From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sat Oct 1 04:21:40 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 30 Sep 94 23:21:40 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #449. Message-ID: <941001032140_72260.2635_EHB213-2@CompuServe.COM> BJORN, EVEN, others: How silly of me not to realize that it's the original English poetry I wrote for "The War of the Wendigo" that you were interested in! It's to see that script used that I'm anxious to someday see that story used in America. But others would like to see the original art as well, since that story will very likely never be seen in America. Now we're talking of many people wanting a set of copies which would be 28 pages of script with 56 half-pages of art, totaling 84 pages!!! Not to mention the fact that Egmont would not want me to be sending out this material, and (though it's a small concern) Disney would regard it as both a copyrite infringement and an embarrassment involving a banned story. Please... let's just forget that story exists until it can someday be properly printed in America? RoC: What is this "Egmont complete edition" you mention? Edition of what? "Horsing Around with History" is not based on a painting. It is supposedly based on an idea for a painting which does not exist and probably never will. JAMES: Barks' 1970s JWW scripts were done as scribbled lay-out pages on type-writer paper, the same way I do my scripts now. I call them "storyboard scripts" for lack of a better description. They showed the characters poses and expressions, but were not intended to be "inked", and cannot be inked per se. The stories were drawn by Kay Wright and published in HUEY DEWEY AND LOUIE - JUNIOR WOODCHUCKS back in the mid-70s. However, Barks "storyboard scripts" were done carefully enough that they can be inked after a fashion. Jippes must have enlarged copies made then place them on a light-box beneath his paper; then he can trace the shapes and positions of the character poses, after which he must add all his own backgrounds and details. So what you have is NOT inked version of Barks pencils, but artwork that depicts the story exactly as Barks planned it rather than how Gold Key produced their versions 20 years ago (which did not adhere to the lay-outs very carefully). Barks kept copies (or originals) of the scripts and these were what were used in reproducing the scripts; either the editors obtained copies from the people that Barks sold them to or from somebody like Bruce Hamilton who has copies of most everything from Barks' files. RE. DICK MOORES: Why would Dick Moore's comic strip work look so much better than his Disney comics? As you should be able to gather by now, working on Disney comics encourages one to do poor work rather than good work. There's no point in putting much effort into Disney comics when one's efforts are stolen by the system. The differences are Barks, due to his old-fashioned work ethic... or some nitwit like me who puts the effort in for his own enjoyment despite the evils of the white-slavery system. From deckerd at agcs.com Sat Oct 1 17:19:33 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 94 09:19:33 MST Subject: Carl Barks, Packrat Message-ID: <9410011619.AA03068@gtephx.com> Just a side note here to the discussion Don Rosa and some others have been having about Daan Jippes inking Barks's Junior Woodchucks script/ storyboard sketches. It is perfectly possible that Barks kept either the originals or the copies of those scripts all these years. At this past San Diego Comics Convention, I stopped at the booth of "the Carl Barks Studio" (the Grandeys' operation, I believe, selling Barks's original art and such), and on sale were the original pen and ink drawings of the mildly racy girlie cartoons Barks sold to the Calgary Eye-Opener circa 1934. According to Mrs. Grandey, Barks had pulled them out of a drawer the week before the convention and suggested trying to sell them for whatever the market would bear. I was just flat-out astonished. I can't even imagine keeping something like that for SIXTY YEARS, through any number of moves and housecleanings, but Barks is apparently just that methodical, and keeping something for a mere 20 years, like the Junior Woodchucks scripts, would be nothing for him. --Dwight Decker From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat Oct 1 23:50:41 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sat, 1 Oct 94 23:50:41 +0100 Subject: Varia In-Reply-To: James Williams's message of Fri, 30 Sep 94 10:06:00 EST <2e8c1b48@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Message-ID: <9410012250.AA15565@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> RoC> Ain't it about time we got a creator hoozoo on ftp too? Just as the ftp archive always welcomes informational files on various characters (to put in the subdirectory "characters") it informational files on various creators are welcome. (Presumably in a new subdirectory.) I don't see the need for any special administration for something like that. All that is needed is texts that *stand on their own* to put there. Most of the information that pops up on this mailing list is in the form of a question somewhere answered somewhere else with some clarification yet somewhere else, and the answers are mostly just parts of longer messages dealing with lots of other stuff as well. That means that making such informational files to keep takes some editing... Apropos the ftp archive I've updated the big log files containing all list traffic, *except* that the file for April this year is incomplete! I'm awfully sorry about my clumsiness that led to this, but I'm almost positive I will be able to add the missing part of it later by going throw my old mail files. I'm a bit behind with my reading. Not only on this list, but also on Disney comics. Recently I read the reprint of "This is your life, Donald Duck" in Donald And Mickey #25 and could with my own eyes see what I already been alerted to by a notice in NAFS(k)'s newsletter: The editors had decided to 1) replace Strobl's retelling of what happened in Barks's WDC 141 with "the real stuff", that is actual images from WDC 141. 2) make those Barksian pie-cuts on the eyes. I strongly object to this disrespect for the original artwork. Sure, Barks was a better artist than Strobl, but that's no reason at all to remake Strobl's art to make it more Barksian. And by the way... Karl-Erik resent a message writing > This message bounced back, so I will try and post it again: 99 times out of 100 such bounces just mean that one (or two...) subscriber(s) didn't get the message. (The bounce message is supposed to tell you which one.) The best thing you can do about it is to forward that bounce message to me. The next best thing you can do about it is to ignore it. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From lars at dxrd11.cern.ch Mon Oct 3 10:46:28 1994 From: lars at dxrd11.cern.ch (lars@dxrd11.cern.ch) Date: Mon, 03 Oct 94 10:46:28 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #450. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 02 Oct 94 01:19:11 +0100." <9410020019.AA17155@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <9410030946.AA07143@dxrd11.cern.ch> Mange takk for upplysningar um leigebil! Helsing Lars From lars at dxrd11.cern.ch Mon Oct 3 13:27:52 1994 From: lars at dxrd11.cern.ch (Lars Lundheim) Date: Mon, 03 Oct 94 13:27:52 +0100 Subject: France Message-ID: <9410031227.AA07355@dxrd11.cern.ch> FIRST: Apologies to those of you who got a strange message in Norwegian from me. It was due to a slip of the keyboard when responding to another mail. Please ignore it. FRANCE: I've been looking around for old issues of Piscou (U$) and Journal de Mickey for Don. I've only found one so far, (from 1992) which contained "Sa Majeste Piscou 1er" by D.R. In addition there was a short presentation of Don: RETOUR A DONALDVILLE Depuis 1987, Keno Don Rosa a publie plusieurs B.D. dont la plupart sont des suites de celles crees par Carl Barks. "Mon reve eteait de devenir le nouvau Carl Barks. On dit qu mes crayonnes resemblent a ceux de Barks, mais l'encrage, c'est du pur Don Rosa!" Apres avoir lu l'histoire qui suit, tu connaitras tous les details de la fondation de Donaldville et tu attendras, avide, les nouvelles histoires de Don Rosa! Patiance, le mois prochain, Don Rosa est de retour avec 30 pages qui fount suite a "La Monnaie de Fer Blanc", publiee dans Piscou Magazine no 186 et dessinee par... Carl Barks! According to my very limited French, the meaning should be somewhat like the following: RETURN TO DUCKBURG Since 1987, Keno Don Rosa have publised several comics, mostly sequels to those created by Carl Barks. "I dreamt of becoming a new Carl Barks. People find my pencils resemblant to Barks', but the inking is pure Don Rosa!" After you have read the following story, you'll know everything about the founding of Duckburg, and you'll be looking forward to the next stories by Don Rosa! Be patient, the next month Don Rosa is back with 30 pages in a sequel to <>, published in Uncle $crooge Magazine no 186, and drawn by Carl Barks! Whew! I hope I didn't make too many errors in that effort of translation. I don't know where they've got the statement from Don, and how satisfied he'll be with the rendering, but at least they pay credit to him, and that's not bad, taken into account that the Walt Disney Company is a major share holder in the enterprise who's publishing the magazine. Lars Lundheim From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Mon Oct 3 15:54:06 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Mon, 3 Oct 94 15:54:06 +0100 Subject: April 1994 In-Reply-To: Per Starback's message of Sat, 1 Oct 94 23:50:41 +0100 <9410012250.AA15565@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <9410031454.AA26643@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> The list log files at the ftp archive (ftp.lysator.liu.se:pub/comics/disney) are now complete up to and including September. The month that was lost (April this year) is now complete in two parts, the second part being made up from saved digests. -- your list administrator From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 3 11:05:00 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 11:05:00 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #449. Message-ID: <9410031005.AA23702@ux08.pttnwb.nl> I have a new employer (some other pedartment of the Dutch telephone and mail company), and a new e-mail address. This also means I have gone into "Mattias-mode": I only receive the Digests here, and my mails may be delayed a little (one mail from this address last week was delayed more than a day!) I hope I don't talk about things that others have already mentioned by the time this mail arrives... Now to the digest: OLE about Moe, the Hillbilly character: > He doesn't have neither beak nor blot-nose. Unless his > down-to-his-knees-beard hide a pair of dog ears, that makes him a > close relative to homo sapiens, another 'missing link'. Now I'm 100% sure I have never seen this character anywhere. Ole quotes Mikko: > > Can you give some codes of [Ben Verhagen's] stories? I have tried to send a new version of the Disney comics Database to Per, so that he can put it on ftp.lysator.liu.se. This time also the C-sources are available (bugs included...). I guess we'll hear more about it when Per succeeds to unzip my files... One easy thing to do is to make a complete list of Verhagen's (or any other artist's) work. Mikko: if you want one, I can send it to you. > "Bedank Fluks maar! Hij heeft het grote werk gedaan!" 8-) Actually, this quote ("Thanks to Fluks! He's done most of the work!") is from a Bucky Bug story recently published in Dutch DD, where a character appears named "Fluks Vingervlug". Fluks is his FIRST name, so this insect cannot be related to me... (The Dutch word 'fluks' means 'quickly'.) DON: Would it be OK if I typed in the Wendigo poem here on the list? Am I violating any copyrights if I copy the text of a part of an unpublished story? JO/RGEN, and others: The original Junior Woodchucks scripts by Barks were drawn by Kay Wright and Tony Strobl. Strobl once said in an interview that Barks' scripts were so worked out that he could almost trace them. I think the original penciled pages were returned to Barks by his editor. Barks then signed them, cleaned up some "sloppy art", and sold them or gave them away. Most of the penciled pages were published in the Carl Barks Library. THESE VERSIONS were used by the Dutch editor: they gave Jippes photocopies from the CBL. Jippes enlarged them a lot, re-penciled them and then inked them. Though the first two stories got codes H 9201 and H 9202, they were already finished in October, 1991. --Harry. (fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl) From HOWELLS5151 at fredonia.edu Mon Oct 3 11:47:00 1994 From: HOWELLS5151 at fredonia.edu (Sarah E. Howells) Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 11:47 am EDT (15:47:59 UT) Subject: Disney Comics list Message-ID: <44131100394114758@FREDONIA> I'm nterested in subscribing to your list and would appreciate any info you could send me. Thank You, Sarah Howells From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Tue Oct 4 04:41:21 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 03 Oct 94 23:41:21 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #451. Message-ID: <941004034121_72260.2635_EHB185-1@CompuServe.COM> HARRY: You want to post the "Wendigo poem" on the Digest? What do you mean by that? The entire script of Peeweegah dialogue??? If that's what you actually mean, it would be fine with me... but where would you get it? Did I send you a copy at some point? Of course, you couldn't get it from just translating the Dutch version. I think that it would be a waste of space if it weren't accompanied by the rest of the story and art, don't you? I mean, the greatest funnybook dialogue isn't much without the pictures. Would it be a copyright infringement? If a Disney lawyer ever saw it and wanted to cause trouble, you can be certain that it could be easilly proven that it's a copyright infringement. You could be certain that they could prove that every time we say "Disney", it's a copyright infringement, if they took a mind to. In short, do it if you want to, but if I were you I wouldn't. From bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no Tue Oct 4 12:42:39 1994 From: bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no (bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 12:42:39 +0100 Subject: Horsing around Message-ID: <"3570 94/10/04 12:42*/G=bjorn-are/S=davidsen/OU=s/O=televerket/PRMD=tele/ADMD=TELEMAX/C=NO/"@MHS> Don I accept your difficulties in sending the Wendigo poetry, however in what way could we possible get Disney to accept Gladstone publishing it (bomb threats, volunteering to visit Euro-Disney, promise to tell the world that it REALLY was Walt Disney after all who made all those so called "Barks-stories", writing pleading letters in the thousands to Gladstone - or to Disney) ? Re: Horsing Around with History has been published in Norway (or at least the first half of the story) and I have my own copy on my desk when writing this! However, it's a minor disappointment. In quality it's on level with "King $crooge the First" (or what it was called that $crooge story in U$ 71I think, with Barks manus only, after his "Doom Diamond"). A fairly traditional U$ story, adding a bit to the money bin myth (this time the bint is opened by $crooge imitating a horse's neighing (or what it's called), which he also does to get a horse cab. However, Van Horn is not able to add anything on the manus at all (no nice details in the background), and the sum of story and art is rather flat. How I would have loved to have someone who really understands Barks' stories to draw it. A Barks/Rosa team-up would have been the greatest thing to happen to comics since Allan Moore's Swamp Thing (and Watchmen (and the early Sandman by this Gaiman guy...))). However, there seems to be some problems in getting that to happen... Re: Dick Moore and Gasoline Alley For those wondering about this I highly recommend back issues of Comic's Review (not the same as Comic's Relief!) which has a lot of Gasoline Alley (as well as Steve Canyon, Manning's Tarzan and other great newspaper strips)! I don't have the adress at the time, but can get it if anyone is interested! Bjorn-Are From ekman at lysator.liu.se Tue Oct 4 14:11:08 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 14:11:08 +0100 (MET) Subject: Horsing Around With History Message-ID: OK, so HAWH is published in Norway? Well, it sure isn't in Sweden. So, then: How many pages is the first part? How many will the second be? What's the code? Was it published in Denmark or Finland? And as soon as I have that info I PROMISE that I will send out the new version of the Van Horn index. It seems that several of my messages lately have never arrived to the list, probably due to some local problem. I can just scream out my agony and assure you that you didn't miss anything of importance, except that I notified of my new email address: ekman at lysator.liu.se. In response to a request from Don, I also wrote about how to send mail from CompuServe to a specified address on the Internet. Don; do you still need that information? /Fredrik From bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no Tue Oct 4 15:12:40 1994 From: bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no (bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no) Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:12:40 +0100 Subject: More Horsing Around Message-ID: <"3582 94/10/04 15:12*/G=bjorn-are/S=davidsen/OU=s/O=televerket/PRMD=tele/ADMD=TELEMAX/C=NO/"@MHS> Fredrik: >OK, so HAWH is published in Norway? Well, it sure isn't in Sweden. >So, then: How many pages is the first part? How many will the second >be? What's the code? Sorry for the lack of this kind of info in my message. The first part is 12 pages. I guess the second part will be the same (if this is supposed to be a 24 pages story...). The code is D94003. The Norwegian title is "Historien gjentar seg" ("History repeats itself"). One panel (only) has a pink sky. $crooge has teeth in those panels where he neighs (to open the various bin doors) only. There are a lot of albatrosses! Bjo/rn Are Bjorn-Are.Davidsen at s.Televerket.Tele.No Bjorn-Are From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Wed Oct 5 04:20:35 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 04 Oct 94 23:20:35 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #452. Message-ID: <941005032035_72260.2635_EHB134-1@CompuServe.COM> FREDRIK: Just so you won't think your latest message was lost: yes, I received your message about addressing E-mail. From maittola at snakemail.hut.fi Wed Oct 5 18:46:51 1994 From: maittola at snakemail.hut.fi (Mikko Henri Juhani Aittola) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 19:46:51 +0200 (EET) Subject: Disney-comics digest #452. In-Reply-To: <9410050026.AA29410@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: Fredrik wrote: > OK, so HAWH is published in Norway? Well, it sure isn't in Sweden. > Was it published in Denmark or Finland? It isn't published in Finland yet. I think it will be published in Aku Ankka 1/95 (and that is also Aku Ankka ?2000, if I remember right). About Ben Verhagen: I don't want a complete list of his stories. I just misunderstood that he is Mickey-artist... About me: Currently I'm in the service of Finnish Army. 11 months starting 22.8.1994 and ending 17.7.1995. (Every Finnish man's duty is to go to army. We get about $4 per DAY for it!!! I think normal payment for an HOUR of ordinary work is about $6-$8 in Finland.) So currently I'm a bit lazy with Internet but I still read everything in here. /Mikko From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Wed Oct 5 19:03:50 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 94 19:03:50 +0100 Subject: The Disney comics database Message-ID: <9410051803.AA08560@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> The "index" directory at the ftp archive of the list now contains the new extended improved index files. Here Harry has gathered more or less every Disney comics index we have had on this list in a single framework. Thanks a lot, Harry! For the first time the source form of the indeces are there too, in the "index/original" directory, and Harry's programs to make readable index files out of those in the "index/src" directory. But the normal way to use this would be to only look at the files in the "index" directory. The indeces include listings of all comics and covers by Carl Barks, Don Rosa, and William Van Horn; information on where a story with a specific code was (re)printed; listings of story by story in the comics issued by Gladstone and Disney Comics, and also lots of older Western stories, as well as Dutch and Swedish Disney comics. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From gerstein at math.ucsb.edu Wed Oct 5 20:10:42 1994 From: gerstein at math.ucsb.edu (Larry Gerstein) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 11:10:42 -0800 Subject: David Gerstein's mailing address Message-ID: <199410051810.AA00365@math.ucsb.edu> Dear Gang, My son David will be spending the academic year in Edinburgh, Scotland, and he expects to have an e-mail address within a couple of weeks. When that happens, I'll forward to him the various e-mail communications (Disney digest #33456789876543, etc.) that have been appearing on my computer since he left California on September 19. His regular mailing address is now as follows: David Gerstein Masson House Pollock Halls 18 Holyrood Park Rd. Edinburgh EH16 5AY Scotland I'm sure he'll be happy to hear from you. Best wishes, Larry Gerstein gerstein at math.ucsb.edu From jonlo at ifi.uio.no Wed Oct 5 19:47:12 1994 From: jonlo at ifi.uio.no (Jon Cato Lorentzen) Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 19:47:12 +0100 Subject: DONNA ? Message-ID: <199410051847.24116.sognsvann.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Hi all! On the latest issue of DDA (#29, I think), Don has drawn a cover with Donald guiding a bus over a wooden bridge. While looking at the drawing, I suddenly noticed some letters hidden in one of the wooden boards of the bridge. First I thought it was a D.U.C.K., but I soon discovered that the letters seemed to spell DONNA.... Don, could you indulge us in the secrets these letters represent? :) -Jon Cato Lorentzen From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Thu Oct 6 04:41:38 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 05 Oct 94 23:41:38 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #453. Message-ID: <941006034137_72260.2635_EHB93-1@CompuServe.COM> JON: Donna is the wife of a friend of mine who asked for this hiding job as a surprize for her. I sure hope the name isn't too poorly hidden to be obnoxiously obvious! But I don't guess it's too obvious, since "Donna" is hidden on that cover a total of THREE times. From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Thu Oct 6 17:08:12 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 16:08:12 +0000 Subject: I'm back! Message-ID: <3785FA5199@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Hi, folks! It's been a while, but finally I'm set up here at the University of Edinburgh in the home country of a certain well-known miser. It's about time. Went through some chaos getting the system started, but all should now be working! I also have a new mail address. It differs somewhat from that which I've sent to a few of you before. It is: David Gerstein Room 133, Masson House, Pollock Halls 18 Holyrood Park Rd. Edinburgh EH16 5AY Scotland (Geir Hasnes may have already sent a package to the address I gave earlier; it should reach me anyway. Please, Geir, if you can, I'd like to hear from you soon about the status of the Gottfredson stuff we've spoken of.) Ah, the Disney situation here? Fleetway's version of the Egmont weekly is titled MICKEY AND FRIENDS. It has only 32 pages plus covers. Since Mickey is taken as the most popular Disney character here, if there is a Mickey story in the issue, it is first inside. There are a LOT of "fun and games" pages, manufactured very clumsily from Egmont clip art by Fleetway (only the scenery is drawn fresh for these pages, and it's done very badly). Most of the covers are Mau Heymans Dutch covers, for some reason; they certainly look good. And a little large; the comic is as big as the volumes of the hardback Carl Barks Library as published by Another Rainbow, so copies can simply not be found in mint condition. Undoubtedly the most exciting thing I found in my first British weekly (number 39/1994) was -- drumroll, please -- my first Egmont story! Yep, I'm excited to announce that "Two in One" (D93138) is my own creation, and I couldn't be happier with how Daniel Branca drew it. I'd like to know what issues this story has appeared in in other European countries. More important, I'd also be tickled to know how the title -- and Magica's incantation at the bottom of page two -- translates in other languages. The British also did a bit of translating on my story. The longest balloons were condensed now and then. All references to Old Number One as a "dime" were removed, it is now merely a "coin". I wonder how they deal with references to that dime when "DuckTales" is broadcast here! Last, the British weekly isn't exactly what I'd call popular. I have only found one newsagent from about twenty that stock it in town here. Some don't seem to know it exists. Fleetway also publishes a Bugs Bunny monthly, which is more obvious around here. And WHY aren't Disney comics more popular here? Simple -- from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s none were even published here. Just as Whitman's non-distribution from the late '60s to the 1980s wrecked so much of the market here, the same was the case in Britain! (Not for Bugs Bunny though -- you get the idea.) * * * * * When I was in Germany, by contrast, the world seemed inundated with Disney, Barks, Gottfredson, and Rosa materials. For Donald's 60th, Ehapa published a special album (unique to it). They ladled on the hoopla about how, as with their Rosa LO$ albums and their Gladstone CBL-album translations, they have handlettered the dialogue rather than typing it. They also, for the first time anywhere (?) obliterated ALL references to Disney anywhere and put an artist credit in the first panel of each story in the album. So we have "Donald Duck in A Day Like No Other [The Duck Who Never Was] by Don Rosa." Not bad. Same goes for Barks' Milkman story (presented there for the first time in Germany), some Vicar story (also published earlier in the year for the 60th) and Volker Reiche's "Sorry, Sorry Knight." These same artists are headlined across the top of the cover like credits on a movie poster. On the other hand, there is a grievous error amid all of this. The cover also credits William Van Horn (actually named for the first time ever in Germany, I think), and two short gag stories inside credit him on the first panels. But -- but -- these are H-coded MAU HEYMANS stories! What a disaster. Since this is the first time Van Horn's name has ever appeared in Germany, he and Heymans are destined to be confused forever there, I think. What a mess. Also in Germany I found a comic fanzine which discussed Barks' visit to Germany. A long interview was transcribed. Barks was asked about his feelings on Rosa, and he said (translated): "Don Rosa is a master of details. I think he had a great upbringing from people who have an eye for detailed work -- and shadowed work. He doesn't exactly draw in the traditional Disney style; he has his own style. There will be (sic) a great following of people who admire these Don Rosa ducks." Barks really praises Rosa, and that was where that louse (better word than weasel) Grandey cut into the discussion (for the only time!) to say that Rosa had "more of an 'underground' style." That effectively changed the subject. My opinion can easily be guessed, although it's not exactly printable. What do you think of this, Don? I, myself, think that it may not have been Barks' decision at all to avoid you in Atlanta. Just my opinion. My new E-Mail address should be at the top of this letter. Please, Per, begin sending Digests to this address, and you can stop sending them to the old address. Maybe you can also send ME a copy of my new address -- this darned program I'm using gives me no indication what the address IS, just mentions that it will be appended to my letters. Glad to be back! David Gerstein From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Fri Oct 7 03:59:22 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 06 Oct 94 22:59:22 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #454. Message-ID: <941007025922_72260.2635_EHB248-1@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: Yes, I knew you'd be interested in knowing that your Magica story was in the mainland Disney editions, but I didn't know when you'd pop up on the Digest. The story was in the #39 issues for Sept. 29... perhaps the same week as the British use? The story title is "Dobbelt-heksen" and the incantation is "dobbelthex!" Is that "double hex" or just a coincidental similarity in sound? Oh, sure, I knew that the anti-Rosa slant of all of Barks' European interviews was mostly or entirely the work of the Weasel. One of the reasons that so many reporters send me copies of the interviews where I'm mentioned seeking an explanation is that the Weasel is so awkward and obvious in his manipulation of the interview to attack me. A French reporter sent me another one just last week; the interview goes on in a normal way, discussing all the topics you would expect, then when it was over, the Weasel pipes up and tells the reporter that there's one more thing he should hear, then turns to Barks and asks "Carl, what do you think about the sequels to your stories that Don Rosa does?" -- Barks will then be prodded until he says something about how his stories did not need sequels (and of course they don't), and then the Weasel takes it in hand to add that my artwork and storytelling is poor, etc., etc. Sure, it's quite obvious to the reporters that Barks is manipulated on that subject, that's why they inform me of so much of it. This reporter told me that he later talked to Barks in private, and he said that he liked my stories just fine and there was room for all styles. He also said that he never drew the Ducks to conform to Disney's "style" either, so why should I. I know what's going on -- the proper party will pay the piper. From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri Oct 7 11:17:35 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 94 11:17:35 +0100 Subject: More ftp news Message-ID: <9410071017.AA07628@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> As of now there are also new versions of two files Fredrik sent me: * "van-horn.index" with the William Van Horn index, and * "characters/interlingual" with the listing of what various Disney characters are named in a whole bunch of languages. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no Fri Oct 7 10:45:35 1994 From: Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no (Knut Hunstad) Date: Fri, 07 Oct 1994 11:45:35 +0200 Subject: The Trojan Horse++ Message-ID: <199410071045.AA17535@vegnett.veg.sintef.no> I received DD&Co. 41 yesterday and read the second part of the Trojan Horse story. After a somewhat slow first part I liked the second part better. All in all I think it's a quite OK story. Only major minus IMO, is that it ends to sudden. There is no big fight with the BB. Somehow I also feel that too many of the clues about what's going on are "spelled out" too much, taking away some of the excitement about what's going to happen. And I can't quite say I like Van Horn's style. Difficult to describe precisely, but there's something about the facial expressions which I feel isn't quite "right". I know Don's style is quite different from Barks' also, but I still feel he draws them "right". But to repeat myself: all in all it's a story above the average (average meaning the typical DD&Co. story from recent years). And I know that I often like a story better after reading it a few times over some time span, so I might end up upgrading my review in a couple of months... BTW, noone has commented on my question about Ducks and teeth yet... Other stories in DD&Co. 41: D93392: "Effektiv hypnose"- "Effective hypnosis": a story where MM hypnotizes Goofy. Kind of slapstick-humour with different situations occuring when MM succeeds to hypnotize Goofy. OK story, but also here I feel it ends to sudden. And it's historically incorrect, as Goofy can't be hypnotized according to a lot older story (sorry, don't have the reference here, but it's MM who gets visited by his (claimed) Uncle and Ant. They go to a lot of parties where jewelry gets stolen. Goofy is the big hero because the villain can't hypnotize him.). H8235: "Den soete kloe"-"The sweet itch": DD and Gladstone compete to invite Dolly out for dinner by returning with the cleanest sweater. OK story, but what happened to DD's dog, Bolivar? Here the nephews and DD have another dog who is important in the story. But I must say it annoys me a little that a writer has to "invent" a new dog as long as good, old Bolivar could have played the same role! D92319: "Kamera gaar!"-"The camera is running!": Continuation story about U$ getting tricked by a "film team". Where is his nose for detecting con men? Here he is writing checks for million of dollars without hesitation... One-pager: KF 11-18-73: Mickey and Pluto. And now, back to work... Knut Hunstad From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Fri Oct 7 13:12:58 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 12:12:58 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #454. Message-ID: <4B9B42158B@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, I have even more to say today, and there's gonna be more after my Dad forwards to me all the Disney Digests that were sent his way after I left for Scotland! First, thanks, Don, for explaining those "Donnas" on DDA 29. I sure wondered about them. I always wondered if one day you would put someone else's name on there. Back when I drew my own comic I sometimes stuck my own name on the cover -- in Hebrew! Also -- what is the cover you drew for the Scarpa "lentil" story? Did you go with that idea I told you of? I was lazy, and didn't end up sending you a drawing of my idea, so I have no idea if you chose to use my idea, or not. Just before I left Santa Barbara I spoke with John Clark. He told me he would order the Fethry/Moe hog-calling story from Disney, but he had no proof that they would send it to him -- their archive of S and X-coded stories is apparently quite disorganized. Also I'm excited to announce that three of my foreign dialogues are coming up. The Lentil story I mentioned (in USA 30-32) has my English appended to it; then I also did the English for Ben Verhagen's "Car-Gone Conclusion" (DDA 31) and Vicar's "Case of Too Much Money" (US 291, I think). I pretty much like my work on the first two, looking back at them -- the third is no classic, but at least all right. And I hope you'll think the second two stories, regardless of my work on them, have good plots; unlike the folks at Gladstone, I can read a foreign language and thus am able to CHOOSE which foreign stories I'm going to work on -- I don't merely get things sent to me by Gladstone. Although that sometimes causes problems; after someone mentioned a "good Mau Heymans story about luck" last spring, I rooted out that story -- something about a mountain shaped like an hourglass -- and submitted my own version, entitled "By Hourglass Piqued" only to find out that someone had done it BEFORE me. Was that you, Dwight? What did you call the story? I'll sure be interested to see your version, if you indeed did that one. Knowing you it ought to be good ;-) In an old issue of the Egmont monthly from 1979, I found a Rota I-coded story with Andold Wild Duck which, I believe, was done long before any of the others we have known up to now. I believe it must be the first one ever made. Donald slams his head on a fallen board and HALLUCINATES about being his earlier ancestor; the story tells how Andold (here without the little duck on top of the helmet which mimics him) met his sidekick Bo and went off in search of adventure. When Donald wakes up in the end, he meets Bo's modern day equivalent, his new postman (who I'll call Ob, although his name's different in German), and is completely dumbstruck to discover that the first bit of mail he's getting from him is an invitation to a Viking exhibition at Duckburg's museum. The German versions of Andold stories raise some VERY interesting questions. This one appeared first, and Andold was called "McDonald." The later ones apparently appeared in digests in Germany, and a letterwriter to Gladstone mentioned that there Andold was "Sir Donnerbold von Duckenburgh." In modern German comics, Andold is Sir Donald McDuck (remember, McDuck is not a common last name there, where Scrooge's last name is also Duck). It's that second name, though, that's most interesting. You see, in the German version of "The Old Castle's Secret" SIR QUACKLY is Donnerbold von Duckenburgh! So: FABIO, in Italian, are Andold and Sir Quackly one and the same? If so, it adds a lot more meaning to why Marco Rota decided to create this entire scenario. Also, speaking of Italian stories, I found Sergio Asteriti's "Mickey Mouse, Court Troubador" (a new pie-eyed Mickey story, which we talked about here a while back) in German. It is GREAT and I will try to get John Clark to run it. DDA 29 was the first Gladstone I have gotten in Europe. "Tour de Jour" was pretty good, I thought, and the dialogue had a very original flavor to it. I do wish that people would stop doing stories about Donald entering raffles. Either he loses again in the end, or wins something that isn't worth having. It's just a little predictable. Then, meanwhile, I found "Stampede and Deliver" to be absolutely the best Van Horn story since 1991, and I have a hunch that this is because John Lustig had a hand in it. This is also the first story since 1990 to involve Neighbor Jones in a major role, I believe. Don -- do you plan to use him again? Haven't seen him for a long, long time in your stories. Well, I must be off, folks. But I'll be back! David Gerstein "I'm the Fuller Brush Man! I'm givin' g'way free semple!" <9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk> From dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com Fri Oct 7 16:22:14 1994 From: dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com (Frank DiCapua) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:22:14 -0500 (EDT) Subject: Where's D.U.C.K> Message-ID: <9410071422.AA14129@giris7.pfizer.