Digests 509 - 519

H.W. Fluks fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl
Tue Dec 13 09:27:41 CET 1994


Hello everyone,

I have been away to Paris (France) last week, so I have to catch up
more than a week of disney-comics mail. But first, let me 'review'
some of the current French comics.

I could find five Disney comics in France, of which I bought two.
The ones I didn't buy were:

Le Journal de Mickey - contains some Disney and a lot of non-Disney
    comics (Dwight: the Dutch DD are not the only issues containing
    non-Disney stuff...).

Picsou Something (I forgot the exact title) - a b/w softcover album
    reprinting 3 or 4 old comics, containing uninteresting Italian
    material.

Mickey Parade, the French equivalent of the pocket books with
    Italian material. But they are bigger than the German/Dutch/.. ones.

I bought copies of:

Picsou Magazine #275 - an excellent issue, and if it is this way every
    month, the French should be very happy. This issue contained: Rosa's
    Life of Scrooge chapter 5 (D 92191 - they added the oval on
    Gladstone's cover of chapter *1* to the first page!); Barks'
    Philosopher's Stone (integral), a center fold poster reproducing
    Barks' oil painting of "Trick or Treat", two shorts by Mau Heymans
    (H 93110 and H 9234) and two French 1-page gags: "Fethry at work"
    (F 93223; Fethry and Donald are journalists here) and "Flagada
    Jones" (this is the French name of Launchpad McQuack, F 94103).

    BTW Fredrik: Gyro's name in French is Ge'o Trouvetou, without
    final t. Quite a funny name.

Mickey Mystere #5 - I expected to see some of the Myckey Mystery stories
    that were discussed here on the list, but in stead this issue
    contained a very good Scarpa story (I 231-A from 1960, "The secret of
    the necklace"), and a story I even haven't read yet and I'm not
    sure I will (G. Martina/M. De Vita, 1977, I 1125, featuring that
    Italian super-duck).
    The Scarpa story also featured Atomino Bip-bip, who is called
    Bi-bop in French.

Interesting that the French give full credits to the Italian stories and
Barks and Rosa ("If Carl Barks created Scrooge, Keno Don Rosa has
recovered his biography."), but do not mention Mau Heymans.

Well, back to last week's digests...
--------
DON about the Dutch reprint of Lo$ chapter 9:

> Chapter 9 had a good translation? What was the dirty limerick
> that $crooge spoke at the poetry recital?

"A girl named Jolly Jessie / peeked in the Loch at Nessie / then she
slipped / and Nessie said loud: / that'll teach Jessie a lesson"
I don't know if "peeked" is the right word. I mean the word when
people watch mostly naked people of the opposite sex without being
seen themselves.

> And was there an obscene word at the end being interrupted as it was
> supposed to be in my script?

No. OK, I was a bit enthousiastic about the translation. They also
left one word balloon blank. But for a Dutch translation, it could have
been much worse.
--------
MIKE P.:
> Who's Daan Jippes? Some dutch guy?

Daan Jippes was editor and art director of the Dutch Disney comics
from 1972 through 1982. In that period, he drew some of the best
Donald Duck stories ever, mostly in co-operation with Freddy Milton.
Most of these (but not all!) stories were reprinted in the early
Gladstone WDC's. He also re-inked some of the rarest Barks "giveaway"
stories. This was done so well, that one can hardly see the difference.

He went to the USA in about 1982, working for Disney in the film
department. As a side job, he drew the Mickey sunday pages for a while,
and from 1986 on he did a lot of covers for Gladstone.
Daan does not work for Disney anymore, but he has a very good
relationship with the Dutch editors, and he still does covers and
an occasional story for them. In 1991, Daan started to re-ink Barks'
Junior Woodchuck stories, and apparently he still does: the latest one
was published in Dutch DD Weekly 47 (H 9401 - about getting rubber from
trees).

Jippes only drew one story with his own characters ("Two for tea" on
a script by Martin Lodewijk), but a lot of Dutch comic artists still
consider him _the_ example.

BTW: Daan Jippes is from Friesland (which can be considered the Lappland
of The Netherlands: a province with its own language). Just like Ub Iwerks
originally.

(I could say many more things about Jippes, but this message is too long
already...)
--------
DAVID:
> There is an Ariel monthly in Britain [containing] a beautifully drawn
> H-coded story. Are these also printed in Holland?  If so, where?

Yes, there is a "The Little Mermaid" magazine in Holland. Issue 4
was published this month. Only a few comics, and a lot of other stuff.
The comics indeed are Dutch. Maybe drawn by Jeroen Steehouwer, a young
(and ambitious) artist from Studio Arnhem.
--------
JAMES:
> It's Christmas season and I've got a related question.  In the US,
> Christmas means Disney comics involving Santa Claus.  Other countries
> have other "images" of Christmas - like Saint Nicholas or Befana (sp?)
> The Witch.  Are their Disney comics involving these characters?

Yes indeed. In the low countries (Holland, Belgium) the guy is
called "Sint Nicolaas" or "Sinterklaas", which, if spoken with a
local accent, sounds like "Santaclaus". His day is december 5th,
and every year since (at least) the late 70s the 49th weekly issue
contains a special Donald Duck story about Sinterklaas. Some of them
were very good. In a few cases, they redrew the (USA) Santa Claus in
USA or Danish stories, to make them Sinterklaas stories. They even
changed the texts in some of Barks' stories, where Santa is only
mentioned in the text but not shown.

Because Sinterklaas is not a "Christmas image", but a "December 5th image",
they can easilly reprint Santa Claus stories as well, a few weeks later.
--------
DWIGHT, about Marco Rota's "The Money Ocean":
> in the translation, I simplified the explanation somewhat of why
> Scrooge's business enterprises are experiencing difficulties as a
> result of the ocean-sized money bin. Somebody rewrote my
> translation for the Disney Comics version, and simplified my explanation
> even more. It looks like the Dutch version rewrote the published Disney
> Comics version still further, and I'm not sure it makes a whole lot
> of sense now.

Decker/Gabner: "Because of your overly liquid capital, all your recent
checks have bounced [...]"

Dutch: "Because you put ALL your money in ONE bin, you can't pay any
more bills!"

Does not make much sense, but at least it refers to the beginning of the
story, where the money was in separate bins.
--------
BOB W.:
> The backup Gyro 'lightning power plant' story in US 13 [...] is this
> the only Gyro tale with an appearance by Morty & Ferdie?

At least it's the only BARKS story featuring M&F.
--------
JO/RGEN, about French artist Albert Uderzo:
> He was seven years old when he read his first comic story -- a
> Mickey Mouse story!

This story could not have been Italian, because the first Italian Mickey
stories were published in the 2nd half of the 50s. Shortly thereafter,
the first Asterix story was published. Uderzo was way over 7 by then.

The Italian story they showed in the interview may well have been
the excellent story in Mickey Mystere I was talking about.
--------
About "The Prey of the Transvaal Viper" (or whatever it is titled 8-):

Some of you may know that the word Boer originates from the Dutch -
it means farmer. Also, "Trek" is a Dutch word, meaning several things,
a.o. "travel" and "pull".
Obviously, the Dutch couldn't translate the Boer/bore joke literally.
So they let Glomgold say: "I'm a trekboer!" And Scrooge replies: "Oh?
we use OXES for that!". (Trek-boer = pulling farmer.)
--------
Well, that's it. My editor tells me I just typed in 172 lines.
Should be enough for now!

--Harry.



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