Carnival", I forget the name), the story of Donald and the kids trying
to scare each other with huge balloons ("Balloonatics"), etc. I find
that I actually *prefer* some good Egmont stories.

	Barks only began doing short stories with the Beagles and
Magica trying assaults on the money bin toward the end of his career.
I find that some Branca-drawn stories start from there and IMPROVE.
For example, I really enjoyed "The Sunken Chest" (US 212), "The Robot
Raiders of Magica de Spell" (US 210), "An Honest Mistake" (US 220),
"Con Job for a Snob" (US 240), "Better Safe than Sorry" (US 264), etc.
There are some very good Danish stories involving the relationship
between Scrooge and Donald, with real pent-up anxiety and fury in them
-- "My Way" (US 265) is one, though the translation is uninspired
there, and my own upcoming dialog "His Master's Voice" is another.

	Just follow my rule, Geir:  for every ONE good Danish story,
there are automatically five BAD ones.  And there are very few good
Danish stories that hit the level of a "classic" -- I'd say that my
example of one would be "The Quest for the Curious Constable" in
Gladstone Album 14.  I don't think I can even hit on FIVE Danish
stories that strike me as being up to "prime Barks" quality, but
that's one of them.

	Reading the Egmont-produced DD is a blueprint for
disappointment, Geir... but when you read EVERY story in search of the
best ones to dialog, you find good ones.  (Not that Gladstone and
Disney always have... the earlier stories Disney ran, and many of
those Gladstone is running now, are frankly JUST like the types of
things you describe.)

	As for the Italian stuff, I think you're making a BIG MISTAKE
by lumping it all together as garbage... you mention that Gladstone
and Disney only have printed the very few good things from Italy out
of a slime pit of the bad, but actually there are many others well
worth reprinting -- they're just too damned LONG to print often,
because they chew up space which American Disney comics don't have.

	Perhaps the Donald/Goofy story you saw in a Mondadori big
white book is the same "DD Necromancer" story I may be working on
sooner or later.  Bits of the art are indeed crude, but those parts
appear to be RE-INKED a la the Dutch reinks of Barks stories;  since
these stories originally appeared as serials, some parts may now be
missing.  I will be extensively re-working that story so that I can
avoid using all the re-inked stuff and make the thing overall a
tighter piece.  But I think that for what it's trying to do -- bring
the Taliaferro Donald of the late '30s into a full story --
"Necromancer" does a fair job.

	"Mistero di Marte" is better, though... this one is JUST
Donald, no other Gottfredson characters whatsoever.  Donald is also a
much more deeply defined character.  I think that this story is the
one where the comic book Donald first gets some of his traits that he
didn't have on the screen -- for example, bravery and thoughtfulness.

	Anyway, there's my two cents.  What do you think of Dutch
stories?  As bad as Danish stories?

	Sincerely,

	David Gerstein

	"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it, nephew!"
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>



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