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1325 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941007/87c2dda0/attachment.pl From deckerd at agcs.com Fri Oct 7 16:57:45 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 94 08:57:45 MST Subject: Translating Dutch Duck stories Message-ID: <9410071557.AA05759@gtephx.com> David Gerstein just asked if I had translated a Dutch Disney comics story involving an hourglass-shaped mountain. Nope. I have no idea who would have been responsible for working on that story. I have done some Dutch Duck stories recently, though. Harry Fluks knew exactly which one I meant when I made the briefest of references to a 25-page story involving Donald's pirate ancestor. There was also a 25-page story dealing with Scrooge's effort to find the lost treasure of an Egyptian pharaoh named "Gaos" (which I rendered "Khaos"); in that story there was a camel driver named Kemal, whose name I changed to "Kheno ben Rhosa" -- don't know if it will survive editing though. And now I'm working on a 39-page Italian Mickey Mouse "which-way" story (i.e., at key plot points, the reader can decide how to resolve them, leading to about six different possible endings). But no hourglass-shaped mountains in the lot, I'm afraid. --Dwight Decker From mas at cs.bu.edu Fri Oct 7 18:47:16 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:47:16 -0400 Subject: Lo$ V In-Reply-To: <9410071422.AA14129@giris7.pfizer.com> (dicapuaf@giris7.pfizer.com) Message-ID: <199410071747.NAA05080@csa.bu.edu> I also just read Life of Scrooge part 5 - forgive me if this has already been asked from when the story was printed overseas, but in the last panel, Scrooge looks out into the sunrise and sees a rainbow! We all know from elementary school that the sun has to be *behind* you in order to see a rainbow. Was this an accident on Don's part, or artistic license? From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sat Oct 8 04:29:08 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 07 Oct 94 23:29:08 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #455. Message-ID: <941008032908_72260.2635_EHB257-2@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: No, I didn't use your idea for the Lentil cover since you never sent a sketch of it and I couldn't recall the details (though I seem to recall it was rather "vertical" with the Beagles at the top, and I didn't know how to fit them up there where the logo is. Keep in mind how difficult it is to show Beagles and Ducks in the same scene -- non-Duck characters are so much LARGER than the Ducks that it's always very difficult to show the Ducks big enough with the "people" small enough. You may never have noticed how rarely Barks ever showed full-figure Ducks and people in the same scene. I never hesitate to do so, and I also never hesitate to decide that I've drawn the "people" too small or squat when unsuccessfully dealing with the problem. Anyway, I still need to do a SECOND lentil cover for part 3. Describe your idea to me again. "Sir Donald McDuck"? I had a Sir Donald McDuck in my first draft of the first chapter of the "Lo$", when it dealt a great deal with the entire history of the McDuck family; I rewote it all when I was told that I had too much McDuck and too little $crooge. Why do I no longer use Neighbor Jones? Because I no longer do the short "gag" stories where Donald stays around the house and does slapstick hijinx. FRANK: Don't go nuts trying to find the "D.U.C.K." in all my covers and splash panels. The Barks camp knocked the willingness outta me to do that so freely as I used to. Now I only put it in covers based on one of his stories, or in my stories that are sequels and the accompanying covers (including the "Lo$" series). Other than that, I can't see a reason for it. I'm sure this confuses readers no end, but... My version of the afterlife you see in the "Lo$" part V -- I'm sure you don't lose sight of the fact that this is only a comic book, right? I hope you don't really think that *I* think that people in "heaven" stand around on clouds and talk. But I never intended to imply that even in this comic version that everyone there was playing golf for all eternity -- that is just what the Scottish folks were doing that moment. Maybe the Irish folks were getting drunk, the Italian folk were doing something else -- heck, I dunno. (But, of course, that version of "heaven" is as accurate and sensible as any other I've ever heard of.) MARK: Yes, I purposely had the sun out of place in order to show the dawn and the rainbow in the same scene. But you're the second person to have found that so noticeable -- I didn't think most readers would spot that so readily. I could so easilly have asked Gladstone to drop the sun orb out of the shot in their reprinting. Oh, well... From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sun Oct 9 13:48:18 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 09 Oct 94 08:48:18 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #456. Message-ID: <941009124818_72260.2635_EHB5-1@CompuServe.COM> As a follow up to the matter of someone who was puzzled by my version of heaven in Lo$ V, I finally got my copy of that issue, and while reading all those lovely letters in the letter column, I couldn't fail to notice one reader who said they liked Lo$ II better than I (one) because it wasn't sullied by all those supernatural beings and ghosts. Now, is this because this reader knew that Barks never seemed to deal with ghosts? This is quite true, and a legitimate gripe if I'm supposed to do stories EXACTLY like Barks did them (which I can't and never will try, since I'm not Barks, I'm only a little bit Barks). I personally love to mess with ghosts in stories, as some of my very favorite movies deal with ghosts and such... like WONDERFUL LIFE, GHOST & MRS. MUIR, BISHOP'S WIFE, UNINVITED, THE HAUNTING, etc., etc., as well as the movie that Lo$ V was besed on, A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH (a.k.a. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN)(which hasn't been seen on TV for over 20 years due to a legal hassle). Anyway, I'm just wondering if these people are adverse to seeing ghosts in comics because Barks never used them, or are there radical religious fundamentalists in the woodwork? I mean, I'm well aware of the fact that there are people who think if you watch BEWITCHED or I DREAM OF JEANNIE or read LIL' HOT STUFF and CASPER you're gonna burn in hellfire for all eternity since these are occult TV shows and comics designed by covens of witches to corrupt the souls of humanity. (I may sound facetious, but there are religious groups who actually believe this, word for word! I've seen their literature.) So, every time I use the Ghost of Sir Quackly, exactly who is it that's objecting? (Wait till they see chapter IX!) From mas at cs.bu.edu Sun Oct 9 16:17:33 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 11:17:33 -0400 Subject: Disney-comics digest #456. Message-ID: <199410091519.LAA20746@csa.bu.edu> From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at compuserve.com> > <...> So, every >time I use the Ghost of Sir Quackly, exactly who is it that's >objecting? (Wait till they see chapter IX!) I like your stories with ghosts in them. (and I also like the movies you listed!) Perhaps the people who complain are doing so because they don't think ghosts are realistic and therefore don't find your stories believable... :-) From deckerd at agcs.com Sun Oct 9 16:56:18 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Sun, 9 Oct 94 08:56:18 MST Subject: Ghosts in Disney comics Message-ID: <9410091556.AA06669@gtephx.com> It was interesting to read Don Rosa's remarks on ghosts in his Life of Scrooge series. I suppose it might be argued that in a story about talking ducks, ghosts aren't that much of a stretch. Still, I did have a nagging feeling in the latest Scrooge chapter to appear here that the use of ghosts was a bit much and the scenes of a Scottish golf-course heaven almost too comic-burlesque. The fine line that has to be walked in this instance is keeping the ghosts from helping Scrooge too much, so that he solves his problems by his own wits instead of relying too much on supernatural assistance, and keeping Scrooge's life from starting to sound so predestined that he achieved his success by luck or spectral intervention rather than by his own efforts. All in all, I think Rosa's Life of Scrooge is a remarkable achievement despite my occasional quibbles, and I'm glad he's taking advantage of a unique-in-Disney-history opportunity to do it. About three years ago, when Disney Comics was still publishing Scrooge, I translated a two-part Italian story ("The Money Ocean"). Somebody else polished the dialogue so I wasn't officially credited, but I was the one who supplied the raw translation. Anyway, I was curious about reader response, but Disney Comics got rather erratic about then about letter columns. The only major direct reader comment I remember seeing about the story came from a lady in North Dakota, and she mainly wrote in to complain about the use of a witch in the story (Magica de Spell). The lady seemed sincerely convinced that if children saw witches in popular media like comic books, they would be softened up for any Satanist recruiters who came by. The editor, David Seidman wrote a conciliatory reply that was a lot more diplomatic than I would have been. Well, with my own occasionally published black and white independent comic Rhudiprrt, one of the major characters is the Egyptian cat goddess Bast. I exchanged a couple of letters with a fundamentalist Christian fan who was extremely upset about pagan goddesses appearing in a comic book he wanted to like. He was almost tearfully begging me to "explain" Bast as an Angel of the Lord in charge of the Feline Affairs Department, but some deluded fools mistakenly believed she was a goddess in her own right. Sorry, pal. This is my comic book and what I say goes. And what I say is that she's a goddess. I almost hated to disappoint the guy, since he was trying so hard to like my modest little funnybook, but I can't please everybody. And Don Rosa doubtless feels the same way, so there you have it! --Dwight Decker From rivers at seismo.CSS.GOV Sun Oct 9 19:17:32 1994 From: rivers at seismo.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Sun, 9 Oct 94 14:17:32 EDT Subject: ghosts in Disney comics Message-ID: <9410091817.AA22446@beno.CSS.GOV> Dwight Decker writes: > The fine line that has to be walked in this instance is > keeping the ghosts from helping Scrooge too much, so > that he solves his problems by his own wits instead of > relying too much on supernatural assistance Ah, but that gets us back to the original source material, as discussed on this group last year - namely Dicken's/Mickey's (take your pick) "Christmas Carol". Ghosts play a very large part in the life of Ebeneezer/Scrooge! I haven't seen LO$ # 5 yet - my comics store hasn't received it, as of yesterday - but it would seem appropriate for ghosts to make an appearance there, given that LO$ # 1 has a lot in common with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow! (Which is just another examples of ghosts in Disney cartoons, if not in Bark's stories.) As for the fundamentalists who object to supernatural elements in Disney comics, they should be forced to watch all the witch cartoons such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the fairy cartoons such as Peter Pan, the ghost cartoons such as Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia, ad infinitum. Then, when they write their protest letters to the Powers That Be in Disney, they won't single out the comic books as the root of all evil. Anyway, these people probably regard the very concept of a talking duck as blasphemy. Wilmer Rivers From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Sun Oct 9 23:05:08 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 23:05:08 +0100 Subject: I'm back! In-Reply-To: "DAVID.A.GERSTEIN"'s message of 6 Oct 1994 17:22:23 +0100 Message-ID: <199410092205.16485.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> David: > Undoubtedly the most exciting thing I found in my first British >weekly (number 39/1994) was -- drumroll, please -- my first Egmont >story! WOW! So that was your story. I like it. It's not often we see anything new in a Magica story, but I can't remember seeing her copying herself before (lots of other thing though...). The fight between Magica and her copy (den bleike heksekloningen) is incredible. Also the story has a funny gag (I'm not sure what to call it) at the ending, and that's not too usual nowadays. I like Branca's art too, but as usual (always), the Egmont coloring isn't too good. It hasn't been since they changed to gloss paper in 1962. In Norway (DD&Co 39) the story is called 'Dobbelt sa effektiv' (the 'a' in 'sa' is an 'a' with a ring, that's a Norwegian letter (I wish everybody could use ISO 8859-1...)). It means something like 'Twice as effective'. The dime is, as always, called 'Lykketioringen'. The incantation on bottom of page two is 'dobbeltheks' which means 'double hex' (do you have a Swedish copy, Don?). BTW, David. How did you start writing for Egmont, and when will we see your next story? Also in this issue is a four pages Gyro Gearloose story, where he saves the earth from a meteor (D93436). An 8 pages Donald Duck story where Daisy is a fan of a famous adventurer, and Donald tries to impress her, to show he is at least as good (there we go again) (D91425). One of those awful stories about Mickey, Goofy and that transport company. Bad story, bad art (D92280). This is the first part of a continuation story. The last one is a one-pager with Donald (KF 11-24-46). In addition this issue included a reprint of 'Spesialhefte nr. 1 1954'. These specials were monthly, I think. I have the original issue in my collection. I'm trying to find the English title, but lysita seems a little unreachable tonight... Oh, well. The Norwegian title is 'Den smarte Onkel Skrue.' That is 'Uncle Scrooge, the clever' or something like that. The Beagle Boys build a house next to the money bin, and plan to drill a hole into the bin (you know why). Before they get to finish that, US moves all his money to a lake, put the bills in jars, and put them into the lake. When the BB try to find out what went wrong, one of them go for a fishing trip... It's a great story. One of my fathers favourites. He especially likes the panel where the dam breaks. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Sun Oct 9 23:46:31 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 23:46:31 +0100 Subject: The Trojan Horse++ In-Reply-To: Knut.Hunstad@veg.sintef.no's message of 7 Oct 1994 11:49:44 +0100 Message-ID: <199410092246.17778.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Knut: >And it's historically incorrect, as Goofy can't be >hypnotized according to a lot older story (sorry, don't have the reference >here, but it's MM who gets visited by his (claimed) Uncle and Ant. It's years since I read that story, but yes, you're right. I think they claim to be Minnies relatives though. She gets quite insulted when Mickey is trying to tell her that there is something strange going on. In Norway this story is published in one of the big 'Jeg' books. 'Vi Mikke & Minni', I think. Anyway, it's not that long since I read the 'Sinister Sorcerer' by Bill Wright (he is the artist, at least). - Now you are completely in my power... you will obey my commands... Listen closely... - Oh, yeah? Beat it bub... y' bother me! - Why, I read somewhere that subnormal... er, heh! heh! I mean, people with _special_ kinds of minds _can't_ be hypnotized! - Huh? Oh, yuh mean _I_ got one o' them _special minds_, Mickey? - Yes... there probably aren't over half-a-dozen minds like yours in the whole world, Goofy! - Uh-haw! Always knew there wuz somep'n _different_ about me! - Relax... you are very tired... very sleepy! - Thuh heck I am.. yuh can't hypnertize _me_! I got a _special_ mind! Over to something else. David found a Rota story in an Egmont monthly from 1979. I remember that story. Mostly because it's one of the very few good (IMHO) stories that are published in this magazine. I whish they could put those 'Zoom'-or-whatever-it-was stories into it instead of the weekly, if they _have_ to publish them. I think I've got to copies of that particular issue, BTW, but one of them is in very bad shape. That reminds me of a question I planned to ask. In 79 the Norwegian monthly was called 'Donald Duck spesial'. In 1980 its name changed to 'Mikke Mus'. The change took place over two issues. On the first one Mickey is remiving the title 'Donald Duck Spesial', and Donald is of course wondering what is going on. Mickey explains to him that it's going to be his magazine, because he has never had an own title. On the next one, Donald is leaving carrying the old title, and whishing Mickey good luck. Now to the question. Did this happen in the other Egmont countries as well, or was this a Norwegian phenomenon? BTW, before 'Donald Duck Spesial', it was called 'Walt Disneys M?neds- blad' (Walt Disneys monthly magazines). It changed its name to 'Donald Duck Spesial' in 75 or 76. I've got just a few of these. They contain (as far as I remember) only Italian stories, and not good ones. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) Ah, yes. Maybe I should put something here too. I've had this in my .plan for a while now: - I'm Mickey Mouse, and this is Goofy. - Yes, isn't it? From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Mon Oct 10 00:31:29 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 00:31:29 +0100 Subject: credits, and 'Onkel Dagoberts Schatzruhe' Message-ID: <199410092331.18082.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> That little 'Re:' in the subject line of my previous letters seems to have disappeared somewhere... Well, this is not a response to anything, I think :) A few years ago the Norwegian weekly DD&Co had credits for all stories. Writer and artist. It was usually placed under the first panel of each story. Must have been at about the same time DD&Co got its present editor. What happened? Did someone tell him he wasn't allowed to do that? And something else. In a very early posting Harry mentions a series of German Uncle Scrooge comics ("Abenteuer aus Onkel Dagoberts Schatztruhe"). In Norway these (seven of them) where published as parts of the album series 'Beste Historier om Donald Duck & Co' (Best stories of Donald Duck & Co). Did anyone ever find out who made these stories. I think they are good, both art and story. In Norway a couple of these were even published in Nynorsk. Nynorsk is one of the two versions of Norwegian (the other one, which is the one most of the population use, is Bokmal). Harry also mentioned another album series, about cars. One of these were published in Norway sometime in the late 80s. Lots of Mercedes... I am working on a WWW catalog of my collection, and I plan to put into it information about writers/artists. To do that with more than 2000 magazines is quiet a job, so I think I will start with the albums. There are fewer of them :-) Tryg: >Mattias: >>* "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! * >>************** A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" ************* > >I like your new signature line. Hope it doesn't cause an avalanche or >anything like that... :) I like it too. That was the first Barks story I ever read :) It's in 'Beste Historier om Donald Duck & Co #4'. My father bought it for me. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) - But, golly, I didn't know Mickey knew any lions! From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Mon Oct 10 06:36:58 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 10 Oct 94 01:36:58 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. Message-ID: <941010053658_72260.2635_EHB148-1@CompuServe.COM> DWIGHT: My scenes in "heaven" were a little silly? Oh, sure they were, I guess. Sometimes I think my stories get too serious and bogged down in detail and authenticity and I'm not silly enough. And of course, I'll always do sillier stuff than you'd see in a Barks story, since I'm a product of a childhood spent reading Barks, Will Elder/Harvey Kurtzman, and watching old movies on TV. But if those scenes were somewhat too goofy for you, keep in mind that I intended to always be able to claim that entire sequence was a dream of $crooge's oxygen starved brain. I'm still trying to figure out how to explain that floating sword though. Swamp gas? JORGEN: As we probably discussed on here some time back, yes, the Norwegian (in fact, most ALL the Egmont editions) began listing full artist/writer credits soon after I went to work for them. But Disney forced them to stop. In fact, your Norwegian editor told me he was refusing to let Disney dictate such unreasonable policies to him which were, in point of fact, even illegal by Scandanavian law. But apparently Disney has ways of getting their way, because Norway did finally drop the credits. As it's been explained to me (not by Egmont, since they won't discuss it officially) there is also a Scandanavian law that says that writers and artists credited in print for published material are part owners of their work, and Disney naturally chose THIS as the more important law and more worthy of violation. Why was your message titled "Trojan Horse"? You didn't mention any Trojan Horse. From Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no Mon Oct 10 07:44:36 1994 From: Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no (Knut Hunstad) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 08:44:36 +0200 Subject: Ghosts in Disney comics Message-ID: <199410100744.AA23329@vegnett.veg.sintef.no> Hi, everyone! >From Dwight Decker: ... >The fine line that has to be walked in this instance is >keeping the ghosts from helping Scrooge too much, so >that he solves his problems by his own wits instead of >relying too much on supernatural assistance, and keeping >Scrooge's life from starting to sound so predestined that >he achieved his success by luck or spectral intervention >rather than by his own efforts. ... I would agree with you if it weren't for the little extra touch where the Ducks in heaven find out that it wouldn't have made any difference. If the first of the ghosts (McQuack?) hadn't tried helping him the lightning would have... which suddenly reminds me that of course that is also a case of (super?)natural assistance (at least it can't be regarded as solving his own problems...). But at least it means that he would have survived without the ghosts (or how could we know they where right about the lightning if they didn't exist outside U$'s mind?)... Oh, let's not get too hung up in realism here! I thought the ghost part was really enjoyable, although quite unusual. And I don't feel a little luck on the way ruins the impression of U$ beeing mostly responsible for his success himself. Knut Hunstad From Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se Mon Oct 10 10:27:06 1994 From: Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se (Mattias Hallin) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 10:27:06 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Mon, 10 Oct 1994 01:33:36 +0100" <9410100033.AA16996@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <01HI3WMNWPVO8WW7GH@castor.ldc.lu.se> JORGEN: I'm sure someone told you already (I'm on the digests, you know); but the U$ story you outlined is of course "Only A Poor Old Man". And *thank you* for complimenting my .sig! Much obliged, I'm sure! As I told Tryg, too, it's kinda neat since it comprises two of my major interests: music and Barks! All my best to all of you! Mattias **** Mattias Hallin ** Lund * Sweden ** **** * * * "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! * ************** A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" ************* From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 10 11:39:50 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 10:39:50 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #435. Message-ID: <921006425D@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, James Williams on "Danger Island" (USA 29): > I'll be blunt, I thought it was the worst Uncle Scrooge story > I've ever read. First, I thought the whole topic was very > un-Disney. Second, I thought that Scrooge was portrayed > totally out of character. He was treated as an old and nearly > helpless man. The only reason he survived is because the > nephews were so smart and resourcefull. This Scrooge McDuck > was not "smarter then the smarties" nor was he "tougher than > the toughies". Third, there is one scene early on where Scrooge > is trying to hide from the dogs and complains about the fact > that it is hopeless because he doesn't have a gun. This is > suppose to be Scrooge McDuck, not the Punisher. Fourth, Scrooge's > line where he warns that he has an itchy trigger finger was probably > the single most uncharactristic line I've ever heard him mutter. Gawrsh! So Scrooge was too weak at first, but too tough-minded later? I actually kinda liked this story. I didn't find it uncharacteristic for a Disney story, either; the villain in fact was pleasantly reminiscent of the Phantom Blot (as well as his mentor General Zaroff, or whatever his name was). I'll be back, folks! David Gerstein From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 10 11:53:52 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 10:53:52 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #449. Message-ID: <924B37063B@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Regarding Dick Moores: > The first story he both wrote, drew and lettered was Jose Carioca in > WDC&S #44. His "The Wonderful Whizzix" was reprinted recently in WDC&S. In fact, the Jose Carioca story appears in WDC&S #50 (which I don't have, but I borrowed a friend's copy and read it). #44 has a story about "Little Minnehaha" (Hiawatha's girlfriend) at that point in the issue. David Gerstein From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 10 12:22:26 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 11:22:26 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. Message-ID: <92C5211B86@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Andreas Bangor discussed my story "Two in One." > WOW! So that was your story. I like it. It's not often we see anything > new in a Magica story, but I can't remember seeing her copying herself > before (lots of other thing though...). Actually I was inspired by the very first Branca-drawn story I ever saw: "The Robot Raiders of Magica De Spell" (US 210, 1986). In that one, Magica invented robots that looked like her. She stole the dime, but when she left the bin with it, all her robots (which hid around the edges of the bin) started running as well, and the Ducks had to split up and chase each one. A pretty good story -- I LOVED it at the time (and it was the first Magica story I had ever read). But as the years passed, I began thinking of how much better the tale would have been if those robots had been able to think, and if they had actually done something other than merely function as props. Out of that grew "Two in One." > Also the story has a funny gag (I'm not sure what to > call it) at the ending, and that's not too usual nowadays. Glad you liked it. In English: "But you could use *another* shark! Double the effectiveness, you know!" "Double?! Did you say DOUBLE?" "That's what I said!" > BTW, David. How did you start writing for Egmont, and when will > we see your next story? I began writing letters to Disney Comics' letter columns in 1990. I then began to call Bob Foster and chat with him about the contents of coming issues. Finally I submitted a translated, rewritten Egmont story to him, which he liked. He bought three such rewrites from me (none of which have yet appeared -- Disney never printed them, but Gladstone inherited them and will use them in 1995). Then, when leaving Disney for Egmont, he promised to set me up there if I ever wanted to do original stories. So I stopped translating (only for a while -- when Gladstone started, I translated 15 more stories for them!) and began working for Egmont. "Two in One" went back and forth four times until they deemed it acceptable. The next one took two bouts with rewriting. After that, my stories have (so far) been making it at the first time, so I must be gaining experience! My second story is called "Pork-Barrel Politics." It is based on true stories of how pig-training was an easy way to make a mint of money in 19th-century English vaudeville. Donald has read a book about those events, so borrows three pigs -- Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer -- from Grandma's farm and commences training them. You'll just have to wait to see what happens, but I promise it ISN'T the least bit like you may expect. And the art is by Vicar. I'm guessing it will be published next spring, but I don't know when. And after "Pork-Barrel" I've done two more Donald stories and three Mickeys for Egmont. I absolutely love writing for Mickey, although it's harder to come up with something original for him than with other characters because the old Mickey-catches-the-crooks saw has been used so many times. So my first three Mickey stories are all 8-page humor tales -- I attempted to do Barks-style stories with Mickey, and you'll probably notice that a dead giveaway in my Mouse tales is that Goofy is not used (yet). But I'm getting ahead of myself here... > Knut: > >And it's historically incorrect, as Goofy can't be=20 > >hypnotized according to a lot older story (sorry, don't have the = > reference=20 > >here, but it's MM who gets visited by his (claimed) Uncle and Ant. > > It's years since I read that story, but yes, you're right. I think they > claim to be Minnies relatives though. She gets quite insulted when=20 > Mickey is trying to tell her that there is something strange going on. > In Norway this story is published in one of the big 'Jeg' books. > 'Vi Mikke & Minni', I think. Jorgen: This story is Gottfredson's "The Gleam" (1941). One of my all-time favorites. > Anyway, it's not that long since I read the 'Sinister Sorcerer' by=20 > Bill Wright (he is the artist, at least). Disney censorship at work again. The original title was "The Black Sorcerer" but Disney made Gladstone change it when they reprinted it (in MM 250, 1989). I don't care for this one so much -- Mickey is a rather boring character. > Ah, yes. Maybe I should put something here too. I've had this in my > .plan for a while now: > > - I'm Mickey Mouse, and this is Goofy. > - Yes, isn't it?