Disney-comics digest #292.

[Don Rosa]

JAMES W.:
	My personal version of the origin of the Money Bin was printed
in Europe a few weeks ago in "Lo$" #10. You'll hafta wait 1 1/2 years to
see it in America.
	As I may have mentioned once before, when I did the "Lo$" there
were scant few Barks stories that I decided I was compelled to ignore.
In a few cases it was due to conflicting "facts" in his own stories
(very rare and spread years apart) and in THIS instance, stories that
were done while Barks was still developing the new $crooge character
slowly; he only slowly realized $crooge would be around for a while, so
Barks never tried to create him all at once. In order to explain the
Money Bin as being the cash that $crooge earned himself as he trapsed
the globe, I decided the Bin had to have been built about 50 years
before it was first shown in that WDC&S issue. So I ignore that one
tale, at least the parts of it that suggest the Bin is "new". I also
ignored that "corn crib" tale; yes, it's an excellent story, but you'll
hafta agree it's only a "fable". It may well be the most wildly
fantastic story Barks ever did, and I really credit him with writing
stories with a firmer foothold in reality. I mean, in that tale,
$crooge's corn-crib-o'-money is picked up by a tornado, and a million
dollars in cash drops into the hands, individually, of every man, woman,
child and duck in America (or on Earth?), and nowhere else (not a cent
into a lake or field or river or...). And $crooge gets it all back
(every LAST CENT of it) by selling overpriced food to each and every
human being in the country (a sort of dishonest thing that I can't see a
"square" $crooge doing). It's a great story as a lesson in "values", but
it was obviously a dream $crooge had one night after a bowl of gruel.

DAVID:
	Well, yes, all my WDC&S are in great shape... especially my
oldest ones. I guess I've had a full set since before you were born, so
you can guess what I had to pay for them. Actually, I got all my DD 4
COLORS and my WDC&S back to #5 for less than $1 each from a guy two guys
who bought them off the stands. I paid LOTS more for #1-4 from another
original-buyer... I think I paid about $400 for all 4; they were in near
perfect shape -- he'd read them once in 1940 then put them in a box and
sealed it with wax. (Don't ask me why!)
	My WDC&S from about #90 - 250 in mint condition cost me 2 cents
each from the original buyer. And an interesting tale there: I'd already
built up most of a set of those issues by then (1970) and I replaced
them with that batch, never opening many of them up since I'd already
read my others. Then about 5 years later I was doing my index to WDC&S
and going through each issue... and in one copy I found a wad of six $10
bills. In that same purchase, I'd bought about 4000 other mint comics
from the 50's-early 60's... so that $60 greatly cut down what I had to
pay for that batch (at 2 cents each, about $80 - $60 = $20). No big
deal... in the days when the only ones of us looking to buy old comics
were those of us who actually LIKED the things ourselves, stories like
this were not so unusual. (Well, actually, this story wasn't so bad by
any standards, I s'pose.)

FRANK:
	I thank you for your ideas of how Gladstone could publish a
portfolio or cards of my past work to raise money. But they wouldn't
raise money for ME. After all, right now they are reprinting my old
stories (with much ballyhoo) and I receive no royalties simply because
they don't need to pay me royalties and I don't expect them to hand me
money they aren't forced to. Companies do not pay royalties unless thay
are compelled to. If they published cards or portfolios or anything else
of my past work, they would only need to pay DISNEY to use my work, not
me. THIS is the problem right there.

MARK:
	I can't (and wouldn't) threaten Egmont that I'd ever quit,
because I know that they only value me for publicity purposes. My work
actually sells negligible extra copies for them. If I quit, they'd never
know the difference by their sales figures. That gives me little
leverage, eh?
	I have always had the opportunity to get bad publicity for
Disney for the unfair ways they treat freelancers. But that's NOT the
way to deal with Disney! You must try to help them enter the 1970s
gradually, not try to force them to do so by shaming them publicly. That
would LOSE ground rather than gain it -- large, cruel corporations don't
react well to that sort of stuff. I'd lose the job I love.
	I have no interest in doing my own characters. I didn't grow up
on any character I might create tomorrow -- I grew up on the Ducks.
Besides, I know my work is popular because readers like what I do with
their favorite characters... not what I do with ANY character, just
THOSE. I did these exact same stories 15-20 years ago in fanzines, and
hardly a soul read them when I wasn't using the Ducks.

HARRY:
	Please go back and reread my messages! You are interpreting me
exactly as I don't wish! I LOVE my trips to Europe!!! I'm treated like a
minor-league national hero!!! I NEVER tire of the activities I'm called
upon to perform there!
	It's simply a matter of what's fair. It gets rather frustrating
to be the only guy in America being treated the way I am as far as
reimbursement. 
	Look at it this way: when I come to Erlangen (which I thought
was a suburb or Nuremberg?), I'll be there with Neil Gaiman as the other
comics guest. I will probably attract FAR more attention than he will,
since I do the beloved Ducks. We will be appearing as guests of Ehapa,
who is doing sets of albums of our work; DEATH and SANDMAN written by
Gaiman, and a German album series of strictly MY work, written and
drawn.
	Now, Ehapa pays DC royalties for the use of Gaiman's work.
Gaiman does the work for DC originally, and DC shares the royalties
with Gaiman, of course.
	Ehapa also pays royalties, to Disney, for the use of my work. I
do not work for Disney -- they contribute NOTHING in helping me write or
draw my stories. And yet, they do not share a cent of those royalties
with me.
	Gaiman works no harder than I do (I can't imagine anyone working
any more diligently than I do on these Ducks), yet he's paid by a
completely different system. Recently, they say, he spent a few days
writing an issue of this SPAWN comic, and reportedly was paid some
$150,000 in royalties. SPAWN doesn't sell a fraction what these Duck
comics sell.
	Gaiman himself is one of the people who has told me that I'm
being cheated -- every other comic pro in America thinks I'm a sap for
doing Disney comics. But this is the system I am in day by day, going to
conventions and having to listen to the other pros talking about the
huge sums they make constantly in the new systems. Selling their art,
getting royalties off every use of their work...etc., etc.
	Now, don't you think this all gets increasingly frustrating for
me? I'm very close to swearing off attending conventions since I don't
need the grief I feel when I associate with other professionals. Don't
you think this is normal human nature for me to feel lousy about all
that? And I'm helpless to do anything about it since no other Disney
freelancers will take a stand for themselves with me. 
	But, of course, the answer for me is to either quit, or shaddap
my griping. If I want to be treated fairly, all I need to do is NOT do
Disney comics. Simple as that.