+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #153.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM
Thu Nov 11 15:34:37 CET 1993


COMMENTS ON #153:
	Lotsa quick comments...
David: I never worry about whether Disney will allow Gladstone to print
one of my stories. I do the story as I think it should be, right or
wrong, and that's all I care about. If Disney acts in a typically
moronic fashion, that can't be my problem -- it would be the readers'
job to bring them around. I don't gain any sort of "leverage" from past
precedents since I never seek to excert any power in such editorial
matters -- that's John Clark's job. He doesn't interfere with me and I
owe him the respect to let him do his job. Besides, I'd be sorry if
America didn't see one of my stories, but I'll still know that's just a
drop in the bucket -- there's about 40,000 Disney readers in all of
North America, compared to millions in Europe. There's probably more
than 40,000 Disney readers just in Oslo alone!
	Which brings me to jump on to Harry's question as to whether
anyone has readership figures of the Disney comics. Surely you know that
anyone who publishes ANYTHING has detailed figures on their readership,
being the single most important data they search out; on this they
establish their distribution and ad rates. I'm positive Oberon knows
where each of their issues sells. Egmont has detailed figures for each
country. In Germany the weekly sells over a million per week. In Norway
(4,000,000 vikings) it sells 250,000 each week; in Norway (as in other
Egmont countries) they even have comic-book-"Neilsen Families" who
report on what they liked or disliked, etc., and by these reports they
know, f'rinstance, that every comic they sell is read by 4 people
(that's rather different than in America where I doubt that there's 1
reader per 4 sold comics). In Finland (pop.=?) they sell 350,000 per
week and that's ALL BY MAIL SUBSCRIPTION! ($$) I think I was addressing
a Swede when I pulled a circulation figure outta the air, and I don't
really know if KALLE ANKA & CO. sells a quarter-million per week there.
I do believe that, per capita, Norway or Finland sell more Disney comics
than anywhere else on Earth.

Geir:  I'm especially proud that you approved of part 9 of Lo$, you who
are so outspoken and critical! That gives me courage! And I am getting
a bit nervous at the thought of my putting parents in a position of
reading a Disney comic about DEATH to their kiddies -- believe it or
not, I never think that I'm doing comics for children and I don't worry
about that sort of thing (whereas maybe I should in this sorta
instance). As I asked before, do you think most readers or readers'
parents will like that chapter?
	Actually, MY favorite part was when $crooge's sisters were
teasing him about the lock of hair in his safety deposit box, and
getting him rattled while he was trying to ignore them. Seldom does one
of my own bits make me chuckle each time I read it, but I thought this
scene was kinda cute. No. I did not say "cute"!

Mattias:  No, thanks, I think Simon has kept me supplied up to part 8,
but I'm trying to take the load off that he voluntarilly took on.

Mark:  I do research out the wazoo when I do a story, but what sort of
research would I do when I draw a cover? I just pick a scene from the
story (mine or Barks') and depict it as it was. Well, but I just
yesterday did a cover for the German "Don Rosa Library" for part 3 & 4
of the Lo$ with $crooge rootin' & tootin' across a desert, and I did get
out some books to draw accurate cacti, gila monsters, kangaroo rats,
roadrunners, horses, sagebrush, rocks....... yeah, maybe I DO do
research on covers.
	And you can stop searching for the "D.U.C.K." on that Viking
cover. I (blush) plain FORGOT to put one in there! But you know to find
it in all my splash panels, too, right?
	Actually, I had recently decided to STOP putting a dedication to
Barks in my work, but then decided that there is an invisible 'W' in the
dedication, making it now "D.edicated to U.nca C.arl's work from K.eno".

Wm:  A "gibbous" moon? I hadta look that one up. In other words, one
that is over half full? You can imagine why cartoonists never use that
one. It would look odd and just strike the reader as a lopsided full
moon. In fact, any full moon that someone like Van Horn would draw would
look gibbous since it wouldn't be round. I'm the former engineer. I use
compasses and templates on full moons, Duck heads & eyes, buttons,
eyeglasses, etc., etc., plus evry single ellipse I draw (including ALL
the coins in Money Bin close-ups). (Yes, I am insane.)

Torsten: It might surprize you that, if you walked down a street
quizzing everyone on their understanding of the sun, moon and stars,
you'd be appalled at what little they know and more appalled at how
little they care about what little they know. A great number of the
unwashed DO believe this thing they hear called "outer space" is blue
and filled with clouds. My sister once wondered (when she was in her
20's) why the Apollo astronauts didn't stop off on other planets on
their way to the moon. My college roommate had no concept of how large
the sun was or how far away it was (maybe it was the size of a
Volkswagan and 1000 ft. up?) and he thought meteors were pieces of
planets that broke off and fell down to earth. And I wouldn't even try
to quiz my father about what he knows or cares about such things -- his
knowledge about the universe is probably on a par with a modern 5 year
old. I would bet most Americans would believe you if you told them that
there were clouds around the sun, as long as you got on with the
discussion about football and stopped being an egghead.

	Anyway, I'v been so busy that I had not as yet said where I WENT
last week. Since I'd had a nice week in Norway, and lotsa nice weekends
all the time as a guest at various conventions around the U.S., I
decided to take my wife on a deserved vacation. "Hey! Don Rosa! You just
completed your 2 1/2 long project of the 211 page 'Life and Times of
$crooge McDuck'! Whaddiya gonna do NOW!" "I'm goin' t' DISNEYWORLD!" (Do
you Europeans get those Disney commercials?) Anyway, I went to
DisneyWorld, and you can just imagine what it's like for ME when I
visit! Admission tickets are FREE. I am allowed to enter the Park early
and stay as long as I like! I never need to wait and I'm allowed to go
to the head of all the lines! Souvenirs are free! I get a free deluxe
suite in any Disney Resort I choose! I get a free rental car! And all
meals at all the expensive Disney restaurants are complementary! It's
heaven on earth for a superstar like me!
	Raise your hands. How many of you know not a word of any of that
is true? I'm just another schmo in DisneyWorld. Now, it WOULD be like
all that if I WERE somebody... like the businessman who sells the Park
its toilet paper or somebody like that.
	Actually, I did get a bit of "special treatment": I always carry
with me my "#1 Dime". After I named it as such, I always carry in my
pocket an 1875 seated-Liberty American DIME... just a private lil' joke
or memento or whatever. Well, after being at WDW for nearly a week, I
decided it was foolish to be carrying that Dime on Splash Mountain or
these other rides where it MIGHT drop out of my pocket. So I took it and
placed it in the middle of a shelf in a cabinet in my hotel room in
Disney's (el cheapo) Carribean Beach Resort, and went on my way. I was
afraid I'd forget to get it the next day when we left, so the first
thing I did when I got back to the hotel that night was go to the
cabinet to get my Dime and put it back with the rest of my pocket
change.
	It was gone. The maid had stolen it.
	Naturally nothing can be done in that sort of situation. The
hotel can never be sure that a guest didn't just misplace his lost
valuable and seek to blame an innocent maid. And if the maid were
accused, all she needs to do is deny it and since there's no proof,
that's the end of it. Mattias, who ALSO has his own 1875 Dime, will know
that if that maid takes my well-worn Dime, which she assumes must be a
valuable rare coin, to a coin dealer to sell it, the dealer will only
pay her about 30 cents for it. That's how UNvaluable they are. I wish I
could see her face!
	But, the fact remains, that what a sorceress-supreme like Magica
DeSpell couldn't steal in 30 years of trying, a DISNEY EMPLOYEE swiped
in one hour. 
	THAT'S the kind of "special treatment" I always get from Disney.

	And so it goes...





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