=20 That's from "Island in the Sky," right? (Can't resist a challenge like that! ;-) Best, David Gerstein From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 10 12:48:55 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 11:48:55 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. Message-ID: <93372D18AA@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Someone mentioned the Mickey/Goofy "Zoom Transport" stories. It may interest you that production of these will soon grind almost to a halt, because Egmont's managment has come to regard them as formulaic and just not that good. And there's been another change over there. Just for fun, I came up with a Donald story idea involving Fethry. But they told me that I could not use Fethry, because they had decided that he was no longer to appear in their stories. Turns out that for years they have asked their writers to use him, and for years their writers have not wanted to. In fact, I personally have only seen a handful of Fethry stories from Egmont, all of them 1-pagers. By the way; I also found that 1992 "Secret of Shark Reef" story (in German) that includes Eli Squinch. Weird art. I think it was drawn by Esteban during his "recent" period (that is to say, Asterix-style art trying to burst out of a very straightlaced, forced-Murry style). Squinch was drawn in 1930s style complete with pie-eyes, while everyone else looks c. 1975. I can't say I really would like to see this one in English. By the way, next year Egmont's 8-page Mickeys are curtailled and regular production of 10-page Mickeys will take their place. The Mickey push continues over there. I'm all for it -- a tale of mine, with Sylvester Shyster as villain, may be the first I do in the new format. That's all for today, folks -- gotta be off. But I'll be back soon. BTW: I've seen Barks' recent painting "Picnic at Memory Pond" (or whatever it's called) for DD's 60th. What a mess. The hen from "Wise Little Hen" is included, but is only the size of an animal hen, not a person-hen, for some reason. Then Clarabelle and Horace are both included, presumably because Barks had thought they must have been in "The Wise Little Hen" as well (the foreword Barks wrote to one of the big white books indicates he never saw the cartoon). Barks sure can't paint very good versions of Clarabelle and Horace. And if he included them, why aren't Mickey and Minnie in on it too? (Yeah, Don, I know what you're thinking... ;-) All the best, folks. David Gerstein From bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no Mon Oct 10 11:48:03 1994 From: bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no (bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 11:48:03 +0100 Subject: Ghostly fundamentals Message-ID: <"3750 94/10/10 11:47*/G=bjorn-are/S=davidsen/OU=s/O=televerket/PRMD=tele/ADMD=TELEMAX/C=NO/"@MHS> Being rather heavily religious biased myself (I like it) I will try to make some fundamental comments on ghosts and fundamentalists. In general, I think much of the problem is outside the area of "fundamentalist beliefs supported by the Bible" and very much more into "cultural prejudices supported by a puritan tradition". This is not made any better by the main cultural prejudices concerning comics (both in the US and I guess in all of Scandanivia, at least in Norway), such as 1) They are for children and those in their early teens only 2) They should be sound and harmless and confirm in every part to the American way of life 3) They can't - and shouldn't if they could - deal with serious issues like life and death (and what comes after) Dwight wrote: >The lady seemed sincerely convinced that if children saw >witches in popular media like comic books, they would be >softened up for any Satanist recruiters who came by. It always puzzles me when someone seems to mean that witches (or other beings into or of the supernatural) could influence anyone negatively, just by being shown. Had they been shown as neat and nice ladies I could have understood it better, however it's long and far between positive portrayals of witches, ghouls, demons or pagan gods in literature. And when they are shown as good they seldom convinces anyone, although in children's literature there has been some nice kid vampires lately, without vampirism growing much in Norway. > I exchanged a couple of letters with a fundamentalist Christian fan >who was extremely upset about pagan goddesses appearing >in a comic book he wanted to like... How sad! He wil be missing a lot if not being able to enjoy Sandman, Lord of The Rings, Silmarillion, the Narnia series, the Dive Comedy, Arabian Knights or Norwegian Fairy Tales (highly recommended!) to mention but a few > This is my comic book and what I say goes. And what I say is that >she's a goddess. I almost hated to disappoint the guy, since he was >trying so hard to like my modest little funnybook, but I can't please >everybody. >And Don Rosa doubtless feels the same way, so there you have it! Keep on with your godesses! I think every author has the right to make stories about any kind of character! And that every reader, critic and other author have just as much right to critisise it (and try to make better stories) when those characters or stories does not ring "true" or may give a false picture of reality, paganism, godesses, cats or whatever. Wilmer wrote: >As for thefundamentalists who object to supernatural elements in Disney >comics,they should be forced to watch all the witch cartoons such as Snow >White and Sleeping Beauty, the fairy cartoons such as Peter Pan, the ghost >cartoons such as Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia, ad infinitum. >Then, when they write their protest letters to the Powers That Be in >Disney, they won't single out the comic books as the root of all evil. >Anyway, these people probably regard the very concept of a talking >duck as blasphemy. I agree with you in full, except for the last sentence. My experience is that they tend to really enjoy duck comics ("Donald Duck is so funny"), and to hate people comics (except for Asterix, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, which all perhaps more are in the vein of cartoon comics). Don: I think I (or at least Geir) commented upon this when Lo$ 5 appeared in Norway, however just to repeat myself (or Geir) I would like to say that I really enjoyed your story! It's great fun! And convenient for talking about death and the afterlife for one's children (who BTW are exposed a lot to these kind of things in other comics, children books, fairy tales and real life)! And I guess noone (except any Rosa fundamentalist camp) will take your portrayal of heaven serious (golfing and all that). To me it's the CONCEPT that's important. It's Heaven or not Heaven. It's not WHAT KIND OF which is being shown that makes my mind wander and wonder. Heaven is one of those things (like life) where it really is hard to say what it's all about, but where everyone has the right to think for themselves. Which of course, also includes the right to think as fundamentalists, or even as a none fundamentalist Christian, which incidentially is by far the most common kind of Christianity... I think (to go back to my historical lectures of last year) that art bashing has been very seldom in the Christian world the last couple of thousand years. I think the very few exceptions have been the iconoclasm in the Eastern Church in the 8th century and the puritan movement in the Protestant world in the 17th century. Now, where would USA have been without those Puritans? Bjo/rn Are Bjorn-Are.Davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no From revry at pen.k12.va.us Mon Oct 10 12:27:42 1994 From: revry at pen.k12.va.us (Ronald A. Evry) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 7:27:42 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. In-Reply-To: <9410100021.AA16769@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>; from "disney-comics@minsk.docs.uu.se" at Oct 10, 94 1:21 am Message-ID: <9410101127.AA222038@pen1.pen.k12.va.us> The ghosts in Lo$ were terrific for one very good reason: the sequence was the FUNNIEST so far in Life of Scrooge. Don's characterization is everything it should be and more. The art is first rate. I just wish there were more belly laughs. This one got there, though. Thanks, Don From Boy=De=Haas at uba.uva.nl Mon Oct 10 12:39:51 1994 From: Boy=De=Haas at uba.uva.nl (Boy=De=Haas@uba.uva.nl) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 12:39:51 CET Subject: No subject Message-ID: <199410101139.AA26364@mail.ic.uva.nl> Unsubscribe Disney-Comics From bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no Mon Oct 10 15:21:18 1994 From: bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no (bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 15:21:18 +0100 Subject: Ghastly spelling Message-ID: <"3769 94/10/10 15:21*/G=bjorn-are/S=davidsen/OU=s/O=televerket/PRMD=tele/ADMD=TELEMAX/C=NO/"@MHS> Due to some problems with our mail system my last message was sent without proper proof reading. The result being among others the following passage: >How sad! He wil be missing a lot if not being able to enjoy Sandman, Lord >of The Rings, Silmarillion, the Narnia series, the Dive Comedy, Arabian >Knights or Norwegian Fairy Tales (highly recommended!) to mention but a >few It should of course have been: How sad! He will be missing a lot if not being able to enjoy Sandman, Lord of The Rings, Silmarillion, the Narnia series, the Divine Comedy, Arabian Nights or Norwegian Fairy Tales (highly recommended!) to mention but a few Then again, perhaps Don or David could write a story on the Dive Comedy or on the Arabian Knights, and put in a lot of ducks and demons? Bjo/rn Are Bjorn-Are.Davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 10 13:23:17 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 13:23:17 +0100 Subject: Rosa, Database, Barks in Holland, a French issue Message-ID: <9410101223.AA23736@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Hi everyone. Here's a message I prepared 3 days ago. Wendigo poem ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes Don, you once sent me the English script of the story. The "poem" may be uninteresting for Americans that can't read the (rest of the) story, but Europeans might be interested. I think I'll type it in if I can find it (It's a bit "misplaced" at home right now..) Disney comics Database ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As Per already announced last week, a new version is available, including source files of C-programs. Everyone is invited to give comments and locate errors in the index or in the programs. I had a better look at the indexes after I sent them to Per, and already noticed the following: - In the 'issues' files, the field "page layout" is often a question mark in the case of newspaper reprints. This should be a space. - The file gl-aa-dd.issues gives incomplete information for DD 284 through DD 287. - The Carl Barks index (CB.creator) is a bit messy, especially in the beginning and the end of the file. - There are some files on ftp that are _not_ embedded (yet) in the Database: the Swedish Barks index from NAFS(k) ("nk5"), the Dutch Barks index, the Danish index, and Gerstein's K-coded index ("k.index"). - The Rosa and Van Horn index from the Database do not contain all information (yet) from the files "don-rosa.index" and "van-horn.index". - We even have one story title in Norwegian! I forgot about that when I made the legend. - You can find some remarks and questions in both English and Dutch at certain entries (e.g. [PER: WHICH ONE?]). I hope to have solved most of these points in the next version... Dutch Rosa ~~~~~~~~~~ Dutch DD Extra #10 contains Don Rosa's Lo$ chapter 8, "The Argonaut of Wild Agony Creek". An excellent story! Apart from chapter 2, it's the best part of Lo$ so far. Maybe it's because I like longer (24-page) stories? The story has its own cover, by Wilma van den Bosch, I think. The quality is quite poor. Announced for DD Extra #11 is "The Son of the Sun"! At last! But I guess that means we won't see Lo$ chapter 12 this Christmas, unless they put several chapters in one DD Extra... Carl Barks in Holland ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the fanzine "Stripschrift" #273 there was an interview with Barks, and some photographs of his visit to Holland. Some interesting points: - Bill Grandy [sic] says that Jippes was Barks' first choice for drawing the story "Horsin' Around with History". He says Egmont told Barks that Jippes didn't have time, without even asking Jippes. Then they proposed their "own" artist Bill Van Horn... (I wish Jippes had drawn that story! I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure Jippes would have done a better job than Van Horn. Sorry Fredrik!) - One photograph shows Barks with all current Dutch artists. They are: Ed van Schuijlenburg, Michel Nadorp, Mau Heymans, Jaap Stavenuiter, Frank Jonker (writer), Wilma van den Bosch, Ben Verhagen, Jan Kruse (writer), Daan Jippes, Bas Heymans. I knew most of them, except Bas Heymans. Apparently, Mau has a little brother... A French issue ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My ex-colleagues gave me a goodbye-present: a special 60th anniversary issue of the French "Picsou Magazine". Among others, it contained a chronology of 60 years of Donald Duck. Some interesting things: - 1956. Barks introduces Flintheart Glomgold, in French: Gripsou. [part of the cover of Son of the Sun is shown, with the text "le dessin a gauche est de Don Rosa"] - 1957. In Italy, the writer Guido Martina starts a series of parodies on famous heroes: the Three Musketeers, Marco Polo, etc. Drawn by Carpi, De Vita, Bottaro, and Scarpa... - 1963. The Beatles conquer the world, and Popop, Fethry Duck in English, enters the life of Donald, created by Dick Kinney and the artist Al Hubbard. [So even the French know Fethry's English name. Anyone ever heard of Dick Kinney?] - 1964. Tony Strobl finally shows us the youth of Donald. As a little child, he helped his grandparents on the farm. [Which story can this be?] - 1974. Fantomiald existed in Italy since 1969. His first adventures were published in France in 1974. [So we know Paperinik's French name now. BTW, Fredrik: Ludwig Von Drake is called Donald Dingue in French.] - 1975. Barks gives Scarpa a sketch of a gag with Brigitte MacBridge. [This sketch is actually shown! In one of Gladstone's Uncle Scrooge comics, a drawing by Scarpa is shown, while the text said the original Barks drawing was lost.] - 1986. The "Disney Babies" are published. A creation of Claude Marin. - 1989. In 1988, Le Journal de Mickey brought the first story of Keno Don Rosa. In 1989, Picsou Magazine publishes every story by Don Rosa! Stories in this special issue: some Taliaferro sunday strips, Barks (WDC 80), Cavazzano? (a special DD 60 story coded D 93135), Branca (D 92300) and Van Horn (D 92211, pizza story) That's all for now, but I will return... --Harry. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 10 14:27:21 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 14:27:21 +0100 Subject: Some stories and credits Message-ID: <9410101327.AA23930@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Jo/rgen, about a Barks story: > Oh, well. The Norwegian title is 'Den smarte Onkel Skrue.' > That is 'Uncle Scrooge, the clever' or something like that. You're talking about the (famous) story from the first Uncle Scrooge comic, Four Colour #386: "Only a Poor Old Man". And the dam break panel was so favourite that Barks made an oil painting out of it. BTW: the Mickey story about hypnotism that has been discussed here is Gottfredson's "The Jewel Robbery", coded in the Database as YM 048, running in the newspapers from Jan 19 to May 2, 1942. > In a very early posting Harry mentions a series of German > Uncle Scrooge comics ("Abenteuer aus Onkel Dagoberts Schatztruhe"). Well, that _is_ very early: it was the very first subject I came with on this list! These stories are written by Adolf Kabatek (a German, I think). The art is by some studio artist I don't know the name of. > In Norway these (seven of them) where published [...] I think there are not more than 7 stories in this series. > Harry also mentioned another album series, about cars. One of > these were published in Norway sometime in the late 80s. Lots > of Mercedes... I think it's Jan Gulbransson's 47-page story you're talking about. It's about "100 years of cars", and since Mercedes was the first car, this may explain why there are so many of them in that story... > I am working on a WWW catalog of my collection, and I plan to put > into it information about writers/artists. To do that with more > than 2000 magazines is quiet a job, so I think I will start with > the albums. There are fewer of them :-) Please make sure you're not doing the same work that has been done before. A lot of Swedish and Danish Disney publications have been indexed (not in WWW, but in ASCII). Norwegian issues should be much the same. --Harry. From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Mon Oct 10 22:55:27 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 22:55:27 +0100 Subject: The Trojan Horse++ Message-ID: <199410102155.21261.baugi.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> First of all. Thanks to everyone who have answered my questions. Don: > Why was your message titled "Trojan Horse"? You didn't mention >any Trojan Horse. I meant to put a 'Re:' on the subject line, but it disappeared somewhere. Per, when are the digests put together/sent out? Mattias: > I'm sure someone told you already (I'm on the digests, you know); but >the U$ story you outlined is of course "Only A Poor Old Man". Ah! I knew there were something special about that title. Me: > It's years since I read that story, but yes, you're right. I think they > claim to be Minnies relatives though. She gets quite insulted when > Mickey is trying to tell her that there is something strange going on. > In Norway this story is published in one of the big 'Jeg' books. > 'Vi Mikke & Minni', I think. David: > Jorgen: This story is Gottfredson's "The Gleam" (1941). One >of my all-time favorites. Harry: >BTW: the Mickey story about hypnotism that has been discussed here >is Gottfredson's "The Jewel Robbery", coded in the Database as YM 048, >running in the newspapers from Jan 19 to May 2, 19 ? David: >> - I'm Mickey Mouse, and this is Goofy. >> - Yes, isn't it? > > That's from "Island in the Sky," right? (Can't resist a >challenge like that! ;-) Indeed! 8:) The Trojan Horse... I didn't really mean to say anything about it, at least not until I've read all of it (Part II will be published tomorrow). But since I've made the expections that I was going to say something about it... I wasn't too impressed. I've never liked van Horns style very much. I do not think it's bad, but it's some kind of unfamiliar, even though I've read every single story by him which have been published here. I don't mind as long as it's his own stories he's drawing, but when this new story is advertised as a 'New Story by Barks' (and we've been waiting for it for months...), I was expecting something else. What was I expecting? In my opinion a 'Barks Story' is not only a manus written by Barks, and drawn by anybody (a good example are those JW stories). It has to be drawn by him too. The story in Barks stories (this apply to anyone, I guess) isn't just in the balloons, but also in the expressions of the ducks. The expressions in van Horn's ducks are, IMHO, to, eh..., exaggerated (is that the word...?). I don't see the fine tune in his art, as I see in Barks', and then it's a bit difficult to see that there is anything special about the story. I would still say it's well above the average new Disney story. In addition (some addition...) there are so few details. And almost no bacground details at all. My conclusion is _not_ that Barks should stop writing new stories (if he should want to write another one), but I would like to see it drawn by someone who is more fond of details and who makes the ducks look real, f.ex. Don Rosa (I know that unfortunately won't happen), Daan Jippes, Freddy Milton or Marco Rota. Stories drawn by the ones I mentioned above (and a lot of others) looks real. I mean, the ducks look like they really exist, and you can easy tell by their look what mood they are in at any time. And any character in one panel, is exactly the same character when it appears next time in the same story. I don't get that feeling when I read a story drawn by van Horn. Hope you understand what I mean. It's not easy to explain in a foreign language. Well, I still want to read part II :-) Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) Since David got my first, I'm trying a new one :) - Fur gawsh sakes Mickey! I did just what you _told_ me to! From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Tue Oct 11 04:47:57 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 10 Oct 94 23:47:57 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #458. Message-ID: <941011034757_72260.2635_EHB319-2@CompuServe.COM> MATTIAS: It won't be long now before I may or may not see you on my tour of Sweden and Norway later this month. BJORN: The "death scene" that Geir was referring to one time was NOT that "Lo$" part V -- in part V you just see a scene which may or may not have been in $crooge's mind, and even if it wasn't, it was not that he was actually DEAD, but "between two worlds" (to allude to another old "ghost" movie). Geir was referring to chapter IX in which a main character actually does die. But you've seen that already, being in Europe, eh? RON: No, there is precious little time for "belly laughs" in "Lo$". Each chapter is quite short and must cover so much ground and so many facts that it's all I can do to tell the story rather than be funny. You'll notice one difference between the two funniest chapters in the whole series, V and X -- unlike the other chapters, they do not cover spans of years but specific days in $crooge's life. Therefore, there is far more time to develop a plot and add humor. But a general lack of action and humor is something I'm currently wrestling with in even my post-Lo$ stories. It seems that I became so hung up on basing my stories on historic fact that I've become bogged down in it. And what's worse, the one story that I felt was surely too bogged down in fact and lacking in action ("Guardians of the Lost Library") seemed to have been so popular that even my editor said it was the best story I'd ever done. That didn't compel me to change my ways very much. But I need to try harder. KNUT: I try to be fairly careful that LUCK never plays a part in $crooge's success... nor does direct help from others, short of some advice which is only natural in the learning process. Where did you see luck playing a part in that Lo$ V? As you were saying, $crooge would have beat the Whiskerville on his own if the ghosts hadn't interfered, and even in putting him back on earth, they still only gave him the CHANCE to save himself, which he then did without their help and without luck. Or do you mean that it would have been luck that would have helped $crooge beat the Whiskerville if the lightning had only distracted the bad guy. But the idea was that the lightning would not have made $crooge flinch because of his stealy nerves -- so it was $crooge's superiority that would have won for him. From bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no Tue Oct 11 09:53:39 1994 From: bjorn-are.davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no (bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 09:53:39 +0100 Subject: Grave error Message-ID: <"3806 94/10/11 09:53*/G=bjorn-are/S=davidsen/OU=s/O=televerket/PRMD=tele/ADMD=TELEMAX/C=NO/"@MHS> Don! You are right! I got the two stories (Lo$V and IX) mixed up , not having any of them before me! Yes, the golf scene was earlier, I remember it now! Still good, though... Bjo/rn Are Bjorn-Are.Davidsen at s.televerket.tele.no From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Tue Oct 11 09:46:07 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 09:46:07 +0100 Subject: The Gleam Robbery Message-ID: <9410110846.AA23876@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Mattias: > I'm sure someone told you already (I'm on the digests, you know); Well, this time you beat _me_, because I'm on the digests as well... And about that hypnotism story (there's a chance David beat me in answering this...): David said: > Jorgen: This story is Gottfredson's "The Gleam" (1941). One > of my all-time favorites. and I said: > BTW: the Mickey story about hypnotism that has been discussed here > is Gottfredson's "The Jewel Robbery", coded in the Database as YM 048, > running in the newspapers from Jan 19 to May 2, 1942 on which Jo/rgen replied: > ? Actually, the story had no title in the newspapers. Is has been reprinted several times, and had several titles then. "The Gleam" is a title the Gladstone people chose in their MM Newspaper index (in the book "MM in Color"), I don't know from which reprint this was. My title ("The Jewel Robbery") was from the early WDC reprint (WDC 81 - 84). And I don't know where David got the 1941 date; I think my dates are correct. > - Fur gawsh sakes Mickey! I did just what you _told_ me to! I think I know this one, but I'll leave it to David.. 8-) --Harry. "Are you in danger?" "No, you dummy! I'm in a barrel!" From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Tue Oct 11 10:55:42 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 09:55:42 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #458. Message-ID: Dear Folks, A few comments on the recent stuff. Bjorn Are stated that "perhaps Don or David could write a story on the Dive Comedy or on the Arabian Knights, and put in a lot of ducks and demons?" Actually, the definitive Disney Divine Comedy has already been done. Made in Italy in 1949, "Mickey's Inferno" is undoubtedly the most bizarre Mouse story I have ever read. After being hypnotized by the Gleam, Mickey and Goofy dream that Hell has conquered the Disney Universe. We see characters attempting to live their normal lives among devils and demons who spend their spare time attacking and blowing people up. Mickey battles Pete briefly, for no good reason. Eventually Mickey and Goofy discover their destiny, which is to rescue Donald from this mess. Donald needs this because the forces of Hades have split him into his "good" and "evil" selves, and there is a danger that the two halves will never come back together. Or something like that. Beautiful artwork, but the most convoluted story I've ever seen, complete with verses from Dante across the bottom of each panel! And of course, Disney's banned it from use in the United States. (Or so David Seidman told me.) Then, Barks in Holland: "Bill Grandy [sic] says that Jippes was Barks' first choice for drawing the story "Horsin' Around with History". He says Egmont told Barks that Jippes didn't have time, without even asking Jippes. Then they proposed their "own" artist Bill Van Horn..." I have a hunch Grandey contacted Egmont KNOWING they wouldn't really know about Jippes' current state of affairs, and had it in his mind from the start that Van Horn should draw the story, then maneuvered things to get his way. We should all note that this was long before Jippes knew or sold work through that Weasel. Anyone knowledgeable would have contacted Oberon about exactly what Jippes was doing. "BTW: the Mickey story about hypnotism that has been discussed here is Gottfredson's "The Jewel Robbery", coded in the Database as YM 048, running in the newspapers from Jan 19 to May 2, 1942." Harry, this story is now known as "The Gleam" (remember, Mickey has solved many jewel robberies) and will be titled as such when Gladstone eventually uses it. Isn't it called that in our database? - Fur gawsh sakes Mickey! I did just what you _told_ me to! Let's see -- Mickey is trying to straighten a pipe. Gives Goofy a wrench, then holds up the pipe and says, "When I nod my head, you hit it with the hammer." BONK! Methinks one Mouse should have defined "it" a little more carefully. ;-) I'll be back, tomorrow. Best, David Gerstein Bjo/rn Are From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Tue Oct 11 12:44:01 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 12:44:01 +0100 Subject: Horsing around with history Message-ID: <9410111144.AA18761@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Don Rosa asked Jorgen Bangor (which doesn't stop me from answering :-) > Why was your message titled "Trojan Horse"? You didn't mention > any Trojan Horse. Probably because he replied to a message by Knut Hunstad with the same subject line. Usually mail programs keep the subject--sometimes prefixed by "Re: "--when you reply to another message. Haven't you (Don) noticed that your own replies to the digests keep the same subject as the digests had? As for The Trojan Horse, or "Horsing Around With History" as we now know its title is, I met Swedish duck translator Stefan Di"os the other day, and asked him if he had translated it yet, and why it hasn't appeared in the Swedish book, even though it recently was published in Norway. Evidently the Swedish editors didn't want to have it in two parts, so they'll put it on hold for some special size book where they will run the whole of it in one issue at the very end of this year. Then Jorgen asked: > Per, when are the digests put together/sent out? Currently each night starting at 1.13 my local time, i.e., 13 minutes past midnight GMT. Don wrote (to Mattias): > It won't be long now before I may or may not see you on my tour > of Sweden and Norway later this month. At least I will be in Gotenburg too. And then at the "Alvsj"o comics fair too, which I guess more Swedish Donaldists will attend. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Tue Oct 11 16:48:54 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 10:48:54 EST Subject: Disney-comics digest #456. Message-ID: <2e9aa5d6@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Don, Though I've not seen LOS Part V yet, I've a lot of comments on this thread. >Anyway, I'm just wondering if these people are adverse to seeing >ghosts in comics because Barks never used them, or are there radical >religious fundamentalists in the woodwork? I'm a borderline "Christian Fundamentalist", so I'm probably qualified to answer this question. I'm pretty sure that the people objecting to the use of ghosts in your comics are objecting because they think that ghosts and such are inappropriate material for children stories. The problem is that people assume that children will believe or act like what they see and read. Most children I know are smarter than that. I wish the same could be said about their parents. >one reader said they liked Lo$ II better than I (one) I've only read chapters 2-4 and #2 was by far my least favorite. This list keeps calling it one the best chapter and I cannot figure out why. >Now, is this because this reader knew that Barks never seemed to >deal with ghosts? So? You're Don Rosa, not Carl Barks. And, I like Don Rosa, just fine! In fact, I'd prefer having one Don Rosa and one Carl Barks, then having two Carl Barks. I'm one of those people who thinks Jack Kirby was the best comic book artist ever. Rick Buckler and Greg Theakson do amazing imitations of Jack Kirby. Logically, you'd think that I would love their artwork. In truth, I hate it. Why? Because they aren't being true to themselves. "To thine own self be true". >I personally love to mess with ghosts in stories, as some of my very >favorite movies deal with ghosts and such... like WONDERFUL LIFE, GHOST >& MRS. MUIR, BISHOP'S WIFE... Here is the irony in all this. Sure these three movies involve the supernatural. But, they use the supernatural to reflect upon real life. If a religous person stops watching these movies because they contain ghosts, they never realize that each of these movies has an important message - the importance of each and every person, that love is more powerful than death, and that faith and deeds go hand-in-hand. Very "Christian" messages, which the religous person missed because they stop watching the movie when they discovered it involved ghosts. >I mean, I'm well aware of the fact that there are people who think if you >watch BEWITCHED or I DREAM OF JEANNIE or read LIL' HOT STUFF and >CASPER you're gonna burn in hellfire for all eternity since these are >occult TV shows and comics designed by covens of witches to corrupt the >souls of humanity. It's funny that this thread should come up this weekend. On Friday, I started on my newest duck story which deals with this exact subject. James Williams From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Tue Oct 11 17:01:48 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 11:01:48 EST Subject: Ghastly spelling Message-ID: <2e9aa8dc@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> >Then again, perhaps Don or David could write a story on the >Diven Comedy or on the Arabian Knights, and put in a lot of ducks and >demons? As David has already said, the Diven Comedy wouldn't fly. Disney is too conservative to approve of something like this. Its too bad, I really enjoyed Little Hot Stuff as a child. The Arabian Knights is a real possibility. Disney is pushing Aladdin - the movie, the direct to video, the weekly animated series, the Saturday morning animated series, the comic book, and all the merchandising. The Arabian Knights have never been more popular in the US. James Williams From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Tue Oct 11 17:16:23 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 11:16:23 EST Subject: Disney-comics digest #457. Message-ID: <2e9aac47@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> David, Welcome back. Its great to have you here again. >Actually I was inspired by the very first Branca-drawn story I ever >saw: "The Robot Raiders of Magica De Spell" (US 210, 1986). In that >one, Magica invented robots that looked like her. Thankfully, I don't remember this story. It sounds exactly like the type of stuff which makes me despise most Magica stories. How and why would a witch build robots? She wouldn't have the knoweldge necessary. She's probably not comfortable with technology. And, using magic would be simpler and more effective. James Williams From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Tue Oct 11 17:22:29 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 11:22:29 EST Subject: Disney-comics digest #435. Message-ID: <2e9aadb5@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> David, We'll have to agree to disagree on "Danger Island". I still think it is the worst Disney story I've ever read. >Gawrsh! So Scrooge was too weak at first, but too tough-minded >later? Exactly. And notice what causes this transition. Scrooge gets a gun! >the villain in fact was pleasantly reminiscent of the Phantom Blot How so? I really like the Phantom Blot, but I cannot see any similarities. James Williams From lrn at daimi.aau.dk Tue Oct 11 21:30:29 1994 From: lrn at daimi.aau.dk (Lasse Reichstein Nielsen) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 21:30:29 +0100 Subject: From RoC Message-ID: <199410112030.AA23611@tours.daimi.aau.dk> I just got terribly busy, and I won't be seeing my messenger, Lasse, too often from now on, so my response time will increase significantly. As if it wasn't bad till now. Last week... on "DizniList!": James Williams about Egmont's 1996 CB edition: > I assume it's Egmonts answer to Another Rainbow's The Carl Barks' Library. Yes and no, it's the German publisher Ehapa's reworked and updated version of Cochran's and Hamilton's 1981 catalogue of Barks oils, if that is the one you mean. It was titled "The Fine Art of Walt Disney", I believe, and was alledgedly the reason that Disney Corp gave the comics licence to AR. This sold out a long time ago, and prices have sky-rocketed in the meantime, so this is probably a good investment. And a great collection of Barks oils for those who like them - I remember Per saying he was missing that. ...and James again: > The lack of [a creator hoozoo] is my fault. I volunteered [...] and I never > had the time to complete this task. I'd be happy to contribute to such a > task, but there is now way I'll have the time to write one myself. No need for excuses. The difference between what we would like to do and what we are actually capable of doing is often obscured by enthusiasm. I've made similar promises myself, regardless of common sense. Jon: > It seems like the only artists they find it worth mentioning over here is > Barks and Rosa. Danish DD for a short while credited the artists, but only their own - D coded - stories, and Barks and Murry. Not even (Danish) Freddy Milton was named. The only time I saw van Horn's name (in tiny letters) it was, incorrectly, attributed to a Verhagen story. I don't think they *know* who's who! But van Horn *was* credited in the Norwegian version of HAwH, and presumably in the Danish too, as it has recently evolved into a very close copy of the Norwegian. Don about 'DD - My Life in an Eggshell': > I've never seen much of Rota's art, but are all his stories that > beautiful?! Or did he try extra hard on that one? Read for instance Norwegian suppl.issue #6/94 for the first part of the time machine story, and you'll find he's consistently good. His best, IMHO, is however "Night of the Saracen", code unknown, another Viking story, except it's more like Arabian Nights. Beautiful and moody. He even had his name on the *cover*, way back in 1987. It was upside down and disguised as Arabian gibberish. Harry: thank you for the 'Diznirep' files and data. Lasse could tell that you are a real programmer! If you'd like another improved, but still hopelessly incomplete version of Danish.index you are welcome. Knut: if you want me to send the F0K-DD, I'll need your address! From ekman at lysator.liu.se Tue Oct 11 23:27:04 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 23:27:04 +0100 (MET) Subject: Rosa, Database, Barks in Holland, a French issue In-Reply-To: <9410101223.AA23736@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Oct 1994, H.W. Fluks wrote: > (I wish Jippes had drawn that story! I haven't seen it yet, but I'm > sure Jippes would have done a better job than Van Horn. Sorry Fredrik!) No need to be sorry. I haven't seen it either, but I feel that I will agree with everyone else that Van Horn shouldn't have been the one doing this. He is the king of slapstick comics and this seems to be more like a normal adventure tale. > - 1964. Tony Strobl finally shows us the youth of Donald. As a little child, > he helped his grandparents on the farm. [Which story can this be?] That sounds like the previously discussed "This is Your Life, Donald Duck" to me. Although I don't remember seeing any Grandpa, Donald spent his childhood years on Grandma's farm in that story. And thanks for all the French names. Pity I didn't have them a week ago. Now you'll have to wait for them to show up in the Names list. I've also got some comments on the database, but I'll gather some more ammunition before I dump them onto you. I'd just like to take the opportunity to THANK you for all the marvellous work you have put into this project! /Fredrik From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Wed Oct 12 04:20:12 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 11 Oct 94 23:20:12 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. Message-ID: <941012032012_72260.2635_EHB128-1@CompuServe.COM> PER: I'm not sure what you mean by saying that my replies to the Digest have the same title as the Digest I reply to. Do the Digests have titles? I notice that my comments always say "Comments on Disney-Comics Digest #umpty-um-something", if that's what you mean. And who writes the little title list at the beginning of each Digest? I notice everyone's contributions seem to have titles that they add themselves, while mine always have the titles as I describe above. (Surely no big deal, only wondering...) JAMES: You liked chapter II the least? The other guy liked it the best? I think I've mentioned before that one thing I've noticed after doing this job for 8 years, no matter WHAT I do, some people will think it's my best story, some people will think it's my worst story, and everyone else will fall somewhere in between. Some people dislike my stories because they aren't EXACTLY like a Barks story. Some people like my stuff because they say it's NOTHING like Barks. Others say they like my stuff because it's partly Barks and partly lots of other stuff. Some people like my stories but not my art. Others adore the art. I usually can tell the people at shows who are only trying to pay me empty complements so I'll sign their comics or something when they tell me that, gosh, they can't tell the difference between my art and Barks' (they'd need to be clinically BLIND for that!). At any rate... you see how it's impossible to ever gauge when I'm on the right track with what I'm doing. I think that listening to opinions of Duck fans would give me an important way to tell what I'm accomplishing... but it's impossible to do so. James, did you say you're currently writing a Duck story that involves a witches' coven that is trying to corrupt the eternal souls of humanity? I'm sure you were kidding, right? That sort of thing would never be even remotely allowed. Fo instance, someone... I think it might have even been ol' Geir... has often suggested that I should do a story involving $crooge searching for the Holy Grail, but this is, of course, impossible. How could I explain what the Holy Grail is? I was about to do such a story 15 years ago in my "Pertwillaby Papers" comics... those are my old fan-magazine stories where I originally did several stories I've since turned into $crooge adventures...and where I foreshadowed many aspects of the Indiana Jones movies which came a few years later... but I could mention the Holy Grail in those pages, whereas NOT in a Duck comic -- nor, I think, should I. SOMEBODY was commenting that the Danish and Norwegian Egmont Disney weekly seem to have recently become quite similar. This is because they are now put together by the same office, rather than two different offices. I think Egmont wants to simplify things and have all the Egmont weeklies be the same (except ads), and save lots of time and money. I guess this means some people will lose their jobs, but it sure seems like an obvious way to be doing business; but, thankfully, that's not part of the business I need to worry about. Who's reading the COMPUSERVE Disney-comics-section? It started very slow, had a surge about a week or two ago, and then dropped stone daid. From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Wed Oct 12 14:47:50 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 94 08:47:50 EST Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. Message-ID: <2e9bdaf6@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Don, >James, did you say you're currently writing a Duck story that involves a >witches' coven that is trying to corrupt the eternal souls of humanity? Not exactly. Here's the basic concept. Magica gets mad at the way witches are being portrayed in a comic books. So, one night she sneaks in and makes the comics more "authentic". The only problem is that when people read these comics aloud, they unknowingly cast these "authentic" spells. Chaos results and Magica has to save the day. >but I could mention the Holy Grail in those pages, whereas NOT in a >Duck comic -- nor, I think, should I. Agreed. I think religion has little or no place in a duck comic. >Who's reading the COMPUSERVE Disney-comics-section? What's to read. There's only been two messages in the last week. The more time I spend on other Disney lists, the more I'm amazed by the quality of this one. James Williams From krieg at ct.med.ge.com Wed Oct 12 15:38:35 1994 From: krieg at ct.med.ge.com (Andrew Krieg 5-5379) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 09:38:35 -0500 Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. In-Reply-To: disney-comics@minsk.docs.uu.se "Disney-comics digest #459." (Oct 12, 1:18am) References: <9410120018.AA18312@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <9410120938.ZM1837@crash> DON: I think there are 2 types of Duck stories; the 10-page humorous type, and the longer adventure type. Please don't give up on writing *original* 10-page humor stories. One of my favorite stories of yours was the pumpkin carving contest. Don't get bogged down in research for all your tales, or try and make them all sequels to Barks' stories either. It's been too long since I've read a straight gag-story by you, and I really miss them. -- ========================================================================= = Andrew Krieg | = = krieg at ct.med.ge.com | Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee = = or | = = krieg at point.cs.uwm.edu| - Astoroth = ========================================================================= From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Wed Oct 12 14:18:55 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 13:18:55 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. Message-ID: Dear Folks, Harry Fluks on "The Gleam": > And I don't know where David got the 1941 date; I think my dates are > correct. The technical term for where I got that 1941 date, as Gary Gabner once mentioned, is "Oops." Sorry about that, folks -- and Harry's dates are indeed right! I'll be back... David Gerstein "Ramble on, buxom bumble bee! Go sit on a cowslip -- far from me!" From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Wed Oct 12 14:37:44 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 13:37:44 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. Message-ID: Hello again, folks. First, as of last notification, "Horsing Around with History" is supposed to get its American publication in USA #33. Or so John Clark told me. > That sounds like the previously discussed "This is Your Life, Donald > Duck" to me. Although I don't remember seeing any Grandpa, Donald spent > his childhood years on Grandma's farm in that story. And why with Grandma, and not his actual parents? I hate to break this to all of you (especially you, Don), but when indexing WDC&S for 1947-1950 for Harry last summer, I discovered something very shocking in the first few years of Taliaferro's Grandma strips. Grandma consistently refers to Donald as her son! I don't know how this is going to affect anything (especially as AT created Grandma). And according to those rather bad Grandma stories of early-'50s WDC&S, Grandma's (apparently deceased) husband was named Humperdink. Consistently. Did you go with that, Don? I have not seen the Duck Family Tree (indeed, I have no idea when or if Gladstone plans to publish it) and I don't know what name you gave him. All I remember now is that Grandma was originally a Coot. (Well, not that she isn't, now... ;-) > And thanks for all the French names. Pity I didn't have them a week ago. > Now you'll have to wait for them to show up in the Names list. Did I mention, Fredrik, that in French Sylvester Shyster is named Chicaneau? (from "chicanery", I guess) Seems like old Shyster gets some really good foreign names (in German, "Baldwin Beutelschneider" is particularly inspired). Has WDC&S #594 come out? Last week the Edinburgh comic shop got in US #'289. They told me that the week before they had gotten DDA #29, so were quite mixed up as to why there was a US, not a WDC&S, this week. Does anyone have WDC&S #594? Were the release weeks for WDC&S and US switched this time? BTW, WDC&S #595 will apparently have Van Horn's Xmas story in it. The one we have called "Fight on Bonebreaker Mountain" should then be "Deck Us All," according to a press release. "The Better Life" (the one that's apparently in #594) is what we have called "Strike in the House." And we have the title right on "The Terror of Duckburg," which is apparently going to be in #596 according to John Clark. Well, I'm off for now. But, of course, I'll be back. Best, David From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Wed Oct 12 17:08:43 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 94 17:08:43 +0100 Subject: Grandma Duck In-Reply-To: "DAVID.A.GERSTEIN"'s message of Wed, 12 Oct 1994 13:37:44 +0000 Message-ID: <9410121608.AA19385@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> > [...] I discovered something very shocking in the first few years of > Taliaferro's Grandma strips. Grandma consistently refers to Donald > as her son! I don't know how this is going to affect anything > (especially as AT created Grandma). Doesn't surprise me at all. As I've said earlier I've always thought that Grandma was meant to be Donald's mother in the daily strips, even though I didn't know it was made explicit anywhere. Too bad Barks missed that and made her a grandma instead. (Or did anyone else do that before Barks?) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Wed Oct 12 21:16:31 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 94 15:16:31 EST Subject: Disney-comics digest #459. Message-ID: <2e9c360f@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> David asked: >Has WDC&S #594 come out? Yes, at least in my neck of the woods. I purchased it last week. LO$ V should be out this week. I thought that WDC&S #594 was pretty good. William Van Horn's lead story has an average plot with some fantastic dialog. "Monarch of Mendoka" so far has been extremely predictable and very slowly paced. I also think it suffers from being transformed into a comic book instead of being printed in strip format. There is one strip in particular where Mickey is being tutored in four different settings which must have been wonderful as one strip, but it really falls flat in comic book format. James Williams From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Thu Oct 13 04:30:29 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 12 Oct 94 23:30:29 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #460. Message-ID: <941013033029_72260.2635_EHB211-2@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: I recall you posting a message about Grandma's husband being named "Humperdink" several months ago when you were just popping in and out here. Tell me what issues of WDC&S this appears in. And you imply it was mentioned more than once? That is unusual to see ANY sort of continuity in these comics in those days. I can easilly be persuaded to use that name -- I picked "Dabney Duck" for reasons I can certainly no longer recall after 3 years. But since Barks never gave him a name, "Humperdink" has a precedent in those old WDC&S and does not conflict with Barks, so I can use it. But no matter what the creator of Grandma intended her to be, Barks said she was Donald's grandmother, so that she has to be (as far as I'm concerned). ANDY: I actually DID do a 10-page "gag" story last month... my first since 1990. And it wasn't so hot. At least it didn't seem very good when I was doing it -- I'd had an idea for a story in my notes for many years, and decided to use it. But getting it to actually WORK was like pulling teeth... which tells me that it was NOT working. I can't judge whether it ultimately worked or not, but since it was a difficult story to do, I didn't enjoy it and therefore felt that it SUCKED. We'll see. Good ideas for 10-page stories are always very easy to make stories out of -- I think I wrote "On a Silver Platter" in about an hour. I might try another 10-pager, but I really can't get inspired by the whole idea. I see these as ADVENTURE characters -- and only adventure stories seem worth dealing with. "Gag" stories are too forgetable. From rivers at seismo.CSS.GOV Thu Oct 13 07:59:11 1994 From: rivers at seismo.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 02:59:11 EDT Subject: Grandma; "gag" stories Message-ID: <9410130659.AA18766@beno.CSS.GOV> I don't see a problem with Grandma's calling Donald "son." Since in "This Is Your Life, Donald Duck," we see that Grandma raised Donald on the farm, so it is natural that she would call him "son" even if in fact he were really her grandson. There are several examples that come to mind of the word "son" being applied to a grandson in this context. Of course, this raises the question of what happened to Donald's parents, but then as we have discussed many times before, parents are conveniently absent from most Disney comics. Maybe that's one reason that kids have always liked them! Don writes: > I see these as ADVENTURE characters -- and only > adventure stories seem worth dealing with. "Gag" stories are too > forgetable. I don't think they're forgettable. I shall always remember "The Master Landscaper", for instance, quite fondly. It's just like with the movies; heavy dramas are always rewarded with Academy Awards, and funny movies are dismissed as being "only comedies". But you look at which movies have stood the test of time, say over the last 50 years or so, and aren't there just about as many "madcap comedies" you remember as well as more depressing "film noire"? If ANYTHING tends to be forgettable, it's action/adventure. Movies in that format are all so much alike. You keep saying, "Was that the one where... No, wait, that happened in...". (This of course does not apply to Barks, since his adventures were so inventive.) Anyway, there are so few FUNNY funnybooks on the shelves these days, so don't give up on writing the 10-page "gags"! Wilmer Rivers From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Thu Oct 13 12:28:56 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 11:28:56 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #460. Message-ID: Dear Folks, James said that the 1937 Gottfredson Medioka adventure appearing in WDC&S currently "so far has been extremely predictable and very slowly paced. I also think it suffers from being transformed into a comic book instead of being printed in strip format." Well, I have to agree that it's slowly paced. Also that it may have been better in strip format. But the real way to enjoy this story was to buy Gladstone's 1990 album that contained the whole damn thing. All 106 pages of it. I happen to find this one to be my favorite Mickey story; it may be a little slow getting started, but you'll see it gets better and better. The real problem is that this should be in four issues of Mickey's own comic, not *six* issues of WDC&S. That way its length would be more tolerable. But since that album (at $15) was too expensive for most collectors I know, I think that the current printing will at least give more readers a chance to enjoy this story. The dialogue, also, gets uncommonly good later on. And you talk of the story being predictable? Well, okay, the moment Mickey is mistaken for someone else, you get what's going on. But the excitement, and comic wit, fly fast and furious once Mickey's on the throne in Medioka. Just wait! I haven't yet mentioned LO$ 5 (the one everyone's been talking about), so my thanks are long overdue to Don Rosa. This one was absolutely spectacular. By emphasizing Scrooge's relationship with his kin and forefathers, you have included a sort of warmth that rarely occurs in Barks' stories (and though I don't have a translatable version of Part 11, I know that this makes the emotional sequences there even more meaningful). I loved the sequence with the ghosts, no matter what anyone says. It harks back to the ancient myths, whose writers asked the Muses to invoke them with the necessary bravado preparatory to penning their epics. Only one problem with the story, and it's Egmont at fault: it could stand to be sixteen, not fifteen pages. I felt that the scene of Scrooge's ancestors parading in glee at his future miserliness should have been the width of the page, for instance; then there were other scenes that seemed a little too cramped. But you *know* all these things, otherwise you'd not always tell me how you wished you *could* make 'em longer! One slightly confusing thing: when a character reaches into a panel with one arm (the rest of him not being seen, that is), you've often had the arm -- or whatever appendage -- protruding not from the edge of the panel, but from behind the edge of the previous panel. The obvious example is when one Whiskerville swiped Scrooge's bank order. Since Scrooge was right up against the right-hand border of the preceding panel, the arm that reached for the deed almost looked like it was somehow supposed to be *his* -- and Sue Daigle-Leach thought so too, for the hand on that arm was colored white! Hopefully all this will be fixed for the album printing. Am I nuts, or is Gladstone's printing just not as good these days? I've been disappointed with the color in EVERY recent issue but DDA 29! The color looks duller than it once did, and very often the red and blue ink that's used to reinforce solid blacks is misaligned so that panel borders and characters' pupils appear muddy. Especially true of some pages in this comic. In fact, coloring problems always look the worst in Rosa stories, because the detail is so intricate that the misaligned tones are more obvious. If Gladstone has had to lower printing quality (these mistakes started becoming common around this last March) to keep the price of the comics at $1.50, I wouldn't mind paying $1.75 for them. When you get around 27 pages of comics in each issue, that's sure a better buy than (Fill In Name Of Any Other Comic Publisher Here)'s issues. Well, it's time to be off for now. But I'll be back sooner or later. "Like a bad penny, or a ghost!" "GHOST? Eeeek! Merciful goodness, what have I *done*?" David Gerstein From dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com Thu Oct 13 14:57:01 1994 From: dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com (Frank DiCapua) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 08:57:01 -0500 (EDT) Subject: "gag" stories Message-ID: <9410131257.AA20660@giris7.pfizer.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 852 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941013/c07f9b0f/attachment.pl From mas at cs.bu.edu Thu Oct 13 14:15:39 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 09:15:39 -0400 Subject: Disney-comics digest #460. Message-ID: <199410131322.JAA05885@csa.bu.edu> > From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at compuserve.com> > I actually DID do a 10-page "gag" story last month... my first > since 1990. So is this one going to be published any time soon? What's it about? From SUZSHAW at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu Fri Oct 14 13:43:45 1994 From: SUZSHAW at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu (Suzy Shaw) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 08:43:45 EDT Subject: Whose Grandma? Message-ID: <9410141259.AA28992@Mizar.DoCS.UU.SE> Of course, I'm not the expert the rest of you are, but when I was growing up reading the original '40s-'50s Barks stories, I always assumed Grandma was the *nephews'* grandmother, not Donald's. Maybe this comes from having the kid P.O.V., and therefore identifying more with the nephews than with Donald. Whenever my parents would speak of ''going to Grandma's house,'' they meany to *my* grandma's, not theirs. I realize it's Barks' world and he therefore gets to make the rules, but I can't help but suspect he either forgot or changed his mind in later years. --Suzy Shaw suzshaw at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu ''A metal misfit in a world that's gone nylon'' From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Thu Oct 13 20:56:29 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 14:56:29 EST Subject: Are Gag Stories Valid? Message-ID: <2e9d82dd@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Don, >I see these as ADVENTURE characters -- and only adventure stories seem >worth dealing with. "Gag" stories are too forgetable. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think gag stories are extremely important. Here's why: First, they give the characters versitility. One of the reason that Donald Duck is so popular is because of his versitility. How many other characters fit so perfectly in both comedy and adventure stories? I've always considered him "the Cary Grant of comics". This is also why Donald is more popular than Mickey. Mickey shied away from doing gag stories and ended up becoming too one dimensional. I was thrilled when David said that his Mickey stories were gag stories not adventure stories. Second, they give the readers value. Go buy a comic book from Marvel or DC. The odds are, it didn't contain a full story. At most, you got one part of a story. You'll have to buy more issues and possibly other titles before you get the full story. Go buy any comic published by Gladstone, you always get at least one complete story each and every issue. That one story is often a gag story because the are shorter. A good example is this months WDC&S. Third, historical presidence. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and HD&L all started in gag cartoons. Donald's first solo strip was a gag strip. Scrooge's first appearance was in a gag story. I could list a dozen more examples, but you get the point. >I might try another 10-pager, but I really can't get inspired by >the whole idea. That's fine. "Should Don Rosa do gag stories?" is a very different question then "Are gag stories valid?". In my opinion, you should do whatever makes you happy. If that means nothing but adventure stories, that's fine with me. I promise you, I'll buy them. James Williams From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Thu Oct 13 21:16:50 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 15:16:50 EST Subject: Grandmas, Parents, and Friends Message-ID: <2e9d87a2@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> >Since in "This Is Your Life, Donald Duck," we see that Grandma >raised Donald on the farm, I think that most of us would not consider "TIYL,DD" cannonical, but it does raise an good question. Where did Donald grow up and who raised him? >Of course, this raises the question of what happened to Donald's >parents, but then as we have discussed many times before, parents are >conveniently absent from most Disney comics. The lack of parents never bothered me, the lack of friends always will. Make a list of Donald's closest friends. Subtract from it anyone who is related to Donald. I bet when you're done, the list is empty. James Williams From smarsh02 at ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us Thu Oct 13 19:25:12 1994 From: smarsh02 at ozarks.sgcl.lib.mo.us (Scott D. Marshall) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 13:25:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Unsubscribe to Disney Newsgroup Message-ID: I have been trying to unsubscribe to this newsgroup for the past 3 months but as of yet have been unsuccessful. If this doesn't unsubscribe me, please inform me how to unsubscribe. I have written several letters trying to unsubscribe but no one seems very helpful in trying to help me unsubscribe because I keep getting mail. Please help!!!!!! From dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com Thu Oct 13 16:19:47 1994 From: dicapuaf at giris7.pfizer.com (Frank DiCapua) Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 10:19:47 -0500 (EDT) Subject: Yeah! Whats with the coloring. Message-ID: <9410131419.AA20924@giris7.pfizer.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 420 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941014/5bc9087d/attachment.pl From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri Oct 14 16:28:51 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 16:28:51 +0100 Subject: Unsubscribe to Disney Newsgroup In-Reply-To: "Scott D. Marshall"'s message of Thu, 13 Oct 1994 13:25:12 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <9410141528.AA09634@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> > I have been trying to unsubscribe to this newsgroup for the past 3 months > but as of yet have been unsuccessful. If this doesn't unsubscribe me, > please inform me how to unsubscribe. I have written several letters > trying to unsubscribe but no one seems very helpful in trying to help me > unsubscribe because I keep getting mail. Please help!!!!!! Sorry, it was my fault. Digging through old mail I see that you first tried unsubscribing by sending such a request to all the members of the list, then you tried sending such a request to all the members of the list, then you tried sending such a request to all the members of the list, then you tried sending such a request to the *administrator* of the list. I thought I really did unsubscribe you then. Sorry I missed that somehow. -- Per From Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se Fri Oct 14 09:39:07 1994 From: Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se (Mattias Hallin) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 09:39:07 +0100 Subject: Imminent itinerary? Message-ID: <01HI9G4NQJBO8WWB5S@castor.ldc.lu.se> DON: Yes, it still remains to be seen whether I'll be able to go to either show, Gothenburg or Alvsjo; I've been rather broke lately, and don't know for certain that I can afford either, even if I'll find the time necessary. But anyway -- what'll your itinerary be? And what are you planning to do in the week between the two shows? Go to Norway? Remain in Sweden? And for how long will Ann be staying in Scandinavia? Still hoping to see you, I'll remain Duckly yours Mattias **** Mattias Hallin ** Lund * Sweden ** **** * * * "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! * ************** A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" ************* From revry at pen.k12.va.us Fri Oct 14 19:24:47 1994 From: revry at pen.k12.va.us (Ronald A. Evry) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 14:24:47 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #461. In-Reply-To: <9410140021.AA11602@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>; from "disney-comics@minsk.docs.uu.se" at Oct 14, 94 1:21 am Message-ID: <9410141824.AA106419@pen1.pen.k12.va.us> >From Don: > I actually DID do a 10-page "gag" story last month... my first > since 1990. And it wasn't so hot. At least it didn't seem very good when > I was doing it -- I'd had an idea for a story in my notes for many > years, and decided to use it. But getting it to actually WORK was like > pulling teeth... which tells me that it was NOT working. I can't judge > whether it ultimately worked or not, but since it was a difficult story > to do, I didn't enjoy it and therefore felt that it SUCKED. We'll see. > Good ideas for 10-page stories are always very easy to make stories out > of -- I think I wrote "On a Silver Platter" in about an hour. > I might try another 10-pager, but I really can't get inspired by > the whole idea. I see these as ADVENTURE characters -- and only > adventure stories seem worth dealing with. "Gag" stories are too > forgetable. It's a shame you feel that way Don. While Barks's adventure stories were always terrific, I still feel his genius was the way he handled the 10 page funny stories in WDC&S. The ones with neighbor Jones were always my favorites, but I also enjoyed the stories where Donald would get some new occupation and wind up in some ludicrous situation when he tried to apply "ingenuity" to the task at hand. Barks's technique usually (but not always) involved piling one situation on top of another until everything exploded. To top it all off, he always managed to put sparkling characterization into those tales as well. Ron From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Fri Oct 14 21:12:04 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 21:12:04 +0100 Subject: David's story, Fethry ++ Message-ID: <199410142012.27343.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> David: > Actually I was inspired by the very first Branca-drawn story I >ever saw: "The Robot Raiders of Magica De Spell" (US 210, 1986). In >that one, Magica invented robots that looked like her. I can't remember having seen that, but then... I haven't read the DD&Co from that time to close. I didn't think they were to bad at the start of the 80s, but later they just became more worse for every year, until they suddenly changed in the late 80s (guess whose stories started to appear at that time :-) I _do_ remember a story from the late 60s though, were Donald is copied by aliens (Strobl, I think). There are of course also a lot of Italian stories where characters are copied. The fight between the witches in David's story reminded me about something. I think it must be a short story from the 60s were Magica and Mad Madam Mim work together to steal the dime. It's not one of the stories were they live together in a castle. Magica realize that she isn't able to do the job alone, and therfore asks Mim to help her. Mim doesn't see any reason why she should work together with a second class witch like Magica, and then they start a little fight to impress each other. David: >In English: "But you could use *another* >shark! Double the effectiveness, you know!" "Double?! Did you say >DOUBLE?" "That's what I said!" That's almost the same words as in the Norwegian version. David again: >Someone mentioned the Mickey/Goofy "Zoom Transport" stories. >It may interest you that production of these will soon grind almost >to a halt That certainly interest me! Whatever they use instead, it can't be worse. Oh, just read the first issue of Disney Afternoon. Maybe it _can_... David: >In fact, I personally have only seen a handful of >Fethry stories from Egmont, all of them 1-pagers. There was a story with Fethry in DD&Co quiet recently. Four or five pages, or something like that. The story wasn't too bad, but I'm not so sure I like the art. I don't know who draw it, but I've seen the same style in some stories with Mad Madam Mim and Brer Rabbit (no, they do not appear in the same stories...). Harry: >BTW, Fredrik: Ludwig Von Drake is called Donald Dingue in French.] And in Norway he is called Raptus von Rupp, not Ludwig von Duck. David: > Let's see -- Mickey is trying to straighten a pipe. Gives >Goofy a wrench, then holds up the pipe and says, "When I nod my head, >you hit it with the hammer." BONK! Methinks one Mouse should have >defined "it" a little more carefully. ;-) I'm impressed! Guess Don like this one ;-) Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Fri Oct 14 22:05:11 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 22:05:11 +0100 Subject: A lot of subjects... Message-ID: <199410142105.28154.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Now I've read part II of "Historien gjentar seg" (Horsing around with history), but I don't think I'll say much more about it. Part II didn't make any surprises, and the end is a little abrupt. Looks like van Horn suddenly realized he didn't have enough space. RoC: >His best, IMHO, is however "Night of the Saracen", code unknown, another >Viking story, except it's more like Arabian Nights. Beautiful and moody. > He even had his name on the *cover*, way back in 1987. >It was upside down and disguised as Arabian gibberish. I see that I have to check the frontcovers a bit better in the future. Does anybody know of any other signatures or other things hidden in the art (I know Don's D.U.C.K. :) BTW: What is 'F0K-DD'. I think that I identify the last two letters, but what is F0K? It's not hex, anyway... Fredrik: >That sounds like the previously discussed "This is Your Life, Donald >Duck" to me. Although I don't remember seeing any Grandpa, Donald spent >his childhood years on Grandma's farm in that story. I've read that. And I've read Rota's story. But a few days ago, a book appeared in one of the local comic shops, that I haven't heard of before (the book). "Walt Disney's The life of Donald Duck, a reproduction of the only authorized biography." Originally published in 1941. $ 19.95 Applewood Books Bedford, Massachusetts. It's not a comic book though. It's text and illustrations. I did't look too close at it, but I did see a drawing of an egg in a nest. James: >It's funny that this thread should come up this weekend. On Friday, >I started on my newest duck story which deals with this exact subject. Do you mean you write duck stories too? Don: > I might try another 10-pager, but I really can't get inspired by >the whole idea. I see these as ADVENTURE characters -- and only >adventure stories seem worth dealing with. "Gag" stories are too >forgetable. I think I agree. At least when it comes to you. I mean, you treat them like adventure characters, and then they feel like adventure characters when I read one of your stories (adventures). I also like your 10-page "gag" stories, but it's the adventures that first come to mind when I'm thinking about your stories. Since I also like adventure stories better than gag stories, I would of course prefer to see your talent used to be doing that (please don't misunderstand. I'm not telling you what to do, just my humble opinion :) When it comes to van Horn, it's gag stories. James: >The lack of parents never bothered me, the lack of friends always will. >Make a list of Donald's closest friends. Subtract from it anyone >who is related to Donald. I bet when you're done, the list is empty I hope Daisy's not a relative... Gyro doesn't even look like a relative. I remember that one of Jon Gisle's points in his book "Donaldismen" was that none of the civilized persons were parents. Dogs and wolfs on the other hand... This discussion about Grandma reminded me of something funny. The only time I can remember having seen her real name, "Anna Duck", in Norway is in a Mickey Mouse story. And now I'll go home to read DDA #29, which I've got at last. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sat Oct 15 04:19:36 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 14 Oct 94 23:19:36 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #461. Message-ID: <941015031935_72260.2635_EHB227-1@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: Yes, when I first saw a U$ #289 (with part V), the first thing I did was wince and cuss at the color printing! In my issue there are at least two pages grossly off register and many of the other pages that are sorta blurry. Part of the blurring is something I didn't know was done which you seem to mention, and I wonder how they even go about it -- but I see off-register lines of blue and red coloring next to solid black lines. They lay color over the black to beef it up, eh? I didn't know they had to do that. The whole story looked PALE to me, which is odd since I LIKE the pale coloring and black-blacks of old comics -- makes the art stand out and the backgrounds stay back, unlike the way modern lurid color printing does. Still, I was upset for an instant by the pale look -- perhaps since I've gotten used to seeing these stories in umpty-um foreign editions on slick paper with jet-black ink (and completely uninspired coloring) and I get shocked by the pale black inks in the Gladstones and inspired coloring botched at the printing plant. FRANK: How do I define a "gag" story? Asking me that made me stop and think long enough to realize I HAVE done gag stories since 1990. I did that Olympics story in 1993, and had almost successfully blotted it from my memory, thank you. That was another uninspired gag story. And those others you mention which were "adventure" oriented ("On Stolen Time", "Super Snooper Strikes Again" were long (15-page?) gag stories. And yet none of these 15-page Lo$ stories are gag stories. I think the difference in these 15-pagers is that the Lo$ stories are so loaded with logistic problems of continuity and references to past stories and foreshadowing to future stories, etc., etc., that they are far more complex to those self-contained gag stories of the same length. Anyway, that's my definition. The gag stories are far easier to do in a sense, but they are difficult for me because I can't maintain interest (inspiration?) when there's not as many ideas to juggle. These Lo$ short stories were all an absolute joy, and yet they were the most difficult and challenging stories I'll probably ever do. That's why I always say I don't write such great dialogue nor draw such good art, yet I am INTENSELY proud of my work! Take that 15-page "New Laird of Castle McDuck" -- I think I got more accomplished in that 15 pages than in a year worth of any given American super-hero comic. MARK: What was that recent 10-pager about. Oh, I'd rather forget it. But... I had the idea in my notes about "what if" some businessman noticed Donald's ability to tell his nephews apart even though they are absolutely identicle, and he hires Donald as a quality control inspector in a manufacturing plant due to his "Master" attention to detail. I'd already made references in the past to how Donald can tell the Kids apart, but $crooge saw them as all identicle (he's the businessman). My story has lots of funny little bits... but I just couldn't figure out how to work the plot; Donald apparently DOES have these powers, so how would he screw up his job even though he DOES have this attention to detail??? I tried to figure it that he can only do it when he's not thinking about it -- but I just couldn't pull the basic logistics off smoothly. The whole story seemed "forced" to me -- so I don't like it. Feh. From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sat Oct 15 04:53:33 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 14 Oct 94 23:53:33 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #462. Message-ID: <941015035333_72260.2635_EHB227-3@CompuServe.COM> JAMES: Funny you should mention Donald not having any close friends in the stories. I think somebody in a "publisher" position (i.e. someone who knows nothing about writing or drawing or stories or humor or anything else, but who all those who DO must obey) has decided that Donald should have a best pal to be in his stories with him. And the editors and writers are sore about this since the publisher cannot think through his idea enough to realize that this "best pal" would serve no function in a Donald story... that's why there's never been one. He can't be more flawed a character than Donald or he's steal the stories from him. He would therefore need to be the saner of the duo... and this is the function that the nephew team fulfills, but Donald doesn't need to follow the Kids' advice since they're just kids. If there was an adult around with Donald to tell him how to act like an adult the whole story system would collapse. MATTIAS: I will arrive in Goteborg on Oct. 27 and attend the entire book fair. On that Sunday afternoon I'll go to Oslo to do who knows what they have lined up as far as promotional tours or whatever. Then on Thursday evening I'll go to Stockholm and leave there early Monday. But I thought you knew: Ann won't be coming. I had agreed to a nearly 2-week trip only if I managed to find a way for her to accompany me for part of the trip. Then we were invited to Germany for several weeks in June. Ann can't take off so much time from work other than about ONE week somewhere, and she finally decided to use that week in Germany. She loved Scandanavia... but given the choice of seeing Scandanavia a second time in the winter, and seeing Germany for the first time and in the spring... she decided on Germany. The problem is that I was already tied to a 2-week trip here coming up... and I'm a little sorry about that now. I'll enjoy it loads -- but that's an extra long time to be separated from both my wife and my PAYING job. RON: I've said this so many times that I'm sure it's tantamount to nagging. But I really don't need for you to repeat passages of my past messages, or (as in this case) almost my ENTIRE other message, just so you can comment on it. I know what I said -- and all this repeating just needlessly adds to the costs for those of us who are paying by the ounce to read these Digests. I know I'm a voice in the wilderness, but I really think everyone can carry on these discussions the same way I do... you note I never repeat people's messages to them when I reply. Are my replies unclear as a result? Tell me if they are. I just think these Digests can be reduced in size about 25-30% by refraining from all this repeating. (And PLEASE... I am NOT picking on you!) From Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se Sun Oct 16 14:36:55 1994 From: Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se (Mattias Hallin) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 14:36:55 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #463. In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Sun, 16 Oct 1994 01:33:27 +0100" <9410160033.AA13910@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <01HICJE5RM2C8WWBYG@castor.ldc.lu.se> DON: No -- you never said Ann wasn't coming; the last time you mentioned your Scandinavian trip, I got a clear impression you said she *would* come! But -- that's neither here nor there; I do have a day off from work Friday oct. 28th, and will be checking on train schedules and -fares to see if I can make it to Goteborg or not; I do have to be back in Lund by about 7 pm, and well... it remains to be seen if I can afford to! Also, about your comments to Ron, I agree though for a different reason that quoting previous messages ought to be kept to a minimum. Personally I *don't* have to pay-per-read, since I use an account at my workplace, but too many quotes in a message IMO makes it so much less readable that I often skip it. Now, there are times when quotes are rather necessary, e.g. when Geir or RoC or someone is commenting on several weeks worth of discussions, but in our daily discussions I think we ought to keep the quotes to a minimum. This is eassilly done by either editing out everything but the bare essentials from the message you're quoting, or by shortly recapping the qestion or issue you want to comment on in the beginning of your own posting; check the first sentence of this paragraph, f'rinstance ("Also, about your comments to Ron...") -- I use 24 words of my own to recap the issue/previous message that I'm commenting on. I think this is a better practice. All my best! Mattias **** Mattias Hallin ** Lund * Sweden ** **** * * * "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! * ************** A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" ************* From ekman at lysator.liu.se Sun Oct 16 17:20:27 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 17:20:27 +0100 (MET) Subject: Signatures In-Reply-To: <199410142105.28154.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Oct 1994, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?= wrote: > I see that I have to check the frontcovers a bit better in the future. > Does anybody know of any other signatures or other things hidden in the > art (I know Don's D.U.C.K. :) Well, you've got Van Horn's insects, if that counts as a signature. One or more insects have appeared in every story I've seen by him _except_ "Deck Us All" (D 93050) and that takes place in the middle of snowy December. /F From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sun Oct 16 18:35:25 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 94 18:35:25 +0100 Subject: Oil book Message-ID: <9410161735.AA05036@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> RoC wrote that > Something special is probably also in the pipes for Egmont's > complete edition, scheduled for 1996. and when James Williams asked about more about this, he continued by saying that > it's the German publisher Ehapa's reworked and updated version > of Cochran's and Hamilton's 1981 catalogue of Barks oils, i.e. _The Fine Art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck by Carl Barks_. So it is Ehapa who will publish it, and not Egmont? I'm looking forward to it already! -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Everything comes to him who sits and waits!" From eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu Mon Oct 17 03:33:07 1994 From: eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu (Ed Berndt) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 19:33:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PARENT GREETINGS-Please! Thanks! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Hello, > > > > Three teachers at Basin City Elementary in the North Franklin School > > District in the State of Washington are using the Internet with their > > fourth grade students this year for the first time. We have 52 children in > > our fourth grade classes and they are exited and eager to begin using and > > learning about the Internet. These students and their teachers are the > > only ones in the entire North Franklin School District that have a > > connection to the Internet. The reason they have a connection is because > > they applied and were accepted into a special State of Washington > > Telecommunication project entitled "Best of Washington". > > > > We (the fourth grade teachers) are writing because we need you > > help. First, we want to amaze our student'sparents and get THEM truly > > enthused at our "Parents' Internet Night" on Monday, October 24 We also > > wish to demonstrate to our school board how far the internet reaches and > > its scope. We would greatly appreciate a quick message from as many > > people and as many countries as possibel We will have a map of the world and > > put flags on the places we get messages from. Also ( if it is no > > trouble) we would appreciate your sharing your career (job) with us. This > > would allow us to see the variety of people and their work that is on the > > internet. > > > > Please send a short messages that tells us where you are from (country, > > city, area) and what you do for a living. We would appreciate it and we > > will write back and share the results with you. > > > > If you dicide to help us, please: > > > > send your e-mail to: eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu Do not send your > > leters (messages) to the list. Thanks in advance! > > > > Ed Berndt > > 4th Grade Teacher > > Basin City Elementary * * > > E-Mail Address: eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu @ > > :-) :-) :-) :-) Have a good day. :-) :-) \___/ > > > > > > > > > From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 17 12:36:55 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 11:36:55 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #461-463 Message-ID: <13B08630DE7@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Several things to chat about today. First, Don Rosa asked me if "Humperdink" appeared more than once as the name of Donald's grandpa. As far as I remember, yes. Maybe not, but the fact remains that no other name was ever given (and furthermore, wasn't Grandma's name of Elvira only used once, too? I seem to remember that's what we concluded when discussing it some months ago). In the particular story I recall, Grandma was in need of money and decided to sell some antiques in her attic, but couldn't bring herself to get rid of them in the end because each of them reminded her of some great event in her life. Humperdink was mentioned many times in this story. I just got British MICKEY & FRIENDS #41/1994 today. It began with the Mickey hypnotism gag story ("Hocus Pocus Hypnosis," D93392), and I was completely shocked by it. You see, I believe that this particular story was drawn by William Van Horn's son, Noel, who began working for Egmont about a year and a half ago. (Don't hold me to that until I get further evidence -- but I believe this to be the case.) It certainly owes a lot to Gottfredson art c. 1942. The real difference is in the rather rough linework, but this artist will just take some time to get his style down pat. I'm prepared. Next, Mickey spends the entire story talking in 1930s Gottfredson-lingo! For example: "Yer eyes are growin' heavy! Ya can't even keep 'em open!" And so forth (the dialogue wasn't altered much in Britain, it seems). Mickey even says "oh, fer gosh sakes" in one panel. It's one of the "new" Egmont Mickeys, all right. Sure is a shame that it contradicts a Gottfredson story -- and that, in general, the tale is unspectacular. But the fact remains that the spirit is willing. I'm beginning to look forward to more... and if I'm right about this being Noel Van Horn, he is apparently the guy who is going to draw my first Egmont Mickey tale soon. Do people want to see this in Gladstone's D&M? If enough of you are enthusiastic about it, I can get after John to print it. But again, it's more the mood of the story than the story itself that are interesting in this case. British #42 also contained a Donald/Gladstone story by Ben Verhagen ("Got an Itch," H8235). Basically unspectacular. Well-drawn, but I can't say I find it good enough to translate to American idiom for use here. I wonder if the Brits are going to use "Horsing Around with History"? No sign of it yet. Now to the discussion of Don Rosa's "gag" stories. Well, Don, I'll tell you my own thoughts. As far as I can figure it, "gag stories" in your definition are those that do not involve a treasure hunt, a villain, or any kind of long quest. So "On Stolen Time" is an adventure, by your standards. Now then, your "gag" stories have usually taken one of two routes. One is to create a story that moves in a prescribed series of steps, building to a climax (i. e. "Oolated Luck," "Recalled Wreck," "Mythological Menagerie"). Then there are some which simply present a concept ('Donald is trying to do such-and-such') and then bring on a series of basically unrelated gags: for example, "Super Snooper Strikes Again," "Incident at McDuck Tower," and "From Duckburg to Lillehammer" all contained scenes that could have fundamentally been switched around without harming the story's concept. I love the former style, in which a story has a continuing plot. The latter style somewhat leaves me less satisfied -- the stories seem to meander about, and the climax seems sudden when it arrives. No matter what you say, the story you did most recently sounds like it can't be anything but a story of the former type, the style I like more. You may have had a harder time doing it, but it sounds like you at least worked it out to some kind of satisfaction. I'm looking forward to seeing it -- when Gladstone uses it in *two years*, or however darned long it's going to be. Last, thanks to those of you who appreciated my doing gag stories with Mickey. Next year the standard MM format goes from eight to ten pages (maybe I mentioned that), and I have some ideas on the rack that ought to let Mickey really express himself. To me, Mickey has emotions and thoughts like the best characters in fiction, and I'm just itching to depict them! I'll be off now, folks. Take care, and I'll be in touch tomorrow. David Gerstein "Keep yer nose in the air, Monty! With any luck, your head'll fall off backwards!" <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Mon Oct 17 13:51:56 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 17 Oct 94 08:51:56 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #464. Message-ID: <941017125155_72260.2635_EHB37-2@CompuServe.COM> PER: Ehapa IS Egmont. Didn't you know? Or do you mean that you think the job will be better done by the album-publishing branch rather than the comic-publishing branch? Even if that's what you mean, I don't think you're right. Ehapa is publishing the German "Don Rosa Library" album series, and though they do have it hand-lettered, that's the only difference between the comics version and the album version of those same stories. The lettering is hand-done, but it's not all that good, and the letterer still doesn't make any attempt to letter signs and background details in any other style than that used in the dialogue balloons (which looks really stupid). They use the same coloring, which is completely uninspired (though well printed). And they are just as careless... the latest edition has a large sign on the cover which they didn't bother to put the intended lettering on, so it's just staring at you totally blank. But they DO give me credit for my work. But they don't pay me royalties for the use of that work, just like the comics people. (Or, to be fair, it's Disney that doesn't send me my share of the royalties that are paid them for the use of my work). MATTIAS: I'm pretty sure we knew that Ann wasn't coming to Scandanavia when you visited here. Or maybe we only thought she might not. Or maybe we never happened to discuss that trip? Anyway, after you left, I think she said you'd maentioned maybe showing her around somemore like you did on that other trip, and I asked her is she had told you that she wouldn't or might not be coming, and she said she hadn't for some reason. Anyway, if I had known that she would end up not coming, I wouldn't have agreed to go to the Stockholm convention, not that I don't wish to, but it's just too long for her to stay home by herself. But I'd like you to help me out here on something else. Give me a list of the names of all the Duck fans in your group who I've met in Sweden on my previous trips (besides you and Stefan) along with some very brief description. I meet so many people at once, and they all have such unusual (to an American) names that I never can call them all to mind, and I hate to seem rude! I'll make a note of what you tell me so that I can "study" it a bit. And yes, I don't see why we can't just say something like: "Mattias -- in reference to what you said about those plastic monkies, I think that blah blah blah". I can't see a reason to ever reprint people's actual messages even in part. But I hope it can be kept down to a bare minimum at least. In any case, there's never a reason to reprint more than a single line or so. From jonlo at ifi.uio.no Mon Oct 17 14:38:23 1994 From: jonlo at ifi.uio.no (Jon Cato Lorentzen) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 14:38:23 +0100 Subject: Various Message-ID: <199410171338.7748.sognsvann.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> JOERGEN ANDREAS BANGO MENTIONED A TEXT BOOK ABOUT DONALD DUCK: I also saw this book at my local comic-store, but after flipping through it for a couple of seconds, I soon found out that it was not about the Barks DD, but a very Disney-like DD. It seemed to be aimed at kids. FETHRY & STORY CODES: In Norwegian DD&CO nr.38/94, there was a Story with Fethry on page 27. This story looked like it was drawn recently, and as David was told us Egmont won't use Fethry any more, I tried to find the story code, but couldn't! Very strange. In the frame of this page, there is also written "color: white coat". Guess the artist wrote this, and the editors forgot to erase it. Oh, by the way: those who have this issue, check out the bottom of the page, where you will find mentioned a member of this list :) LIFE OF SCROOGE: Is that Bruce Hamiltons signature on the check on page 1? Didn't the check have Carl Barks signature in the Egmont printing of this story? I may be far off here, but as my comic collection is 1800 km away, I can't check it. -Jon C. Lorentzen -University of Oslo From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 17 16:33:24 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 15:33:24 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #461. Message-ID: <13EF97054A6@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, I found out that my local comic shop *did* get WDC&S 594, *failed* to reserve it for me, and *sold* it to someone *else!* The only shop in town that gets Gladstones!!! So if someone has a copy of that comic which they can send to me, and does so, in exchange they can have a copy of the British Disney weekly. Roll up, roll up... and if one of you goes for this offer, then also post a note to the Digest saying so, so that others will know the offer's closed then. Thanks, gang! David Gerstein From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 17 17:27:53 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 16:27:53 +0000 Subject: Cuts in USA D-stories Message-ID: <13FE14E5053@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, It's common knowledge that Gladstone sometimes trims an Egmont story slightly when using it in the States. It's often done to remove a very redundant splash panel in a story that was originally two parts, in which case a few other panels are taken out to facilitate removal of an entire page. Sometimes a story simply works better when trimmed (for example, on dialoguing one Vicar story, I myself chose to eliminate a page since I felt it slowed the story down and was completely unnecessary). But looking through our Database, I noticed a few stories that were much more severely chopped. I had noticed a few telltale signs (i. e. two panels the width of the page clustered together in the middle, whereas one originally finished off a page and another started it). But I never knew so much was cut. The first such tale is "Golden Oldies" in USA 23, a personal favorite of mine. As published by Gladstone it was about 15 pages, but the original was over twenty! So what was taken out? I was particularly shocked to see that so much was cut. It didn't feel cut, aside from one page that had a weird layout as a result. "The Treasure of Rattler River" (DDA 25) lost four pages, I believe. I suspected it had probably lost *one*, but -- four? Just what was taken out? This was a very brief, ineffectual tale as published. Was it once any meatier? Last, "Danger Island", just last month in USA 29. It lost three pages, I think. It seems to me that perhaps two were cut from the beginning (the story started very abruptly), then two half-pages cut later on? Was anything removed due to violent content? With that story, it sure seemed like a possibility. That's all for now, folks. Sure wonder about these. Best, David Gerstein From mas at cs.bu.edu Mon Oct 17 16:39:15 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 11:39:15 -0400 Subject: Disney-comics digest #461. In-Reply-To: <13EF97054A6@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> (9475609@arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk) Message-ID: <199410171539.LAA07552@csa.bu.edu> >From: "DAVID.A.GERSTEIN" <9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk> >... So if someone has a copy >of that comic which they can send to me, and does so, in exchange >they can have a copy of the British Disney weekly. David, I'd be *more* than happy to do this. My local store has a stack of WDC&S 594, and I'd love to be able to see the British Disney Weekly. I was in London last May, visited all of the comic book shops I could find, and not only could I not find *any* disney comic books over there, I was told by all the shop employees that such comic books didn't even exist! From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Tue Oct 18 05:52:12 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 18 Oct 94 00:52:12 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #465. Message-ID: <941018045211_72260.2635_EHB213-3@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: Yes, the way you define a "gag story" is the way I see it. JON: Yes to you also. In the European version of part V of the "Lo$", that bank draft did have Barks' signature "forged" onto it. But I suggested to Gladstone that they remove that and have Bruce sign it instead. I didn't want to give the "Barks Studio" any fodder to fire off weaselly attacks at me. That's also the reason that I finally wrote into the text piece that I had sent an outline of the entire series and advance looks at each chapter for his comments; he had asked me, at some point, not to say that he was being given the chance to give me comments, so I didn't mention it, naturally. Now that I've suffered a year worth of the "Barks Studio" claiming that the series is poorly drawn, poorly written, has nothing to do with Barks' $crooge, blah blah blah, I thought I might be allowed the impudence to tell a bit of the truth now and then, in a very polite manner. MARK: I have heard many times that stores and collectors in Britain aren't even aware that there IS a British Disney comic. I think there are several reasons for this. Britain is the only country which seems to reflect the failed American comic medium of the past 25 years. In fact, Disney comics flopped even sooner in Britain -- I'm told that they were out of business for 15 years or so, and, just as in America where they were for all intents and purposes out of print for about 10 years, once that sort of thing happens you can never regain the lost reader base. Also, it seems that British newsstands can pick and choose what they stock, whereas American news distributors must stock EVERYTHING that the mafia... er, excuse me... the local news distributor carries or they get fire-bombed... er, excuse me... reprimanded severely. So most all stores in Britain obviously pass on carrying the Disney weeklies which no one wants anyway. I just wonder if this isn't what's now going on at American newsstands now. (NOTE: when I say newsstands, I don't mean direct sales comic stores which are a completely different system.) But when I see special racks full of Marvel comics at airports and record stores (in other words, places which seem to be being supplied not by a local news distributor or a direct sales distributor, but have some deal directly with Marvel) I see ALL the Marvel titles displayed EXCEPT their Gladstones. They even have the BARBI comics, but no Disneys. Something is fishy. PER: What can I gripe about today? Hm... let me think. Ah, I know! That long message that led off today's Digest. Regardless of whether or not I might think this would be a useful and educational activity for schoolchildren (I have my doubts), it still strikes me that what happened is tantamount to me being forced to accept a collect phone call from a telemarketer. Or like having to pay the postman to deliver junk mail to me. Nothing in that message had anything to do with this forum. From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Tue Oct 18 06:41:46 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 94 06:41:46 +0100 Subject: Inappropriate message In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 18 Oct 94 00:52:12 EDT <941018045211_72260.2635_EHB213-3@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9410180541.AA15680@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Don> What can I gripe about today? Hm... let me think. Ah, I know! ... Yes, that message had nothing to do on this list. Only thing I don't understand is why you direct your gripe at *me*. I didn't write it. If I wanted to gripe back a bit I could point out that I think your frequent mentioning of how much you have to pay for your net access is misdirected. It's not my/our problem if you choose to have your mail delivered to you by a "postman" who charges you too much. The "magazine" you subscribe to is still free, including both the relevant stuff and the irrelevant, and unfortunately I'm sure there'll always be people looking for a way to reach an audience on whatever it may be here, there, and everywhere. Speaking about irrelevant messages this message has nothing whatsoever to do with Disney comics, which I pointed out already in the Subject: line. :-) Hmm, maybe I should add something "relevant" here instead, like explaining what I meant about Egmont / Ehapa (concerning that new oil book RoC wrote about it). Well, maybe they are the same, but I still thought it made a difference where the book would be produced. But that doesn't imply I meant one place would be better than the other. What I really want is of course to know more about this book and how I'll will able to buy it in the future if it won't be too expensive. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 17 10:35:09 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 10:35:09 +0100 Subject: Wendigo, Database, Rota, Database Message-ID: <9410170935.AA07222@ux08.pttnwb.nl> I promised to type in the English Wendigo "poetry". I thought it was a small part of the story. But now that I re-read the script, I realise that EVERYTHING the Wendigos say is "poetry". I didn't even notice that when I read the English text the first time. I guess that is because I don't read the English loud, and it wasn't rhyming. The original Barks story was like this as well, I guess... I only read the Dutch version of it. So I agree with Don now: the poetry pieces would make no sense if you don't have the entire story. **** start of boring Database stuff **** David (good you found access to internet again): > Harry, this story is now known as "The Gleam" (remember, Mickey > has solved many jewel robberies) and will be titled as such when > Gladstone eventually uses it. Isn't it called that in our database? I have (so far) had the following policy WRT story descriptions in the Disney comics Database: if a story has no title on its own, but it had one in a reprint, the reprint title is taken using R: as a prefix. If it has no title anywhere, an 'official' decription is used (D:). Mostly from the Carl Barks Library in Color, or from the book "MM in Color". In the case of the Gleam, the story was reprinted WITH a title, so that R: overrides the "MM in Color" description. When Gladstone uses it, and uses "The Gleam" as a story title, I can use that as an "official" title. (If a story is reprinted twice with different titles, I just take one...) Of course, I could change the 'policy'. But the idea was that titles in reprints are a bit more "official" than descriptions outside the story. **** end of boring Database stuff **** Ole about Marco Rota: > His best, IMHO, is however "Night of the Saracen", code unknown, another > Viking story, except it's more like Arabian Nights. I agree that the Saracen story is very good. But Rota's recent stories for Egmont are getting worse. BTW: The Saracen story appeared in a special comic in Italy, hence it has no "normal" story code. Ole again: > Harry: thank you for the 'Diznirep' files and data. Lasse could tell > that you are a real programmer! I hope you are able to compile and run the programs! And yes, programming is part of my job (if that makes me a 'real programmer' 8-). And I'd love to see your current Danish index! Fredrik: > I've also got some comments on the database, but I'll gather some more > ammunition before I dump them onto you. You're making me curious... Thanks for the thanks. --Harry. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 17 11:15:11 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 11:15:11 +0100 Subject: Rosa in Disney-comics digest #460. Message-ID: <9410171015.AA08406@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Don: > Do the Digests have titles? When you reply (or send a new message), your computer should give you an editor window with a line starting with "Subject:" somewhere on top. The text behind this is the "title" (mostly called "subject" 8-) of the message. If you reply, the text is already filled in: it's the subject of the message you reply to. You should be able to edit this. Per has a program that puts all the "subjects" of the messages in a digest in the "contents" header. Maybe there are some list members that scan messages on subject: only read those messages that have an interesting subject. But don't worry too much about this: your messages are (almost) always interesting, and (almost) always regard the entire previous digest, so your subjects are quite accurate... > I notice everyone's > contributions seem to have titles that they add themselves, while mine > always have the titles as I describe above. Funny you say that in a digest where 6 of the 7 messages carry the title "Disney-comics digest #459"... --Harry. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Tue Oct 18 09:52:14 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:52:14 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #465. Message-ID: <9410180852.AA08140@ux08.pttnwb.nl> First, a message for eberndt at mirage.esd123.wednet.edu, who wrote: > Do not send your leters (messages) to the list. That goes for you too. Do not send leters to the list that have NOTHING to do with Disney comics. There are other ways to reach many people through Internet. ---- Hm... I didn't see my own messages in the Digest today. I hope they will be there tomorrow (sigh). ---- David, about a new "old" Egmont MM story: > Do people want to see this in Gladstone's D&M? I have not seen the story, but if you think the story is not very good, maybe it's better to wait for a _good_ story. Since the story would _introduce_ the new/old Egmont stories, a bad introduction could do too much harm. ---- Don: > And yes, I don't see why we can't just say something like: > "Mattias -- in reference to what you said about [...] I'm sure YOU can say that. And David and Mattias always do it that way as well. But you are good in writing English. For me (and others), it's a handicap to write in English. Every sentence is weighed 3 times before it is sent out. Having to recollect the subject in my own words is just an extra effort that I avoid by quoting you. I'm sure it cannot be the intention to make it _difficult_ for people to write to this list. But I agree that the quotes can (and should) be as minimal as possible. ---- Jon C. about Life of Scrooge chapter 5: > Is that Bruce Hamiltons signature on the check on page 1? Yes, I think so. I also noticed the difference: in the Dutch printing, the signature was also by Carl Barks. I think Egmont changed it this way in the European prints. The signature seems too obvious to be in the original Rosa script. --Harry. From ekman at lysator.liu.se Tue Oct 18 17:40:30 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 17:40:30 +0100 (MET) Subject: [...] Database, [...] Database In-Reply-To: <9410170935.AA07222@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Message-ID: In reply to Harry about the database (see, I'm picking up): Actually, I didn't intend to go in public with this, but since you bring it up yourself... Now, since I am not certain about the details about The Gleam, I won't use that as an example, but I think it is similar to what I am thinking of. (If you have no interest in the database, stop reading now and flame me. How many are interested anyway?) Perhaps you remember that when you were about to start making this database I brought up a few points, one being that I wanted some redundancy among the titles? I think that was the only one of my points that didn't get through to the present version of the stuff. Anyway, I wasn't then even sure that I knew myself what I was talking about. Now I am, so here's more opting for redundancy: Just about a week ago I downloaded the Swedish .issues files for a friend, and what did I notice? Well, all the titles are quite useless! This is due to the fact that you currently take all titles from the story files rather than the issue files. Thus, we get a lot of T(itles) and D(escriptions) and the like but very few Sw(edish). I suppose the situation is similar although better for the American comics. You will see the same title for the first printing and all reprints and you can't really say if a R(eprint) title belongs to this particular reprint or if this one was untitled or what. But please correct me if I am wrong. Now, what should we do? The obvious answer is: Create redundancy! Every story entry must of course have a title and this could keep the format it has today, although all translations from non-English titles could perhaps be labelled Tr(anslation) or somesuch since it's really not useful to know which language it originates from. (Meaning the translation, which is unlikely to be the original title anyway.) The issue files, then should ALSO have a title entry. Stories that have no title remain blank of course (and get the title including designator from the story files) and titles that are IDENTICAL to the T(itles) entry could just get a "T:", titles that are IDENTICAL to the R(eprint) could get a "R:" etc to reduce redundancy. But ALL NON-ENGLISH issues should have ALL TITLES included in the issue files. STORIES IN .issues FILES THAT HAVE THEIR ORIGINAL TITLE SHOULD HAVE NO DESIGNATOR in order to tell them apart from the others. Thus, if story A has no title in its first printing and is titled "B" in its second, the first entry (in the .issues file) will be "T:B" and the second will be "B". In addition, all Swedish, Danish and other such languages should use the Latin-1 standard until something better is sufficiently standardized. Naturally this causes problems. Perhaps lots of people will have to do lots of proof-reading and re-indexing if we go with this, but I for one certainly think it is worth it. I don't know if there is any boring manual labour that could be done without having access to any actual comic books, but if there is, I am willing to do it. Phew! Now, did any of the above make sense to anyone? I didn't try to make anyone but Harry understand and like I said it wasn't intended to go out to everyone originally. /F From JohnH53688 at aol.com Tue Oct 18 20:55:21 1994 From: JohnH53688 at aol.com (JohnH53688@aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 15:55:21 -0400 Subject: Yeah! Whats with the colori Message-ID: <9410181555116308648@aol.com> I had some problems with a few pages of Lo$ 5 also. These coloring problems have been becoming more and more frequent over the past several months (at least in my copies...) Anyone know what's up with Gladstone's publisher? John From ekman at lysator.liu.se Tue Oct 18 21:50:13 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 21:50:13 +0100 (MET) Subject: [...] Database, [...] Database In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > them apart from the others. Thus, if story A has no title in its first > printing and is titled "B" in its second, the first entry (in the .issues > file) will be "T:B" and the second will be "B". And naturally I messed everything up comtotally. The last line of the above should thus read: > file) will be "R:B" and the second will be "B". since the title is taken from a reprint. Right? /F PS. I don't expect that message of mine to be comprehensible. Please ask if I need to clarify anything. DS. From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Wed Oct 19 04:42:59 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 18 Oct 94 23:42:59 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #466. Message-ID: <941019034259_72260.2635_EHB240-3@CompuServe.COM> PER: Of course I know you didn't write that "junk mail" that appeared on the Digest, but I figured you had some control over what gets put in here. You mean that everything that pops in the Digest does so automatically without you having any way to stop it? That's scary. It seems like telemarketers will soon get the idea to take over these computer systems if they find out thay can start pumping it all full of ads at other people's expense! HARRY: Well, you got my goat with that comment about how it's easier to quote passages of old messages when one is not so fluent in their English. I have to confess that after talking and corresponding with you Europeans for several years, I have gotten the impression that you speak English effortlessly since you all do it so well ... better by far, in fact, than most rural Kentuckians! And I always try to mention how impressed I am by people who can speak two (or more!) languages since I live in this society where people barely speak ONE very well. JOHN: The problem with Gladstone's coloring is that they are not shown proofs of the coloring before the job. There's only one color press in America (unless things have changed) and they probably don't treat their customers too well when they know those customers have no choice. And you can imagine how little respect Gladstone gets from them since Gladstone must be their smallest comic-book customer. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Wed Oct 19 14:20:13 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 14:20:13 +0100 Subject: Database, and colours in Lo$ 5 Message-ID: <9410191320.AA06491@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Fredrik, about the Disney comics Database: > How many are interested anyway? I would like to know that too. If we are the only two, we can continue this discussion in private mail... > I wanted some redundancy among the titles [..] I think that was the only > one of my points that didn't get through [..] Well, partly. You can explicitly indicate in an 'issue' file that a story has a title, differing from the "official" one. However, you can't indicate that a story has NO title. I'll fix that. > I downloaded the Swedish .issues files [...] all the titles are quite > useless! My goal was to have all titles and descriptions in English, everywhere. But because no English data was available for some entries, I "allowed" Dutch, Swedish and Danish titles/descriptions. Do you really think all story titles should be Swedish in the Swedish index? I originally did that in the Dutch index, but I think it's of no use: most Dutch titles do not describe the story accurately, and almost everyone can read English here. > I suppose the [Swedish] situation is similar although better for the > American comics. In the Gladstone and Western indexes, all titles are given as they appear in that particular issue. Only thing that's wrong on _some_ places is when a story has no title in that issue, but it _has_ somewhere else (the R:-case you described). > it's really not useful to know which language it originates from. Oh? > ALL NON-ENGLISH issues should have ALL TITLES included in the issue files. Please propose a handsome lay-out for listing more than one title of a story. > all Swedish, Danish and other such languages should use the Latin-1 standard I don't know enough of Latin-1 or any other standards. I use 7-bit ASCII, which means those funny Scandinavian characters are unreadable for me. That's why they have disappeared or are replaced by an 'x'. Any standard my mailer can handle is OK with me. ---- After all this, a reply to JohnH53688 at aol.com (and others): > I had some problems with a few pages of Lo$ 5 also. I bought 2 copies of that comic, and I have not seen any colouring problem at all. Maybe they select the best comics for the European market? 8-) --Harry. P.S. Fredrik: what does 'DS.' mean? From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Thu Oct 20 04:47:40 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 04:47:40 +0100 Subject: What goes in the digests? + PS on DS In-Reply-To: <941019034259_72260.2635_EHB240-3@CompuServe.COM> (message from Don Rosa on 18 Oct 94 23:42:59 EDT) Message-ID: <9410200347.AA12615@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Please Don, surely I've answered this before? This list is uncensored and unmoderated. Most of the subscribers got this message in their mailboxes within a few minutes after I sent it. In a truly moderated list someone would have to OK it first, and everything would be a lot slower. Those of the subscribers who receive the digests (like you do) or course get everything late anyway, and there's certainly a technical pssibility for me to interrupt the normal operation to remove certain messages that already have been sent to the list from appearing in the digests. I *won't* delete inappropriate messages sent to the list from the digests though, because * It would take time to do it. Often I don't read that mail myself until after it's been digested anyway. * Different subscribers getting different sets of messages would be a cause for confusion when someone comments on something that not everyone has got. * It's too hard to draw the line between what's appropriate and not. * I don't like censoring anyway. This is the only way I'm ever going to administrate a mailing list, but there's nothing at all stopping someone from starting their own "best-of-disney-comics" list, only containing the relevant, interesting, fun and readable messages sent to the list, acting as a forwarder who won't forward everything. I don't know how many people would be interested in that instead of a full subscription, but as long as there isn't any volunteer to do the job it's a somewhat moot point. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" P.S. Harry asked about "DS". That is a customary ending of a PS in Sweden. Probably Fredrik doesn't realize that whereas PS is an international (Latin) abbreviation, DS is a Swedish abbreviation, meaning "den samme" = "the same", as a way of signing the PS with the same name as the main text. /P.S. From Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se Thu Oct 20 10:49:06 1994 From: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se (Anders Engwall) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 10:49:06 +0100 Subject: Database Message-ID: <9410200949.AA28339@euax1i4c12.eua.ericsson.se> Harry Fluks: > Fredrik, about the Disney comics Database: > > How many are interested anyway? > > I would like to know that too. If we are the only two, we can continue this > discussion in private mail... Count me in... > > I downloaded the Swedish .issues files [...] all the titles are quite > > useless! > > My goal was to have all titles and descriptions in English, everywhere. > But because no English data was available for some entries, I "allowed" > Dutch, Swedish and Danish titles/descriptions. Do you really think all > story titles should be Swedish in the Swedish index? I originally did > that in the Dutch index, but I think it's of no use: most Dutch titles > do not describe the story accurately, and almost everyone can read English > here. Fredrik has a point here; if someone is trying to find out in which issue a certain story was published, he'll probably search for the title he remembers it had. If the person is Swedish, he will naturally recall a Swedish title, not whatever the original one was. Changing the titles in the Swedish index would mean a *lot* of work, though. > > ALL NON-ENGLISH issues should have ALL TITLES included in the issue files. > > Please propose a handsome lay-out for listing more than one title of a story. The lines would be *very* long... :-) No, I don't see the usefulness of listing *every* Swedish title a certain story has been published with. An issue list should contain the title of each particular issue, IMO. > > all Swedish, Danish and other such languages should use the Latin-1 standard > > I don't know enough of Latin-1 or any other standards. I use 7-bit ASCII, > which means those funny Scandinavian characters are unreadable for me. > That's why they have disappeared or are replaced by an 'x'. > Any standard my mailer can handle is OK with me. And even *if* Harry's software could handle Latin-1, there's absolutely no guarantee that the nodes between you and him can. At least I can not send Scandinavian characters to him, they arrive at his place looking absolutely terrible. At least that what he says - perhaps he's too lazy to upgrade his programs... :-) Anders Engwall Email: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se ELLEMTEL Utvecklings AB Voice: +46 8 727 3893 [lvsj|, Sweden Fax: +46 8 727 42 20 endremin saxassa flumen flobollala / feilobasch falljada follidi / flumbasch From shg at rhi.hi.is Thu Oct 20 11:34:06 1994 From: shg at rhi.hi.is (Sigurdur Hrafn Gislason) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 10:34:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Donald as a sport fan. In-Reply-To: <9410200025.AA09748@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> from "disney-comics@minsk.docs.uu.se" at Oct 20, 94 01:25:51 am Message-ID: <9410201034.AA09401@hengill.rhi.hi.is> I just read some back issues of Donald and came upon several sport stories. While I like them and all, I was struck by the fact that Donald is indeed a soccer fan. Now this isn't surprising since most of our stories seem to come from Europe but I don't seem to remember a single story where he watched/played one of the "all american" sports. Where are the baseball stories? Football stories? Donald as a basketball hero (might make a good story). Are these stories made and never published in the European market? Sigurdur From ekman at lysator.liu.se Thu Oct 20 15:58:21 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 15:58:21 +0100 (MET) Subject: Donald as a sport fan. In-Reply-To: <9410201034.AA09401@hengill.rhi.hi.is> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Oct 1994, Sigurdur Hrafn Gislason wrote: > Where are the baseball stories? Football stories? Donald as a > basketball hero (might make a good story). Hmm... I remember seeing one Italian story where Donald is the coach for Hewey, Dewey and Louie's basketball team. I suppose I could dig up the code if someone is interested enough. /F From ekman at lysator.liu.se Thu Oct 20 19:13:54 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 19:13:54 +0100 (MET) Subject: Database In-Reply-To: <9410200949.AA28339@euax1i4c12.eua.ericsson.se> Message-ID: Here's yet another exciting message about database format. You have been warned! Right, so there are three of us at least. Harry: You managed to straighten out a few question marks for me, but it also seems that you misunderstood me on a few points, no doubt due to me being unclear as usual. Harry: > You can explicitly indicate in an 'issue' file that a story > has a title, differing from the "official" one. Yes, but can you see in the .issues file if the title is for this issue specifically or "official"? I don't think so (although correct me if I'm wrong). What I am proposing is that the title designator (T, R, et c) should not be included in the .issues files unless the story has no title in that issue. Damn, I hardly even understand what I am trying to say myself here. What I would need to do is to come up with an actual example from one of the files, but since I don't have access to many of those books anyway, I'm not sure I can do that. > My goal was to have all titles and descriptions in English, everywhere. That's what I thought. But then we must ask ourselves: What is the purpose of this database? If only to facilitate making references in discussions on this mailing list, then this is certainly a good policy. But when I downloaded the Swedish files, I did so in order to send them to a comics collecting friend. Now, HE won't have any use for the English titles. He will want the Swedish. Another reason that I am rambling on about this subject is that I (perhaps foolishly) have undertaken the mission of converting these files for the Grand Comics Database, which has previously been discussed briefly on this list. For those who have not heard of them, they are a bunch of lunat... err... devoted collectors who are trying to index ALL American comics and making the results freely available on the 'net. I thought that our database would fit in neatly in that scheme if it can only be converted properly. > Do you really think all story titles should be Swedish in the Swedish > index? YES! If I really want to discuss story D88215 (dummy example) I could look the proper title up in the d.stories file. A little more trouble, but not really that much, I think. > > it's really not useful to know which language it originates from. > > Oh? I just KNEW that statement would be misinterpreted. Let's take dummy example D88215 for instance. Suppose John Anderson (isn't there some Egmont writer by that name?) wrote the thing and called it "Day of the Triplets". Then Stefan Dios translates it to Swedish and calls it "Knattarnas stora dag". Finally, Anders Engwall indexes the Swedish publication of the story and retranslates the title as "The big day for Hewey, Dewey and Louie". Now, what is the point of knowing where this last title originates from? Of course, we must point out that it is NOT the original title, and this could be done by using a designator like Tr: (meaning Translated). I think it's confusing enough having to keep track of Sw, D and N (or whatever it is that you use). What of the day when people will want to start indexing Russian, Italian, Chinese, Norwegian and French books all at once? > > ALL NON-ENGLISH issues should have ALL TITLES included in the issue files. > > Please propose a handsome lay-out for listing more than one title of a story. &%$**! Without seeing my original context, I don't have a clue to what I meant by that sentence, but I am pretty sure that I didn't mean what you think. Anders: > And even *if* Harry's software could handle Latin-1, there's absolutely > no guarantee that the nodes between you and him can. Well, perhaps it was stupid of me to suggest Latin-1. There is absolutely no realistic way to use it for plain-text files over the 'net. The only way is to UUencode it. This could work, but it also means that all indexers will have to know a lot about what they are doing. They must know enough about Latin-1 to tell if that is what they are using (or else a way of converting it) and also be able to UUencode. But I really don't see another way to have Swedish, Danish and other non-English titles in the database. Perhaps every language could use their own 7-bit standard, but that would be messy for anyone interested in some other country's titles... Anyway, if that is any comfort, I could undertake to convert the Swedish titles that are _currently_ in the database to Latin-1. But I would only do it if we decide to go for Latin-1 on the whole line, since using it for only one language makes no sense. /F PS. Thanks, Per, for telling me about DS. I had no idea it was specifically Swedish. Guess I won't be using it any more in my international messages. DS (oops!) From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Fri Oct 21 02:12:49 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 02:12:49 +0100 Subject: Database In-Reply-To: Fredrik Ekman's message of 20 Oct 1994 19:19:49 +0100 Message-ID: <199410210112.9471.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> You can count me in too on the discussion of the Disney comics Database. I might not contribute much to the discussion, but I will certainly be interested in seeing what you are doing. Since I am working on this WWW index, I have been thinking about what format I should use. I have thought up something, but after having taken a look at the index, I think I like yours better than mine. What I was thinking about was to give each issue a unique code, which I see you have done too, then put information about stories, titles, writers/artists etc. into files for each sort of information. Ex: Donald Duck & Co (dummy examples) 2000 D88215 H8000 S2600 I1500 2001 H88515 D2100 ... ... etc. Writers D88215 Day of the Triplets W:John Anderson A:? D88216 .... etc. Published D88215 2000 (published in no. 2000) D88216 ... etc. Issues 2000 no. 15 12. april 1994 2001 no. 16 19. april 1994 etc. Then it would be easy to make a script that gets the information the user wants form these files. The files alone won't be too human readable though... and with this many files, filled with a lot of information, it could be argued that it would be a rather big job for the computer (but with SPARC-20's who cares...). Well, I might just translate the Swedish files into Norwegian. About transfering files over the net. It's no use in trying to transfer Latin-1 (8-bit) with mail. The SMTP (mail protocol) is built for 7-bit transfer. A lot of smart people (and less smart) have done a lot of (different) things to solve this problem, and that's the real problem. There are no standards. If you look close on the headers in this mail (if they still are there when it reach you) you might see something like 'J=F8rgen'. '=F8' is MIME's way to send 'oe' over the net as 7-bit. When it reaches a place that uses MIME, it will be restored to 'oe' (o with slash...). The simplest solution to this is to use uuencode, as Fredrik suggested, or to put it on an FTP-site, and set FTP to 8-bit mode. In spite of the problems with 8-bit characters, I would still suggest that they should be used. If this is really going to be a "universal" data base, we better use them from the beginning. Most of the languages that probably would appear in the data base need them. Just my opinions :-) Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Fri Oct 21 02:45:18 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 02:45:18 +0100 Subject: Various Message-ID: <199410210145.9725.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Jon Cato Lorentzen mentioned me mentioning a text book about Donald Duck. What's the difference between Barks DD and Disney DD? Do you mean the last one is more like the cartoon DD? And that's probably also the same as Taliaferro's DD. Then all the Danish and Dutch artists are using the Barks DD. Well, that makes sense, I guess. What made me not buy the book though, is that it's not a comic book. BTW, Jon, your local comic-store is probably the same as mine :-) Too bad they get the Gladstones so late. The "new" Fethry story: >In the frame of this page, there is also written "color: white >coat". I've seen this in other stories too, but not often. I did rem- ember there was something strange with that story. You're right i doesn't have a code. Strange. Except from Italian stories I haven't noticed this with any stories after the early seventies. Something totally different. A couple of months ago some Marvel-Disney comics appeared at the local comic store. The titles are "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and The Beast" and "Alladin" (and "Disney Afternoon", but that's too stupid to diserve being mentioned). What surprises me a bit is that I thought Disney Comics were publishing these titles, and now Marvel is presenting them as totally new comics. Did Disney mess up this too? Also I think I remember having read that Gladstones magazines are somehow distributed by Marvel. This isn't mentioned at all in these magazines. What _is_ mentioned (a lot) is some Barbie-something. The letter column is quiet funny... there are a lot of kids that want what they call cross-overs from other comics. Strange. I've never wanted to see Woody Woodpecker in a Mickey Mouse story... Ah, yes. I've been insect hunting. Found a lot of them. Thanks. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Fri Oct 21 04:40:03 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 20 Oct 94 23:40:03 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #468. Message-ID: <941021034003_72260.2635_EHB221-4@CompuServe.COM> HARRY: No off register coloring in your issue of U$ #289? Check the page where the two Whiskervilles first enter with Hortense's broom busted across their heads, and also the page where those same two see $crooge in the castle gate just up from the moat. Those pages in European issues of the Gladstones do NOT have misaligned coloring? The coloring is slightly off-register on other pages, but those two are the worst. If issues over there do NOT have such misprints, maybe you can GET me one? From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri Oct 21 06:07:16 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 94 06:07:16 +0100 Subject: World Wide Web In-Reply-To: <199410210112.9471.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> (message from =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?= on Fri, 21 Oct 1994 02:12:49 +0100) Message-ID: <9410210507.AA17241@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I've started on a World Wide Web page on Disney comics as an alternative to the ftp archive. It's *very* preliminary, so I don't recommend adding links to it all over the place, but please check it out if you're into WWW. The URL is http://www.update.uu.se/~starback/disney-comics.html (For those who don't know what World Wide Web is: it's a hypertext-based web of network-accessible information. Hmm, that wasn't a particularly good explanation -- I really recommend checking it out, if you can. You need to have Internet access to do so. Look for programs like mosaic or lynx, or ask some computer guru at your site about WWW.) Most of the information on the Disney comics page as it is now is just links into the ftp archive, but I plan on making more and more of the information "native" WWW info (in HTML mode), and to make it possible to search the various indexes from the page. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Fri Oct 21 14:57:51 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 94 08:57:51 EST Subject: Various Message-ID: <2ea7bacf@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Jorgen, >What's the difference between Barks DD and Disney DD? Disney's Donald Duck is an actor who play whatever role they want him to. Other than a few stereo types (his voice and temper) nothing remains the same. Carl Bark claim to fame is that he turned this two dimensional character into a real person. >>In the frame of this page, there is also written "color: white >>coat". >I've seen this in other stories too, but not often. Lets see if I can explain this in less than 500 words. There are five separate tasks involved in producing a color comic book story - writing, pencils, inks, letters, and colors. The writer writes a script. This script describes the panel to the artist and lists the dialog underneath it. The penciler takes this script and draws it. The inker inks the pencils. Then the artwork and the script go to the letterer. The letterer puts the word balloons in. Lastly, the artwork is given to the colorist. They color it. If I'm writing a story about Scrooge, I don't have to tell the penciler what Scrooge looks like. All I have to do is describe his actions and emitions. Why? Because the penciler know what Scrooge looks like. Likewise, no one has to tell the colorist how to color Scrooge. Again, the colorist knows how to color Scrooge. But, what if my story hinges on the fact that Scrooge is wearing a white coat. Then, the writer notes this in the script. After the panel description and dialog, there would be a color note. Still with me? Look back at the original process listed and you'll notice one little problem. The color notes are in the script, but the colorist never sees the script. So, the penciler writes the color notes on the actually artwork or in the margins. This stuff isn't suppose to be printed, but ocassionally people mess up and the color notes show up in the comic. >What surprises me a bit is that I thought Disney Comics were publishing >these titles, and now Marvel is presenting them as totally new comics. These are all new comics produced by Marvel. Just like Gladstone, Marvel licenses these characters from Disney. >Also I think I remember having read that Gladstones magazines are >somehow distributed by Marvel. The comic market in the US is divided into two types - direct sales and the newstand. Direct sales are easier because the products are usually sold on a non-returnable basis (i.e. if it doesn't sell, the store is stuck with the comic). Newstand sales are returnable. Therefore, newstand distribution takes a lot more work. Instead of Gladstone building their own newstand distribution system, Gladstone's comics are distributed to the newstand by Marvel Comics. James Williams From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Fri Oct 21 10:21:30 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 10:21:30 +0100 Subject: Foorball, and Database Message-ID: <9410210921.AA08807@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Anders about the Database discussion: > Count me in... Of course. How could I forget our famous Swedish contributor to the Database? All Swedish titles are his. Jag taler inte Svensk. Or so. ---- Sigurdur: > Where are the baseball stories? Football stories? I remember two stories off-hand, both without Donald though: A 4-page story from "Mickey Mouse Almanac 1" ("September Scrimmage"?) by Barks, where Scrooge and the Nephews play football and try to cheat. A 12-page story from "Back To School 1", drawn by Strobl. Gladstone is the coach of HDL. ---- (still more database stuff..) Fredrik: I think we agree on several points without knowing it. I'll give an example in 'pseudo-code' (I hope that's not too unreadable for anyone): When determining a title in an issue file: IF the story has a title in that issue THEN use that title without any tags (case A) [in a lot of cases this could mean: get the title from the stories files, and remove the tag] ELSE use whatever data is in the stories file, with the appropriate tag (cases 1 to 6 below) When determining a title in a story file: IF the story has an English title in the first USA publication THEN use T:that title (case 1) ELSE IF the story has a title in one or more of the USA reprints THEN use R:one of the titles (case 2) ELSE IF the story has a description in the book "MM in Color" or in one of Gladstone's "CBL in Color" albums THEN use D:that description (case 3) ELSE IF the story has a description in the credits of a Gladstone comic THEN use D:that decription (case 4) ELSE IF someone ever gave an English description of the story THEN use O:that description (case 5) ELSE use a foreign title or description, with a tag like H:Dutch, A:Danish, Sw:Swedish, No:Norwegian (case 6) Some remarks: I don't care for "original titles" for European stories: I still want the _stories files_ as English as possible. But the "foreign" _issues files_ could be as foreign as possible. I'm thinking of making distinct tags for case 3 and case 4. And maybe case 3 should go before case 2? It would be nice to know, at least in ENGLISH publications, that a story's title is not the original title (Example: "The Sinister Sorcerer"). In that case the database program should list both titles > I (perhaps foolishly) have undertaken the > mission of converting these files for the Grand Comics Database Do you think the readers of that database, being super-hero comics fans, are interested in a Disney index? > example D88215. Suppose John Anderson called it "Day of the > Triplets". Then Stefan Dios translates it to Swedish and calls it > "Knattarnas stora dag". Finally, Anders Engwall indexes the Swedish > publication of the story and retranslates the title as "The big day for > Hewey, Dewey and Louie". In this case, we would have in the stories file: "O:The big day for HDL", unless we _know_ the original title (as we sometimes do with Don Rosa's stories), then it would be "T:Day of the Triplets". The Swedish issues file would have "Knattarnas store dag" (without tag as you propose). > I think it's confusing enough having to keep track of Sw, D and N. With my new proposal (the pseudo-code above), these tags will occur as little as possible in the stories files, and (almost) not at all in the issues files. I quoted you: > > ALL NON-ENGLISH issues should have ALL TITLES included in the issue files. This is an example of me trying to make the quotes as short as possible. Apparently, relevant information is lost. But I think I know what you meant now: if a Swedish story has a title, that title should be in the issues file. Always. --Harry. From mas at cs.bu.edu Fri Oct 21 16:12:52 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 11:12:52 -0400 Subject: Various Message-ID: <199410211523.LAA07172@csa.bu.edu> James Williams writes: > Instead of Gladstone building their own newstand distribution system, > Gladstone's comics are distributed to the newstand by Marvel Comics. A more accurate statement might be that Gladstone's comics are *supposed* to be distributed to the newstand by Marvel Comics. I've yet to actually see any at a newstand.. :-) From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Fri Oct 21 20:39:51 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Fri, 21 Oct 94 14:39:51 EST Subject: Does Marvel distribute Gladstone? Message-ID: <2ea80af7@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Mark, You, Don, and a bunch of other people have commented on the fact that Marvel doesn't seem to distribute Gladstone's comics to the newstand. I'm not sure how accurate that is. First, if you visited the local comic shops around here, you'd think Diamond didn't distribute Gladstone comics either. Second, The only place I've found that carries an ample supply of each and every Gladstone comic is a newstand about one mile from my house. I only wish I'd discovered this place before things like LO$ Chapter 1 was printed. Third, Gladstone should be able to tell by their return rates how well their comics are being distributed and how well they are selling. I do have one question though, the last time Gladstone printed their circulation figures. They listed returns as zero. How? James Williams From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Sat Oct 22 04:48:01 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 21 Oct 94 23:48:01 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #469. Message-ID: <941022034800_72260.2635_EHB88-1@CompuServe.COM> JAMES: There seem to be THREE different types of comic distribution, not two. First is the old fashioned newsstand distribution by the local news dealers. This includes only non-"independant" comics like Marvel, DC, Archie, Harvey, and maybe some specials that slip in. Marvel buys a set amount of Gladstone comics and distributes them to the news dealers for this system. These are returnable. And each and every comic rack in this system carries the same comics -- the owner of the store has no choice, and does not pay for unsold copies... he returns them for full refund and they are destroyed, completing the cycle of the pointless destruction of billions of trees (as if using trees for comics wasn't bad enough even when they aren't destroyed). This is the type newsstand which you see the abundance of Marvel-Gladstones, few of which are probably bought. (Those Marvel-Disney TV and movie titles sell better since they're aimed at the simple-minded readers... as well as the young ones). Then there are special comic racks in places like airports and record stores. These are the racks that don't seem to carry any Marvel-Gladstones, and perhaps no Marvel-Disneys. But definitely no Marvel-Gladstones. I'm sure these issues are returnable, otherwise the stores would not bite. I doubt that many copies are sold in these locations. These are just tree graveyards. Then there are the direct-sales stores, the places that are responsible for the very existance of comic books post 1975 in North America. These issues are nonreturnable, therefore the stores order only as many as they can sell. This means no Gladstones more than the 5 for those odd-ball 40-year-olds who don't buy anything else so screw them. This is probably why these stores NEVER increase their orders even when they sell out every month because they really aren't interested in selling more Gladstones to people who don't buy $50 per week of Marvels and Images. But this is why Gladstone has NO RETURNS. They sell all their comics to the direct sales distributors or to Marvel, neither of which can return any copies. I've never thought to ask them about this system in the frequent times I talk to them at Gladstone, but this must be some sweet deal! You knew all this for the most part... I'm just clarifying it. Something else you might not been completely clear on is the process of comic production. Only scripters of these Disney comics do their scripts as panel lay-outs with the dialogue below. All other comics (i.e.: super-hero comics in America) are sorta the opposite -- the dialogue is first with a brief description of the action. In fact, though we who do old-fashioned comics find it incredible to believe, most American comics are done by having the writer describe the general plot (or lack thereof) to the artist, the artist(s) then drawing the comic, and the writer then creating matching dialogue for the finished panels. Yes, this is a screwy way to do it, but it creates plotless, action-filled stories, which is what the American MTV kids understand best. I was about to tell you that the letterer doesn't add the word balloons, only puts the words in 'em; but I think that in those super-hero comics the artists indicate what area of the panel he figures the balloon will be, and the letterer does add the cut-out word balloons, overlapping the art. Now, with ME, I estimate how much space my dialogue will require in each of my panels, and I put the word balloons in first thing, then fit the art around those balloons. Therefore, when I turn in a story, it seems to be about endless shouting matches between laryngitis victims. Now that everyone is completely asleep, I will silently slip among you and steal your wallets. I think Barks' "Horsing Around with History", which I've yet to see, should have been published in Norway and Denmark and perhaps elsewhere by now... yet there's been very little comment on it here. I think one fellow on here said he'd seen it but didn't WANT to comment. What do people think of this story. Speak up! EVERYONE IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN: Have I made it clear that I'll be there for 2 weeks starting next Wednesday? I mention this again because one of the highlights of my last visit to Oslo was a meeting with a large group of Duck fans at the Universtiy of Oslo which, I was told, came about after someone read on this Digest that I was visiting. If there's anyone in Oslo or Stockholm or Gotenborg who wants to see me or have me visit some group, you need to contact the Egmont offices in Oslo or Malmo. The addresses are in the respective funnybooks somewhere, I s'pose. From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Sat Oct 22 15:33:24 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 14:33:24 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #469. Message-ID: <1B5FC712288@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Let's see -- plenty to talk about, so I'll use the old method of headlines. *** Gladstone-Marvel distribution *** James Williams wondered why Gladstone's sales data listed returns as zero. This is because of the nature of the deal Marvel has with Gladstone. You see, Marvel doesn't really just distribute the comics; Marvel BUYS whatever amount Gladstone has had printed for newsstands FROM Gladstone. Then it's Marvel's job entirely to get rid of them. And it's theoretically Marvel who have themselves to blame if they themselves do a poor job of distributing the comics they've bought. Given how poorly Marvel seems to distribute the Gladstones, I'm guessing they must have piles of copies they've bought which have never been sent to any newsstand. So what happens to them? Marvel has solicited "Disney comic jumbo packs" to COMIC SHOPS, containing surplus copies of their NEWSTAND Marvel-Gladstones. The first such packs (as far as I know) are solicited for next month. I have no idea what comics are in the packs, but there are "Donald-packs" (DD and DDA comics, I guess), "Mickey-packs" (WDC&S and D&M) and "Scrooge-packs" (the others), as well as "Disney mixed packs." So now we see what they do with their surplus. My local comic shop here in Edinburgh wanted some more Gladstone back issues but weren't sure how to get them, so I advised that we order a single one of the packs and see what was in it. I'll update all of you. I have seen some Marvel sections of newsstands with Gladstones in them. But Marvel only seems to put Gladstones in one of their newsstand displays if the display has twelve or more slots for different titles in it. If it's an eight-title rack, I've never seen a Gladstone there. On the other hand, Marvel ALWAYS puts Barbie (and sometimes Ren and Stimpy or Beavis and Butthead) in an eight-title rack. Worse, they seem more likely to put their own Disney comics (the feature film and TV characters) into racks than Gladstones. This includes twelve-title racks... In any event, John Clark told me at the Comic-Con that he couldn't do anything about Marvel's poor distribution. But he has told me in private that Gladstone is quite glad they have the deal with Marvel. Only one thing bothers ME -- it seems just like Marvel for them to decide that Disney comics aren't selling well, so they'll cancel their deal with Gladstone. Really, it's Marvel who's responsible if Marvel-Gladstones don't sell well. (They do at least moderately well at the newsstands I've seen that have them, so if there is a sales problem it lies in the distribution, not the popularity -- at least far as I can tell.) *** Gladstone Albums seeking a home *** Speaking of popularity, the Gladstone Albums really sell poorly here. One comic shop used to get them, but failed to sell them so now has them at a big discount. They have copies of #6, then nos. 11-12 and 14-16 all at stlg1.95 which is like $3.25 or so. Do some of you want these copies, or are you all up to your necks in Gladstone Albums? Oh, and they have a few Gyro albums as well (I don't remember the numbers). At the same price. I'm glad to help find a good home for some of them, and if some of you are interested, I can buy them and send them to you for the shop's price (converted) plus shipping costs. *** British Mickey and Friends this week *** is a typical offering, with the cover of Danish #16/94 (Donald and Daisy encountering ghost in tunnel of love), followed by a VERY badly-written follow-the-numbers Mickey-catches-crooks tale (D93353), a Vicar 12-page adventure story "The Gourmet Club" (D93463), and a very funny four-page Gyro about remote-controlled cars (D93238). On the back page is a MM one-pager ("Turning the Worm," D93027) drawn by the same artist as the recent hypnotism story. The Vicar story wasn't bad, but not excellent either. Maybe some good dialogue would punch it up, but Disney would never allow this one anyway -- DD is in an Arab country, and when some mounted nomads see him on the desert, their first move is to jam huge Uzis into his face! After which they discover he's friendly and treat him more kindly. But I can't say I don't find that first bit a little offensive myself... In light of all this It may interest you that I plan to write a Br'er Rabbit story for Egmont next year. The characters will speak in dialect, but just a "soft" dialect a la Walt Kelly's later Pogo, not the very thick dialect of the earliest 1940s BR stories. I'm hoping that this way Disney will approve it for use here with minimal changes. BR just doesn't sound right speaking the King's English. Of course, neither does Mickey. Another thing about the gourmet story -- at one point, U$ (who has bought a gourmet restaurant chain) threatens to make a gourmet dinner out of Donald. Furthermore, when he's laid up in bed at one point in the tale, Scrooge wears the same thicker overcoat that he wore in "Christmas on Bear Mountain." No reason given. *** WDC&S 594 *** is now in my collection -- thank you, Mark! Why did you send me two copies of it, though? Given postage costs here I can only really send one British Mickey... but I can send you a good German Disney at some point, to make up the difference, next Spring when I'm at home. #594 is quite good -- Van Horn's concept this time is excellent. But I felt that the story never reached its climax. Donald and the boys had gone from rivalry to the very edge of battle -- and right then Daisy came in to defuse everything! There should have been a wild splash panel! Someone in this issue mentioned they thought that Van Horn was very good in structuring his ten-pagers, but I can't say I agree all the time. He did some fine ones during the Disney Comics period, but I'd say that Jippes has a better track record in general ten-pager composition. And you all know what I think of "Monarch of Medioka." Ah, how I love that moment when Mickey and King Michael just lay into each other! I like seeing Mickey with a hot temper... and the scene of the two making up, later, with those huge steaks tied to their faces is just priceless. And the general atmosphere of the story is so damn good! My only problem with this tale is that it moves too slowly, in my opinion, to be broken into such small parts and fragmented out over such a long publication time. But what to do? There's no Mickey comic any more! Your friend, David Gerstein "And vat would be ze result if we were discovered, pray?" <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Sat Oct 22 15:34:52 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 14:34:52 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #469. Message-ID: <1B602C6486D@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> P. S. Did Gladstone really shorten Hortense's bill in LO$ part 5, by the way? I've never seen it before Gladstone published it, but her bill looked as long as anyone else's. (And I like it that way, but is that how you wanted it, Don?) From mas at cs.bu.edu Sat Oct 22 18:59:29 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 13:59:29 -0400 Subject: Disney-comics digest #469. Message-ID: <199410221802.OAA00100@csa.bu.edu> I already sent private mail to David about our WDC&S swap, but the subject got me wondering: Prior to David's original message about the Britsh "Mickey and Friends," I had always thought that the Gladstones were the only English-language disney comics. But now I find out that there *are* British disney comics. Are there other English language disney-comics, say in Australia, Canada, South Africa, New-Zealand, or are these all covered by Gladstone and "Mickey and Friends"? (BTW, David, no need to send me the German disney, unless it's in English, which I doubt :-) - and I hope I get to see your Br'er rabbit story some day!) From trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu Sun Oct 23 20:36:31 1994 From: trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu (Tryg Helseth) Date: Sun, 23 Oct 94 14:36:31 CDT Subject: Donald as a sport fan. Message-ID: <64543.trygve@maroon.tc.umn.edu> Sigurdur: >Where are the baseball stories? Football stories? Donald as a >basketball hero (might make a good story). Are these stories made >and never published in the European market? You know, that may be one of the reasons I enjoyed DD comics. They weren't saturated by the sports mentality. I have never been a sports fan, and have had to endure the long-winded sports fans who seem to believe that *everybody* should share there passion for sports. Some even imply that there must be something wrong with you if you don't share their enthusiasm. Now in this part of the US, professional sports only make of a third the the complete males expected passion; the other two are hunting and fishing. If you don't do any of those you must be quite perverse! -Exit soapbox.. Tryg Helseth Minneapolis, MN, USA or "I wish they all could be Calisota Ducks!" -the Beach Drakes From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Mon Oct 24 11:46:33 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:46:33 +0000 Subject: Cry Hafoc -- How Barks Came to Britain Message-ID: <1E33A120BAC@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Being in Great Britain lately gave me the chance to see how Barks' work was first used here. And the method in which it was done was a tremendous shock to me. You see, the Mickey Mouse weekly comic in the 1940s wasn't big enough to hold Barks material (it was eight pages per week!), and wouldn't feature any of his stories until the 1950s (and even then, serialized, I believe). So what was done? Dean and Son, publishers of the 250-page MICKEY MOUSE ANNUAL, had a solution. You'd think that would be to print Barks stories there, right? Nope. Instead, Barks' comics were rewritten entirely as text stories and illustrated with crude copies of Barks' drawings. But the ratio of text to art was heavy on the text-side. So these really were *stories*, not Big Little Book style 50-50 mixtures of drawings and print. The 1946 annual I saw (but could not afford) at a bookdealer's shop the other day contained stories based on "Frozen Gold" and WDC&S 47's "Farragut the Falcon." But tremendous liberties have been taken with the stories. Characters' names have been changed, and so forth. And the writing is SO long-winded that you wouldn't believe it! In the Farragut story, the falcon's name is changed to Hafoc for some unknown reason. You probably remember the panel on the last page of the original tale in which the judge hands Farragut back to Donald. "Take this empty-headed eagle and begone! You're expelled from this meeting!" (Or some such) Well, here we have: "'Take this horrible hawk, this empty-headed eagle, this -- this BRAZEN BUZZARD, OUT of here -- and when I say out, I mean out! If you ever come back here, I'm not letting you in! You're expelled -- nay, KICKED OUT of this meeting! So be off with you!" Everything is expanded to an idiotic length. Can you believe this? What a miserable situation. On the other hand, Wilfred Haughton drew some very good one-page Mickey gags for these Annuals, too (these were comics, I mean); if I can get a copy of one Annual, maybe I can have Gladstone reprint a few of those gags. Drawn with pie-eyed MM, even as late as 1946 (Haughton would, reportedly, draw no other version of the character). Well, I must be off, folks. But I'll be back tomorrow. Best, David Gerstein From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Mon Oct 24 14:20:09 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 24 Oct 94 09:20:09 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #470. Message-ID: <941024132008_72260.2635_EHB152-2@CompuServe.COM> DAVID: No, Gladstone did not shorten Hortense's bill for me as I'd asked them to. I doubt that anyone will notice the difference; she's only in a few panels, and she won't be back (with her shorter bill) until part 9. But the fact is they rarely do ANYTHING I ask them to do, perhaps because they decide I'm trying to correct miniscule details, but more likely that they remember nothing that I tell them as soon as I hang up the phone. I'm constantly telling them "be sure to do such-and-such" and it's never done because they "disremembered". That's the reason, f'rinstance, you didn't see that family tree in the 60th Birthday issue. From tallmo at nisus.se Mon Oct 24 16:23:33 1994 From: tallmo at nisus.se (tallmo@nisus.se) Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 16:23:33 +0100 Subject: WWW-page Message-ID: <199410241523.AA25110@caesar.udac.se> PER: I have visited the WWW page and I agree with Trygve. It is a very good start, although I got error messages too. But it is under construction, I know. This could be a good "front end" for the Disney comics list, I guess. I don't know how big you want this list to be, but the WWW page could certainly show people in advance that this list is about comics and nothing else. I recently had a little discussion privately with Dwight Decker about copyright. Maybe it would be possible to show scanned images of important panels from Disney comics on the WWW. Dwight assumed that if you "quote" a panel or two in connection with, for instance, an article, a review or some such, it wouldn't violate any law. I don't know. Dwight and I were talking about printed stuff. It would be a nice feature, though. Karl-Erik --------------------------------------------------------------------- KARL-ERIK TALLMO, Swedish writer, journalist, critic and HyperCard programmer, living in Stockholm. Contributor of articles to Nordic dailies and magazines. Writes about music, literature and computers. Also DTP, Swedish grammar checking, translation, etc. through the private firm NISUS PUBLISHING. --------------------------------------------------------------------- From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Mon Oct 24 17:04:49 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 17:04:49 +0100 Subject: WWW page (http://www.update.uu.se/~starback/disney-comics.html) In-Reply-To: <199410241523.AA25110@caesar.udac.se> (tallmo@nisus.se) Message-ID: <9410241604.AA13744@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I don't know why you all get those error messages. It works for me anyway with different WWW browsers on different computers, and I don't *think* I've made any errors with those FTP links. If anyone realizes what the problem is, please tell me! (Have you who have had problems managed to access any other ftp pages with your WWW browser?) -- Per From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Tue Oct 25 00:27:07 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 00:27:07 +0100 Subject: Various Message-ID: <199410242327.19987.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> About "The life of Donald Duck". I must admit I _do_ know how Disney treats Donald. Puts him into every role they can to squeeze money out of him. But, this book says it was originally published in 1941 (if it hadn't, I wouldn't have cared to mention it). That means it was published years before Tony Strobl's "This is your life Donald Duck", and also before Barks had "created" Donald Duck. The WWW. I've tried it. Nice. No problems. Making a comic story. James, thank you for taking your time to explain this. Now when I've read it, I have a new question. You don't have to explain to the penciler how Scrooge looks like, of course, but do you explain everything else? Do you make a scetch of the panel, for instance? Distribution. I think I'm very happy to be a Scandinavian :-) I can just walk into almost any shop anywhere to get my daily, er... weekly DD&Co. Does Marvel put something on the frontcover of the Gladstones they distribute? And who is distributing Gladstones to the foreign market? (this market seems to be a quiet big share of Gladstones total market...). "Horsing Around with History" I guess I've commented it enough, but I just saw a small article in the newspaper "Aftenposten" (Norway's biggest non-tabloid newspaper) that slightly commented it. It was about the latest Barks book issued in Norway (#11). It just said something like "here's the _real_ Barks," and concluded that Barks has _done_ his good work. Don, if you want to see the (first issue of :) "Horsing Around with History", I could send you a copy (two issues). Br'er Rabbit. Does that mean "Brother Rabbit"? I'm glad to see that someone who wants to make good stories plan to write a story with him. I can't remember having seen a good Br'er Rabbit story for years. They've also changed him the last years. He's shorter, and, well, he doesn't really look like a rabbit anymore. He looks more like a cute little Disney-thing. The dialect will be lost in Norway, I'm afraid. And now some non-Disney (sorry). As far as I've understood there will be issued an album in France next week in the honor of Asterix. I think the price is 23 Francs. I'm not going to France next week, I'm afraid... so I would be very much obliged if some- one out there could get this for me. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From ekman at lysator.liu.se Tue Oct 25 00:45:06 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 00:45:06 +0100 (MET) Subject: Foorball, and Database In-Reply-To: <9410210921.AA08807@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Oct 1994, H.W. Fluks wrote: > When determining a title in an issue file: > > IF the story has a title in that issue > THEN use that title without any tags (case A) > [in a lot of cases this could mean: get the title from the stories files, > and remove the tag] > ELSE use whatever data is in the stories file, with the appropriate tag > (cases 1 to 6 below) Which turns out to be for all practical reasons identical with what I suggested. And this means that "all" we will have to do is to include the correct titles (preferrably in Latin-1) in the Swedish (and other) .dbi files, right? > Do you think the readers of [The Grand Comics Database], being super-hero > comics fans, are interested in a Disney index? Yes and no. Those I have been in touch with are not the least interested. But their goal (as I mentioned) is to produce a COMPLETE database. With everything. The lot. All of it. That, naturally, includes Disney comics. Thus, they are not over-enthusiastic about doing the work themselves (and I can tell that they are doing a lot as it is) but will be glad to take anything that is thrown upon them by someone else. My hope is that in the long run we too will benefit from this. With your standardised indexes, converting it should be relatively easy. The problem is how to get updates for them whenever you update our database without doing any excessive amounts of work. > With my new proposal (the pseudo-code above), [the national] tags will > occur as little as possible in the stories files, and (almost) not at > all in the issues files. Sounds good in theory, but who will do all the necessary translations into O: descriptions? As for your other remarks, I either agree or don't have an opinion. /F From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Tue Oct 25 01:16:16 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 01:16:16 +0100 Subject: Don Rosa in Scandinavia Message-ID: <199410250016.24188.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> I told Realistforeningen that you are coming, Don. Just got a message where they said they would do something about it. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From SUZSHAW at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu Tue Oct 25 01:30:51 1994 From: SUZSHAW at nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu (Suzy Shaw) Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 20:30:51 EDT Subject: Ducks in Academia Message-ID: <9410250042.AA27763@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I know we're always bemoaning the fact that no one in the U.S. seems to take comics in general, and Disney comics in particular, seriously. Here's a rare exception. I recently noticed that one of the people who contributed to the Gladstone Barks Library, Donald Ault, teaches right here at UF. While attempting to find out if he has an email address, I accidently discovered this course description on the UF English Department Gopher. Four whole weeks (6 hours each) on Disney comics! I've got to figure a way to sit in on this course. I wonder if he knows about this list? If not, he will soon; I plan to give him a call tomorrow. Enjoy. --Suzy Shaw, Network Geek and Duck Lover University of Florida Libraries "A metal misfit in an age that's gone nylon" ---------------------------------------------------- ENG 4110 ANIMATION, COMICS, AND MOVIE SERIALS AULT Texts: Xerographics (Goerings): Class Packet Blackbeard and Martin, THE SMITHSONIAN COLL. OF NEWS PAPER COMICS Maltin, OF MICE AND MAGIC Crafton, BEFORE MICKEY THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP (animation issue) Smoodin, ANIMATING CULTURE Eisner, COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART On Reserve: A large number of animated cartoons, serials, and features on video, as well as comic books and comic strips-- including the complete E.C. Library, complete Carl Barks Library, complete R. Crumb This experimental course will provide: --an introduction to a selected history of animated cartoons, of comic strips and comic books, and of movie serials --a consideration of the theoretical implications (Lacanian, marxist, phenomenological, etc.) of the relations and disjunctions between these fields of _representation_ --probably an emphasis on American productions, especially of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with considerable focus on the works of Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge) as central to the theoretical problems addressed in the course The class will meet two periods each day, three days a week, which should provide a time-format that will work for screening cartoons, even features, and discussing them the same day. The format needs to be kept open-ended throughout the semester Some specific issues to be addressed: 1. perceptual processes involved in reading comic strip and comic book narratives 2. perceptual processes involved in viewing comics, animation, and live action, especially in different formats (16mm, 35mm, video projection, video monitor; in original comics, in reprints, or in slide projection) and conditions of reception (in a theater, at home, in the classroom). 3. differences in narrative possibilities and limitations of comics, animated cartoons, and live-action. 4. what happens when characters are translated from one medium (comics, animation, live-action film) to another-- how does it alter their "being"? 5. what is the aesthetic and cultural importance of Disney films and characters (especially Donald Duck); how does this relate to work at other animation studios (Warners, Fleischers, MGM, Van Beuren, Iwerks, etc.)? 6. what happens to narrative and perception when verbal/visual dimensions of texts are reorganized? 8. what are the ideological, psychological, etc., functions of such perceptual narratives? 9. How do these productions relate to multicultural, gender, race, class issues? Although we will not be proceeding strictly chronologically, here is a possible scenario of the kinds of material we may be studying (the schedule below is adapted from a prior incarnation of this course) : Week 1: animation to comic strips: including McCay (Little Nemo), Herriman (Krazy Kat),Mesmer (Felix), Disney/ Gottfredson (Mickey Mouse) Week 2-3: comic strips to animation and serials: including Segar (Popeye), Raymond (Flash Gordon), and Gould (Dick Tracy) Weeks 4-5: animation: including Disney (Silly Symphonies), Warners (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies [Bosko, Buddy, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny]; Iwerks (Flip the Frog), Fleischer (Betty Boop, Bimbo), Van Beuren, MGM (Happy Harmonies), etc. Week 6: serials: Mascot, Republic, Universal, Columbia Hurricane Express, Fighting Devil Dogs, Phantom Empire, Perils of Nyoka, etc. Weeks 7-10: animation to comic books and back (Disney, Barks); Disney shorts, features, and television. Weeks 11-12: comic books: animation and live action; Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, Captain America, The Shadow, The Spider, The Green Hornet Weeks 13-15: more recent developments in comics (E. C., underground comics, graphic novels, etc.); recent animation (including Japanese and computer-generated). Requirements: Numerous short exercises and experiments; active class participation; a final paper/project From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Tue Oct 25 03:55:41 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 24 Oct 94 22:55:41 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #472. Message-ID: <941025025541_72260.2635_EHB160-2@CompuServe.COM> JORGEN: No, don't send that Barks story issue. I'll probably see it next week when I'm in Norway. But please explain (though I may not see your answer before I leave) what the AFTENPOSTEN meant by the lines you quoted. "Here's the *real* Barks. He has done his good stories." Is this a compliment praising the new story? Or a dig suggesting that his good stories are behind him? One more message on here before I disappear. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Tue Oct 25 09:37:49 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 09:37:49 +0100 Subject: Life and T. of S. McD. chapter 5 Message-ID: <9410250837.AA05860@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Don, about Lo$ 5: > No off register coloring in your issue of U$ #289? I looked at the comic again and I see some VERY small colour shifts. The 4th page has a shift to the right of less than 1 mm, and a few other pages have even smaller shifts. I didn't notice them when I read the story first, second and third, and I still didn't notice it when I compared the story panel by panel with the Dutch version (which I use to do to detect translation differences). But now that I look at that story again: in the panels where Hortense appears (2nd and 3rd page), they DID change her beak. They made it a bit BIGGER. I had to look 3 times to see the difference, but there IS a difference. > maybe you can GET me one? I wouldn't be able anyway, because Rosa issues are almost always sold out. I have to reserve 2 issues of every Rosa comic in advance (one for me, and one for Daniel van E.). --Harry. From shg at rhi.hi.is Tue Oct 25 10:37:55 1994 From: shg at rhi.hi.is (Sigurdur Hrafn Gislason) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 09:37:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Donald as a sport fan. In-Reply-To: <9410240026.AA13024@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> from "disney-comics@minsk.docs.uu.se" at Oct 24, 94 01:26:05 am Message-ID: <9410250937.AA17537@hengill.rhi.hi.is> TRYG: I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't in any way recommending sport stories (though of course some are entertaining) but merely asking why we haven't seen any baseball, basketball or american football stories here in Europe. Maybe it is because there simply aren't any or that they never get published here. Considering how many soccer stories we get here, I only thought it was reasonable to assume that similar stories existed for other sports. Sigurdur From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Tue Oct 25 12:37:50 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 11:37:50 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #472. Message-ID: <1FC15AF0998@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Karl-Eric mentioned that "maybe it would be possible to show scanned images of important panels from Disney comics on the WWW." I think that's a fine idea. Our WWW page has links to other people's Disney pages, and all of those have huge numbers of scanned Disney images on them. I think that our page will be a great tool to get people INTERESTED in Disney comics if we have pictures from the stories there. For example, at the very top of the page I imagine we might have a scene from WDC&S 141: a gloomy Donald saying to himself, "Oh, that the name of Duck should ever sink so low!" A nice ironic way to begin. Just don't ask ME to do the scanning -- I don't have a scanner, or many Disney comics with me in England. JORGEN: The Marvel-Gladstones do look different from Gladstone-Gladstones. Instead of the Gladstone symbol they have a square logo that says "Disney Comics, Distributed by Marvel." The interesting thing is that "Disney Comics" is done as the same symbol that Disney Comics, Inc. used from 1990-1993. There is also a UPC symbol on the lower left-hand corner of each issue. The only places in Europe where you can get Gladstones is at comic shops (as far as I can tell), and since they get them from direct comic distribution companies, these have the Gladstone logo on them, and no UPC symbol either. Br'er Rabbit does indeed come from "Brother." That's because the character as we know him comes from U. S. black folklore. But he was even with blacks when they first came to America from Africa. The tales originated there, and there he is called Zomo. (I wonder if they call him that in the local Disney comics?) Yeah, I notice that they draw Br'er Rabbit differently now. He has a huge crest of hair on top of his head like Woody Woodpecker, or like the European comic character Spirou. Eccch. I hope that I can convince Egmont to have the artist leave it off in my story. If they don't, I'll see about having it changed when it's published in the States -- and I may have to, because Disney-U. S. would (in this case, rightfully) claim it was severely off-model. Jorgen: "The dialect will be lost in Norway, I'm afraid." Yeah, and probably here in the States, too. There's a difference between real country dialect and stereotypical minstrel-show dialect. I find that the very first Disney BR stories use the latter, but it is softened to the former around 1950. I'll use the former, but don't bet on it appearing in the final U. S. version. There is a letter in WDC&S 594 by someone who claims he'd heard that Gladstone is banned from printing Br'er Rabbit stories. John Clark has told me differently -- it's the dialect, he says, that they want changed. However, on the two occasions when Disney Comics reprinted old BR stories (HP 2 and WDC&S 576, that second one the finest BR I have ever read), they left the dialect intact. Well, I'll be off just now. I'll clock in again tomorrow, folks, and may have comments about DD 288 then (which is supposed to arrive at my local comic shop today). Best, David Gerstein "It don't take th' New World long t' start gittin' OLD!" <9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk> From trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu Tue Oct 25 11:11:25 1994 From: trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu (Tryg Helseth) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 94 05:11:25 CDT Subject: Ducks in Academia Message-ID: <33678.trygve@maroon.tc.umn.edu> Suzy: >I accidently discovered this course description on the >UF English Department Gopher. Four whole weeks (6 hours each) on >Disney comics! I've got to figure a way to sit in on this course. Wow! If that isn't a good excuse for us Northern duck fans to migrate south for the Winter, I don't know what is! I hope you can sit in on the class and give us some details. I wonder what kind of response they will get for a class on ducks in a collection of students who grew up on superheros? Maybe there are more latent duck fans than we realize. > "A metal misfit in an age that's gone nylon" Is that an acutal quote from someone, or just something you made up for your signature? Tryg Helseth Minneapolis, MN, USA or "I wish they all could be Calisota Ducks!" -the Beach Drakes From tallmo at nisus.se Tue Oct 25 14:46:31 1994 From: tallmo at nisus.se (tallmo@nisus.se) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:46:31 +0100 Subject: Scanning etc Message-ID: <199410251346.AA20494@caesar.udac.se> David, I have a scanner and I think I could save images in the right format too. I have been experimenting locally with a WWW-project with the format Compuserve-GIF and it seems to work with MacMosaic anyway. So, I could scan some pictures. A problem is that my Disney collection is not huge, and 60 percent is in Swedish. I haven't got the WDC&S 141, for instance. Besides, what does Per as editor of the WWW page think of this? Karl-Erik From Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no Tue Oct 25 17:00:03 1994 From: Knut.Hunstad at veg.sintef.no (Knut Hunstad) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:00:03 +0200 Subject: Thanks, RoC! Message-ID: <199410251700.AA07804@vegnett.veg.sintef.no> Sorry, guys, but I don't have RoC's email adress... Thank you, RoC, for the magazine. Best story of the kind I've ever seen. Especially since I have studied computing science I really liked lots of the gags there. Also an interesting reference to "2001 A Space Odyssey"... Knut Hunstad From ADEBLIEC at drew.edu Tue Oct 25 19:18:08 1994 From: ADEBLIEC at drew.edu (August DeBlieck) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:18:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Disney Comics Digest #470 (I think) Message-ID: <01HIP2WUNBAQ90NYHB@drew.edu> Date: 25-Oct-1994 02:02pm EST From: DeBlieck, August ADEBLIEC Dept: STUDENT Tel No: TO: Remote INTERNET Address ( _IN%DISNEY-COMICS at MINSK.DOCS.UU.SE ) Subject: Re: Disney Comics Digest #470 (I think) Hello, everybody. I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks now, waiting to come up with something intelligent to add to the discussion. Unfortunately, I've been having too much fun reading everybody else's comments to come up with some of my own. And besides, I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as everyone else seems to be on the subject. I'm just a comic book/cartoon collecting guy who enjoys Carl Barks and everything descended from him. But I have a couple of comments from what Don Rosa (Hi, Don!) said in his part of the digest: Don, you said something about the silliness of doing comics plot-style, versus script style. I don't think plot-style (also known as 'Marvel-style' in the US, since that's where it originated from, I think) comics turn out quite so bad. And, likewise, there are many pointless script-style comics out there, too. In fact, some point to the early days of Marvel as their best days - and they were all done plot-style. The synergy between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee led to some exciting and interesting stories, that not always ended up quite as either of them had expected them to. It adds a certain spontenaity to the titles, I think, as well as a little less verbosity. I'm not saying words are bad, it's just that some scripters tend to do everything through redundant dialogue. In fact, one of the generally-agreed upon best super-hero comics in the USA is Marvel's Incredible Hulk, done in the Marvel style. Of course, using the same criteria, Sandman is considered far and away the best comic in the medium, and that's done script-style. But don't so easily dismiss the plot-style comics. By the way, I ask this in nearly all the letters I write to Gladstone, but I figured you might know something I don't about this: is there any chance Gladstone is going to reprint His Majesty, McDuck on the new paper? It's one of the first duck comics I bought and it remains a favorite to this day. I'd love to see it done justice in this new format. In any case, keep up the great work! David Gerstein: Greetings, fellow APAtoonster! I suddenly don't feel so alone. -Augie De Blieck Jr. From James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov Tue Oct 25 21:19:35 1994 From: James_Williams at ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov (James Williams) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 94 15:19:35 EST Subject: Scripting Message-ID: <2ead5a47@ESS.NIAID.pc.niaid.nih.gov> Jorgen, >You don't have to explain to the penciler how Scrooge looks like, of >course, but do you explain everything else? Do you make a scetch of >the panel, for instance? No, I don't make sketchs. This use to be a very common requirement for "funny animal" writers. Mark Evanier has said that this was a standard requirement when he worked for Gold Key. [Aside: Does anyone know what Mickey Mouse stories he wrote?] Archie Comics still requires this. I'm pretty sure that Don Rosa uses this format. What I do is describe the panel in words. Here is an example. This is the first panel from a 10 page Uncle Scrooge story entitled "Loose Change". ===== PANEL 1. This half-page panel shows SCROOGE McDUCK, sitting behind his desk in the Moneybin, talking to DONALD DUCK, HUEY, DEWEY, and LOUIE. The Number One Dime is in its glass case behind SCROOGE; coins and ledger books cover his desk. The vault door, closed and locked, takes up most of one wall. At least one window is visible. 1. HUEY: ARE YOU *SURE* YOU WON'T-- 2. DEWEY: --COME TO THE *RODEO* WITH US-- 3. LOUIE: --UNCA SCROOGE? 4. SCROOGE: WHY WOULD I *PAY* TO WATCH SOMEONE RIDE A HORSE? ===== James Williams From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Tue Oct 25 23:04:30 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 23:04:30 +0100 Subject: Various again Message-ID: <199410252204.23744.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Don: Aftenposten about Barks. Well, I didn't _quote_ Aftenposten. It was just me trying to translate what I remembered from the article. The article did _not_ compliment his new story. They meant that his good stories are behind him. The actual word they used to describe the new story was "pale". I guess it doesn't have exactly the same meaning in English... David and Wilmer: Thanx for explainig what kind of character Br'er Rabbit is (in the U.S.). I did "suspect" he was a hillbilly, but I didn't know he was black. That must really be a problem for Disney... or isn't he black anymore if they change his dialect? Zomo - that's interesting. I didn't know he was a character from black folklore. In Norway his name is simply Langore (Long Ear), and he's nothing but a little animal living in the forest (like Chip & Dale and Bongo), but Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear is called Mikkel Rev and Bamse Brakar. These are characters from Norwegian folk tales. The fox is always making a fool of the bear. Dialects. At the moment I can't remember having ever seen any Disney characters having a dialect in Norway (except Thursday...). In the story about the square eggs (Plain Awful?) the "square" people are speaking Nynorsk instead of Bokmal (the two written forms of Norwegian), to make them sound different. I think this is because DD&Co has a very high reputation when it comes to the language (the ruputation is high in other matters too). Parents can safely give the magazine to their children, because they won't learn a bad language from it. Hjemmet (the Norwegian Disney comics publisher) won't risc this reputation, of course. BTW: When "Plain Awful" was published for the first time in Norway (in the 50's), one of the big "fights" about the written languages took place at the same time. The minority wanted Nynorsk to be more important, and some people on the other side didn't want Nynorsk to be a language at all. Then came these small, funny, square people speaking Nynorsk. That made _big_ headlines. "Donald Duck choosing side in the fight of the language." Hjemmet just wanted the square people to sound different ;-) When it was reprinted in the 70's they did not speak "different". They didn't dare let them speak Nynorsk. They also changed the last panel, but that's another story. Then, when it was reprinted again, before Don's "Return to Plain Awful", they used the original version. No angry head- lines this time. But a lot of praising of both Barks' and Don's stories. Ducks in academia. When Barks visited this university earlier this year the big event started with three lectures (couldn't find a better word at the moment, could be the right one for all I know...). One of them was by Geir Hasnes (hidden meanings in Barks' stories (that was _really_ good, Geir! :-) ). Then Finn Erik Vinje held one about the language of DD&Co. He had let some of his students make some statistics on frequencies on certain word etc. Then another professor (whose name I must admit that I have forgotten) at UiO held one with the title "Why we recommend our students to read Donald". :-) And again, thanks to James for explaining how to make a Disney story. I guess Don doesn't have to use too many words to explain a panel to the artist :-) Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Tue Oct 25 23:52:02 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 23:52:02 +0100 Subject: Donald Duck & Co #43 Message-ID: <199410252252.24162.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> I just have to comment the last issue of Donald Duck & Co (it was published today). It's really good. It starts with a ten-pager by van Horn. It's about Donald and the nephews taking part in a contest. The goal is to find a meteor rock in the desert. Donald has a book, by some professor, to tell him how to find them (something familiar about that...) (D93490). Next is a Dutch two-pager with U$ and the Beagle Boys (H89139). Then a six-pager with Mad Madam Mim. Well, this isn't too good. Mim is thrown out of her house, and she makes a lot of magic to make the person who made the descision to change his mind. Is it that difficult to make up something new? (D92294). Then a Barks story. "Farragut the Falcon". No need to comment this, I guess :) (W/WDC47). BTW: what does the 'W' before the slash mean? Then, at last, is the real highlight, in my opinion. A Mickey Mouse continuation story. That's not so great in itselves, but this one is really good (at least so far)! It's about Mickey assisting Professor Dustibones (yes, it's him), in the search for fossiles. It must be inspired by Jurassic Park. The dinos look very much like the velociraptors from the movie. The art looks very much like the art in the "Bermudashorts Triangle". (D93323). Dustibones (about a colleage he doesn't like): "It's said that he has brought bulding materials and strange machines. That sounds mysterious!" Says _he_! Ah, yes, the hole thing ends with a one page gag with Donald. (KF 8-11-46). Nice. The story-code is written on the side of the table with Donalds telephone. It's written diagonally to make it fit. There are four ads, all for Disney products. Three for magazines published by Hjemmet (Mikke Krim (Mickey Mystery), Ole Brumm (Winnie the Pooh) and Mikke Mus). Next week is a new "collector series" starting in DD&Co. It's the book of the Junior Woodchucks... And, apropos the discussion of sport in Disney comics, a story about Donald being the coach of a soccer team is coming next week. It seems to be about finding sponsors for the team. He will try to get U$ as sponsor... Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From jbaker at world.std.com Tue Oct 25 19:26:31 1994 From: jbaker at world.std.com (John M Baker) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 19:25:31 +0059 (EDT) Subject: Br'er Rabbit In-Reply-To: <199410252204.23744.holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> Message-ID: I take it that Br'er Rabbit is unknown to many of the non-American readers on this list, except from the Disney stories. A little background may be helpful. Unlike many of the other Disney adaptations, Br'er Rabbit is not (in the United States) known primarily or even to any large extent as a Disney character. Instead, Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, Br'er Bear, et al. are known primarily through stories written by Joel Chandler Harris in the early 1880s. Uncle Remus, the narrator of these stories, is an old black man living in the American South, and he tells the stories to a small white boy. Naturally, everything that Uncle Remus says is in heavy dialect, which today is an impediment to the stories' popularity. "Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby," however, continues to be popular, often surviving through retellings. Harris did not invent the animal characters. He must, however, have written most of the stories from scratch, for there are too many to be all his recollections from childhood. The animals themselves are not black or white - they're animals, remember? But since they speak through Uncle Remus, they speak of necessity in a black dialect. When Disney used these characters in the motion picture, "Song of the South," they expanded the relationship between Uncle Remus and the little boy to become the central story, with some animated sequences featuring the animals. John M. Baker Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, 101 Federal St., Boston, MA 02110 Phone 617/951-6623 Fax 617/951-1295 On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?= wrote: > David and Wilmer: > Thanx for explainig what kind of character Br'er Rabbit is > (in the U.S.). I did "suspect" he was a hillbilly, but I > didn't know he was black. That must really be a problem for > Disney... or isn't he black anymore if they change his > dialect? > > Zomo - that's interesting. I didn't know he was a character > from black folklore. In Norway his name is simply Langore > (Long Ear), and he's nothing but a little animal living in > the forest (like Chip & Dale and Bongo), but Br'er Fox and > Br'er Bear is called Mikkel Rev and Bamse Brakar. These > are characters from Norwegian folk tales. The fox is always > making a fool of the bear. From 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Wed Oct 26 06:12:18 1994 From: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com (Don Rosa) Date: 26 Oct 94 01:12:18 EDT Subject: Disney-comics digest #473. Message-ID: <941026051217_72260.2635_EHB65-4@CompuServe.COM> JORGEN: You told "Realistforeningen" that I was coming and they said they'd DO something about it. Since I haven't the slightest idea who that is, you have me a bit worried. That's not some group of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists or something, is it? Now I'm not sure if I should leave home. This is rather a trivial point, but just so you don't misunderstand something you might be seeking to understand clearly: Brer' Rabbit is neither supposed to be black or a "hillbilly". He's supposed to be a rural deep-southerner. "Hillbillies" live quite a bit further north (supposedly here in Kentucky, actually). A hillbilly is someone who lives so far back in inaccessible hills (such as in the Applalacian Mountains) that his contact with "civilisation" is minimal. Brer Rabbit is just supposed to resemble some poor person in Louisiana or Mississippi... not someone who lives far from the city necessarilly, just poor and uneducated. Whether or not he's supposed to be BLACK... I don't think so. His story is being told by a black man so it's told from his viewpoint... but I think the critters in those stories are just supposed to be critters. I mean, now, the crows in DUMBO... now, THEY were clearly intended to be as BLACK as the Ace o' Spades! HARRY: You seemed to be saying that Gladstone had made Hortense's bill actually BIGGER instead of smaller... so I got out the different editions and compared. I'm glad I did this, and I owe Gladstone a big apology (for a comment they never saw anyway). Gladstone indeed DID make Hortense's bill smaller, just as I asked them to -- they just didn't make it small enough. But they did a GREAT job compared with the way they redrew $crooge's beak in that panel in part 3! I couldn't tell it'd been touched. But I drew Hortense's bill SO BIG in the original version that even when they shrank it, it was still too big. But... were you actually saying that Gladstone made the bill bigger? You must have gotten quite mixed up as to which version was which. Anyway, I won't see your answer to that. This is my last contact with you all for the next two weeks. Hope to see a few of you in Scandanavia -- identify yourself to me if you get a chance! Bye. From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Wed Oct 26 11:04:34 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:04:34 +0100 Subject: Don Rosa and Realistforeningen Message-ID: <199410261004.20989.kolsaas.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> I guess this is to late for Don to see it, but... Realistforeningen is a student organization at UiO. It was Realistforeningen that arranged the last meeting with you (Don) here in Oslo, and it was also them who arranged the meeting with Barks. They are completely harmless :-) I'm a member myself, BTW. Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Wed Oct 26 12:52:46 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:52:46 +0000 Subject: Disney-comics digest #473. Message-ID: <214563A7E27@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, Several things to talk about today. First, Br'er Rabbit: The stories really go a LONG way back before Joel Chandler Harris. I got my own wellspring of information in perhaps the most unusual sourcebook you'd ever imagine it to be in: the book _Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years And Only One Gray Hare_ (1990). This history book on WB cartoons views Br'er Rabbit as Bugs' principal ancestor (there are a lot of similarities!), and so spends several pages talking about that character's history. It's that book that tells about the stories' origins in Africa, although I can't believe that's the only one that has that stuff in it. Br'er Rabbit is, as far as I know, still quite popular in the States -- at least to those who *read*. Not long ago there was a series of books called "Jump," "Jump Again," and "Jump On Over", which contained Br'er Rabbit tales shorn of dialect; these were bestselling children's books, with excellent production values. There are three Disney Br'er Rabbit books in print, none of them using dialect. There are at least two of the original Harris books still in print (with dialect). And although Disney has banned the film "Song of the South" from U. S. re-release (that's the film with the BR sequences in it), they do show the BR shorts by themselves, sometimes, on the Disney Channel's two cartoon shows. Last year there was a great musical "Br'er Rabbit" at my college, directed by our regular drama coach (who is black, by the way, and noted the stories' origins in black folklore; also confirmed my own questions about the name Zomo). The story was narrated by a character named Sis Owl, who was written with slight dialect. Next, AUGIE DeBLIECK -- Huzzah! Glad to hear you're around here making your mark at last. It's about time! Feel free to drop into my mailbox and chat sometime (my E-Mail address is at the end of this letter). JORGEN: The Madam Mim story doesn't sound half bad. I guess I haven't read enough of these to find this particular plot a rehash of something that has gone before... There's always the old Barks story where Scrooge tries to get Donald to give up his house (WDC 159), but Scrooge is no magician, so how similar can the stories be? Sounds like that Mickey story with Dustibones is another one of the "new" Mickey stories. Particularly if the artist is the same guy who did the Remuda Triangle story -- that's Ferioli. I'm guessing that the writer could be Byron Erickson himself, here. JAMES WILLIAMS: I was laughing just at the first panel of your US rodeo story! Are you doing all these original stories for Gladstone? That's the impression I got from a past letter. And who is drawing them? I wouldn't mind reading one of your entire scripts... HARRY: I'm amazed that you found a good-looking US 289... but one thing's certain, DD 288 (which has just come out) is lacking any kind of problems whatsoever. The cover stock is different, indicating that this was published by the OTHER color press that Gladstone uses (they use two of them, I've been told); that being the one which was responsible, as far as I can tell, for most of their comics in the first six months of their "new" period. The black ink is JET black, the colors are all bright and clear and not a SINGLE page is the LEAST bit off-register. This is a magnificent issue. I hope that Gladstone sticks with this printer as often as possible. The strips in DD 288 sure highlight Bolivar and Basil Burro a lot. Never realized how often that burro appeared in the strip, although he kept showing up until the 1950s at least. And damn, the Bolivar strips are probably the best of all AT material, in my opinion. I will use Bolivar a lot in my coming Duck stories... We should get Mark Evanier on this list, by the way -- someone was just asking about him. His E-Mail address is Why don't we put him on the list right now? He can always cancel it if he doesn't like it... And did someone mention DON AULT coming on? I've been trying to find some way to get through to him for years. You see, I have a copy of OS 348 ("The Crocodile Collector") with his name handwritten in childish writing on the cover, and have always wanted to get it back to him. I guess his Mom must have sold his comics when he grew up. Poor fellow. I also have a WDC&S 126 with Mike Barrier's childish signature on it. And I've ALWAYS wanted to get some kind of transcripts of his course lectures. I myself gave an animation history course over winter quarter last year (titled "The Mickey Mouse Course of Animation History"). Emphasis on Disney/WB cartoons, with many rare or banned cartoons shown. I'd sure like to "trade" cartoons with Mr. Ault -- I bet we each have some the other lacks. Last: The only Duck story I've ever done for anyone besides Egmont is being sent in -- with the corrections Disney and Gladstone wanted me to make, made -- for the final time today. "Return to Morgan's Island," to be illustrated (as of this writing) by my artist friend Craig Deeley, is a rip-roaring 26-page pirate adventure reuniting the Ducks with Old Yellow Beak as well as a whole tag team of classic villains. (It's a sequel to Four Color #9, if any of you don't know: "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold.") It's all researched and historically accurate, too. When it's drawn and published (late '95, I guess) you're going to love it, folks! And remember -- you heard it on disney-comics at minsk.DoCS.UU.SE!!! Best to all of you, David Gerstein "By the Gorgon's cracked cackle! It's too *impossible* to be real!" <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Wed Oct 26 18:13:19 1994 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 18:13:19 +0100 Subject: Administrator leaving for Gothenburg Message-ID: <9410261713.AA23209@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I'm leaving for Gothenburg now. I haven't asked anyone else here to take care of the list until I'm back (Sunday), so I hope there won't be any technical problems and I hope noone will have any urgent (un)subscription requests... -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at minsk.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From BLEAVELL at DOVER Wed Oct 26 21:39:42 1994 From: BLEAVELL at DOVER (Ben Leavell) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 14:39:42 CST Subject: No subject Message-ID: <165D4273BFA@dover.afsc.k12.ar.us> I like to join From iyang at sdcc13.ucsd.edu Wed Oct 26 21:54:50 1994 From: iyang at sdcc13.ucsd.edu (I-ning Yang) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 13:54:50 -0700 Subject: please take me off the list Message-ID: <199410262054.NAA03647@sdcc13.ucsd.edu> as title thank you From deckerd at agcs.com Wed Oct 26 22:43:13 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 14:43:13 MST Subject: Dwight Does Denmark Message-ID: <9410262143.AA04332@gtephx.com> I just thought I'd mention that I'll be in Europe from November 19 to November 28. I plan to start in Copenhagen, drop by the Egmont offices and pester the editors there, get over to Malmo, Sweden for a day, spend a day in Hamburg, and finish up at a science- fiction convention in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Through all this, I plan to do a lot of shopping (late November in northern Europe is a lousy time of the year for sightseeing, so what else is there?). As a translator of several languages into English, I have to keep my languages up, so I want to buy lots of books, comics, CDs, and videos in Danish, Swedish, German, and Dutch. (Yes, I have a PAL-compatible VCR.) I'm also beginning to collect Disney films dubbed into various foreign languages. This is probably rank heresy to European Disney fans, who seem to think their own local dubbed versions stink and the only true version is the original English version -- but hey, I'm trying to learn some languages here, and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and all that. So I have a few questions for the folks on the disney-comics list about what's available in your respective countries, so I can be sure to buy it when I'm there next month. Remember, I'm a crazy American coming to your country to spend money, and I'll go away when I run out. This could mean the difference between 1994 being a prosperous year or a recession year in your country! DENMARK: Is the animated film based on the VALHALLA series of comic albums currently available on video? (Okay, so it's not Disney -- but the albums are gorgeous!) Is VALHALLA #10 out yet? Is Disney's LITTLE MERMAID still available on video in Denmark? (I mean, what better language to get that story in...?) SWEDEN: Is THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE available on video? GERMANY: Sind KRIEG DER STERNE und ZURUCK NACH DIE ZUKUNFT noch erhaeltlich auf Video? ARIELLE? NETHERLANDS: Has ALADDIN been released on video here yet? Any information on these questions will be greatly appreciated! I also plan to buy lots of comic albums, but my choice will probably depend mainly on what's on the racks the day I walk into the shops. In other business...Gladstone's Donald Duck Album #10 just came out and I picked up a copy last night. The Square Eggs story and "Voodoo Hoodoo" are the featured attractions this time. It's the retouched version of "Voodoo Hoodoo," by the way. I also bought the new issue of _Donald and Mickey_, got it home, and discovered a hole punched through most of the pages, like somebody had tried to stab it with a steak knife. That's a risk of having a reserve box at the comics shop: you end up taking what the clerk decides to give you, without a chance to pick through four or five copies on the rack for the one in the best condition. And SNOW WHITE just hit commercial video; I picked up a laserdisc copy last night. The print's been restored and the film probably hasn't looked this good in 50 years. The striking thing about it is how _young_ Snow White is. She's a girl, maybe 14, not a mature woman. Kind of young to be getting married, but then they did marry young in the Middle Ages. (As the saying goes, by the time an actress is proficient enough to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, she's too old for the part...) --Dwight Decker From trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu Thu Oct 27 00:09:40 1994 From: trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu (Tryg Helseth) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 18:09:40 CDT Subject: Donald as a sport fan. Message-ID: <76193.trygve@maroon.tc.umn.edu> Sigudur: Thanks for the clarificaton on what your were referring to regarding sports in DD stories. I think you are right, however, that sports have rarely been the central theme in duck stories in the US. (Though the may play some minor role in the plot.) I think there was a $crooge football story called "September Scrimage," and I vaguely remember there was a Gyro story about an invented team sport. As I recall, they wore plummer plungers on there head an used them to catch rubber cubes with holes in them. Maybe someone here has more detail on this. Tryg Tryg Helseth Minneapolis, MN, USA or "I wish they all could be Calisota Ducks!" -the Beach Drakes From Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se Thu Oct 27 10:20:51 1994 From: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se (Anders Engwall) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 10:20:51 +0100 Subject: Donald as a sport fan. Message-ID: <9410270920.AA19829@euax1i4c12.eua.ericsson.se> There is also a Barks story where Gyro is 'persuaded' by two rivalling baseball teams to invent equipment that will help them win. For one team it's a ball that can't be hit, and for the other a bat that can't miss (or the other way around -- a ball that can't be missed and a bat that can't hit). Strange things happen when the two meet! I think this was 'The Madball Pitcher' from OS 1095. If we leave the team sports, there are stories that involve golf, bowling, surfing and probably others. Favourite? I think mine is the golf story by Barks where Donald and Gladstone play against each other and Gladstone suffers mysteriously from a streak of *very* bad luck -- which in the end turns out not to be so bad after all... (WDC 131). Anders Engwall Email: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se ELLEMTEL Utvecklings AB Voice: +46 8 727 3893 [lvsj|, Sweden Fax: +46 8 727 42 20 endremin saxassa flumen flobollala / feilobasch falljada follidi / flumbasch From Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se Thu Oct 27 13:31:38 1994 From: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se (Anders Engwall) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 13:31:38 +0100 Subject: Database Message-ID: <9410271231.AA20396@euax1i4c12.eua.ericsson.se> Fredrik Ekman, about getting Scandinavian characters into the index: > Well, perhaps it was stupid of me to suggest Latin-1. There is absolutely > no realistic way to use it for plain-text files over the 'net. The only > way is to UUencode it. This could work, but it also means that all > indexers will have to know a lot about what they are doing. They must > know enough about Latin-1 to tell if that is what they are using (or else > a way of converting it) and also be able to UUencode. But I really don't > see another way to have Swedish, Danish and other non-English titles in > the database. Perhaps every language could use their own 7-bit standard, > but that would be messy for anyone interested in some other country's > titles... Is it really worth this effort just to be able to see those neat, dotted characters? I don't think so. As it is now, those three letters have been replaced by a, a and o res- pectivally; it's pure 7-bit. This might of course occasionally lead to am- biguous titles, but OTOH it is simple and -- more important -- it always works. It is probable that a more complicated technical solution might deter the folks who do the actual indexing. Simplicity is a virtue here. Anders Engwall Email: Anders.Engwall at eua.ericsson.se ELLEMTEL Utvecklings AB Voice: +46 8 727 3893 [lvsj|, Sweden Fax: +46 8 727 42 20 endremin saxassa flumen flobollala / feilobasch falljada follidi / flumbasch From Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se Thu Oct 27 16:49:16 1994 From: Mattias.Hallin at jurenh.lu.se (Mattias Hallin) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 16:49:16 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #474. In-Reply-To: Your message dated "Thu, 27 Oct 1994 01:33:43 +0100" <9410270033.AA05572@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: <01HIS0XI1EB88WWJ0D@castor.ldc.lu.se> DWIGHT: You do realize you'll be passing through my neck of the woods?! As you might know, my hometown Lund is 15 km (exactly 13 minutes by local train) north of Malmo -- so if you want to get in touch while in the Copenhagen/Malmo area, jes' lemme know! Oh -- and I *don't* think "Masterdetektiven Basil Mus" is available in Swedish any longer, though I might be wrong on that'n... All my best Mattias **** Mattias Hallin ** Lund * Sweden ** **** * * * "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar! * ************** A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!" ************* From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Thu Oct 27 14:01:16 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 14:01:16 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #473. Message-ID: <9410271301.AA05850@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Nice to see Augie DeBlieck here. It seems all major 'stars' of Gladstone's letter columns finally find their way here. When will Joe Torcivia join us? About Br'er Rabbit ------------------ This character is called "Broer Konijn" in Dutch, which is, literally translated, "Brother Rabbit". The Dutch translations rarely use dialects, and we have no "NyDutchsk". The bear and the fox are called "Bruin Beer" and "Rein Vos" in Dutch. These are the names of the animals in the mediaeval tale "vanden vos Reynaerde". The Rabbit has been very popular in Holland in the 70s. In 1974, there was a 1-page gag every week. Even Daan Jippes made a BR story. Madam Mim --------- Jo/rgen: > Then a six-pager with Mad Madam Mim. Your description looks _exactly_ like a Danish Mim story I remember. Maybe it's a remake? (They did remakes before..) A story code ------------ Jo/rgen again: > Then a Barks story. "Farragut the Falcon". No need to comment > this, I guess :) (W/WDC47). > BTW: what does the 'W' before the slash mean? I think it stands for "Western", the publisher of that comic (WDC 47). I have seen this prefix in other Western stories. Sometimes it is 'WR', like in "WR/WDC 147", which could be "Western Reprint" or so. --Harry. From jjs142 at duke.usask.ca Thu Oct 27 22:32:38 1994 From: jjs142 at duke.usask.ca (Mr. Joel J. Swaan) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 15:32:38 -0600 (CST) Subject: Peg-Leg Pete and Horace Horsecollar Message-ID: Hi! I'm coming out of the closet here - I've been subscribed for about 5 months or so, and just never had anything to say, but I've enjoyed reading your letters so far, just for interests sake. On with my point. Two of my more favorite minor characters are Peg-Leg Pete and Horace Horsecollar (don't ask me why - I don't know) But I have never seen any mention of them here. Do you use them very much? or at all? What are names over there? Just thought I'd ask. Joel (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) From deckerd at agcs.com Thu Oct 27 23:01:18 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 15:01:18 -0700 (MST) Subject: Peg-Leg Pete and Horace Horsecollar In-Reply-To: from "Mr. Joel J. Swaan" at Oct 27, 94 03:32:38 pm Message-ID: <9410272201.AA05030@gtephx.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1711 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941027/d88b3afa/attachment.pl From mas at cs.bu.edu Thu Oct 27 23:34:22 1994 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 18:34:22 -0400 Subject: Mickey and Donald 27 Message-ID: <199410272313.TAA10879@csa.bu.edu> Well, after reading stuff like "Mickey and the Sleuth" and "A Goofy Midas", I thought that Byron Erickson's "The Weather Wizard" (in D&M 27) was a breath of fresh air. Ferioli's art was particularly wonderful. I think that this sort of Mickey story is a step in the right direction for Gladstone, but having said that, I thought that this particular story was somewhat lame. The plot was extremely simple and Mickey had almost no characterization. Is this story indicative of the type of Mickey stories that Egmont is publishing? What we should really do is get Gladstone to publish a David Gerstein/Ferioli Mickey story... :-) From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Fri Oct 28 12:56:32 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (9475609@arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:56:32 +0000 Subject: Horace in Germany (and other things) Message-ID: <2445C8724FD@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, A few things to comment on, today. First, Dwight Decker said that Horace's name in German was Pferdinand. Where have you seen this? His name in German COMICS is Rudi Ross, and if the PVC figurine said "Pferdinand" it's because whoever wrote the name on it didn't know who this character was! (I think Pferdinand is a better name for him, but like it or not, I've never seen it.) I have also never seen any material in which Pete was named "Sneaky Pete," but I'll take your word for it. As a young boy, I loved the Mickey stories in the "big white books" which were then on sale, but I *hated* the Mickey stories I was then finding in Whitman comics. I couldn't understand why Whitman didn't make Mickey stories that were as good as Donald stories, like the ones in the big white books were... Pete also appeared in the Alice and Oswald cartoons before settling down as Mickey's nemesis. In those, he was sometimes called Pegleg Pete, but more often Putrid Pete. According to a source at Disney, when it was time to come up with a new name to replace Black Pete, they almost went for Putrid Pete again, but then decided that little kids wouldn't understand the word 'putrid.' Feh. I thought Disney comics were *supposed* to teach kids things -- I learned the word "bouillabaisse" from a Barks story. (Although I may still not have learnt how to SPELL it from memory...) MARK: Egmont has been publishing a mixture of Mickey stories for years and years; some VERY bad, some a little better, and only once in a blue moon (as far as I can figure) one that's pretty darned good. The artist chosen never seems to have any relation to what the editors think of the script, until recently, when the better scripts seem to consistently go to Ferioli and -- although we've only seen the hypnotism story as yet -- Noel Van Horn. About a year ago a drive began to revitalize Mickey. Model sheets and character analyses were prepared for many old Gottfredson characters, and writers were encouraged to recapture Mickey's personality c. 1936. We're now seeing the results of that -- I've seen some pretty darned good Mickey stories of late, even though there have been some clinkers as well. Egmont has been trying to get the complete FG strip in English (as you know, Geir -- if you're reading this that is!). When they do, a more complete "Mickey bible" will be compiled, the goal being to bring Mickey's world back to how it should be once and for all! I'd like to have my stories illustrated by Ferioli, but I'll wait til I get to do an adventure story (and I'm going to do one next year, with Sylvester Shyster). For now, my Mickey gag stories are planned to be drawn by Noel Van Horn, and I'm pleased as punch. JOEL: Glad to hear from you! You'll be glad to know that when the "Mickey bible" is compiled, Horace will return to his mid-'30s position as one of Mickey's closest chums. As it is, I've only seen a very small handful of foreign stories that give poor Horace much to do at all. But that is going to change. My first MM story for Egmont involves Mickey and Horace travelling to Mount Fishflake to prospect for a rare mineral which I named "amaturnite". I like to use Horace with Mickey because he's smarter than Goofy, and the two can trade good-natured barbs and are more on a level with one another mentally. MM: "Just think o' the swell view of that canyon we had, Horace!" Horace: "I don't *wanna* think about it! I nearly got a *closer* view than I wanted!" MM: "Yeah, a shame, ain't it? Y' gotta learn how to climb *before* ya tackle a mountain!" Horace: ">Snort< Aw, dry up! I just shoulda watched where I put my left foot, y' see?" MM: "Sure thing! Only it's hard to keep track of *one* left foot when y' got *two* of 'em!" ... And so forth. This week's British MM contains the first part of the Prof. Dustibones MM story "Fossil Hunters" (D93323), and it sure is great. Really Gottfredsonian -- and Marx Bros. fans will get a thrill as Dustibones' rival is named Prof. Wagstaff of Huxley College... The issue also has two Madam Mim one-pagers (D90238 and D93092), a Scalabroni Scrooge two-pager (H89139), and a Donald one-pager (D93117). And of course, Van Horn's meteor story (D93490), with Donald vs. Pegleg Pete. Pete, as usual in DD stories, uses a silly alias -- in this case, Woimly Filcher. But his dialect, personality and (of course) appearance are obvious as always. I'll be back, folks! David Gerstein From nummedal at pvv.unit.no Fri Oct 28 14:16:34 1994 From: nummedal at pvv.unit.no (Dag Nummedal) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 14:16:34 +0100 Subject: Database In-Reply-To: Anders.Engwall@eua.ericsson.se's message of 27 Oct 1994 13:36:45 +0100 Message-ID: <9410281316.AA17455@nova.pvv.unit.no> Anders.Engwall wrote: As it is now, those three letters have been replaced by a, a and o res- pectivally; it's pure 7-bit. Shouldn't this be aa ae and oe. At least that is the English version of the last three letters in the Norwegian language. -Dag Nummedal From trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu Fri Oct 28 13:29:51 1994 From: trygve at maroon.tc.umn.edu (Tryg Helseth) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 07:29:51 CDT Subject: For Pete's sake... Message-ID: <41246.trygve@maroon.tc.umn.edu> Dwight Decker mentioned the transformations that Peg Leg Pete, Black Pete, etc. has gone through over the years. While I don't remember "Sneaky Pete," there was one story in the '70s where he was referred to as "Bold Pete." I suppose that was nixed because Americans at that time thought boldness was a desireable trait in their children. (And now we have the X generation to show for it.) Then again, maybe they thought he would get confused witha a popular laundry detergent... :) Tryg Helseth Minneapolis, MN, USA or "I wish they all could be Calisota Ducks!" -the Beach Drakes From ekman at lysator.liu.se Fri Oct 28 16:47:04 1994 From: ekman at lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:47:04 +0100 (MET) Subject: Whole bunch of interesting comments Message-ID: Yipes! All you need to do around here is obviously to do a few days of exam studying and all of a sudden there are LOTS of messages that I just HAVE to reply to. And I was considering going into lurker mode... First, about Madam Mim: The six-page story that Jorgen mentioned luckily did not appear here in Sweden. But we did get a one-pager that was really awful instead. The first and only time I read it I just turned the page and was surprised not to find any more. I guess a story really is bad when you don't even understand that there IS a closing gag. Seriously, David; there ARE no good Madam Mim stories. At least I've never read one. And about the similarity in concept, I would assume that Jorgen is referring to the 537 OTHER Madam Mim stories where she is doing about the same thing. And she is being so disgustingly nice to everyone! Of course, she shouldn't be nice at all. That's just something that some jerk at Egmont invented, probably. As I suppose most of you know she is originally from the film The Sword in the Stone, and there she is evil. And I mean EVIL. The film, in turn, is based on the brilliant novel with the same title by T. H. White. If you haven't read it, do so! Even if you didn't like the film. In the book, Madam Mim dresses all in black, has straight black hair, is very beautiful and has a pet raven. Now, who does that remind us of..? About Mark Evanier, David wrote: > Why don't we put him on the list right now? He can always cancel it if > he doesn't like it... No, not a good idea. Not that I think Per would do a thing like that. We COULD, however, ask nicely if he wants to join. Any takers? I WON'T do it, since I wrote a message to his CompuServe account recently and have not yet received an answer, which may mean one of three things: 1) ME gets a lot of fan email and doesn't reply to any of it. 2) He disregarded my message as being totally uninteresting and will probably not enjoy getting another from the same source. 3) He reads his CS email very rarely. Anyway, it would be nice having him around, even as a lurker. And Dwight mentioned how young Snow White is. It is funny that you should bring that up in the very same message where you request suggestions for what dubbed Disney films you should buy. What you would REALLY want is the original Swedish version. That one used a girl about the age 14 and uncle Walt himself declared that it was the best Snow White he had ever heard. Unfortunately that version does not exist on video and probably never will. The current version, redubbed during the eighties, has a middle-aged woman in the role and it sounds horrible. Then Joel Swaan (a new aquaintance, Hi Joel!) wants to know what the European names for Peg-Leg Pete and Horace Horsecollar are. Well, Joel, I suggest that you look up the International Disney Comic Character Names list with FTP here at ftp.lysator.liu.se. The file is /pub/comics/disney/characters/interlingual, I think. Finally (whew!) Anders wrote about the database: > Is it really worth this effort just to be able to see those neat, dotted > characters? I don't think so. Well, I do! Again, we must ask ourselves for what purpose we are going through all this work (not that I am doing a lot anyway). If it's only for our own sake, then I suppose a, a and o will do, although I think it looks increadibly ugly. But think again. According to a very low estimate, approximately 40 million people have (theoretical) access to our FTP site through The Matrix. I really don't see the difference between this database and a printed index (except for practical things like easier searching). Would you opt for leaving out Swedish chars even if we were going to print it and distribute it worldwide? Anyway, if you MUST use 7-bit ASCII, then at least use {}|[]\, which conforms to the Swedish standard and will not cause ANY problems over mail. Now, I believe that the only other indexer who has any of these problems is Ole, so could we please hear your views on this the next time you get in touch, Ole? I believe you use Latin-1 already? If so, all YOU would need to do is to UUencode. Now, that's IT. Vinke-vink! /F From erik at kroete2.freinet.de Sat Oct 29 17:14:27 1994 From: erik at kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry) Date: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 16:14:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: dialect Message-ID: Hello, I've been lurking on this list for a couple of months now. I'm an Anglo-Dane living in Germany, and though I never lived in Denmark, some generous Danish friends of ours always used to send their Anders And & Co and Ekstra-Hafte to us, so I grew up reading lots of Donald Duck. I still have a most of the weeklies from 1976 to 1984, and a few from before that. When I first saw Donald Duck in England I was quite disturbed to see him speaking English! I had always known that DD came from America, but somehow I had got so used to everyone in the comics speaking perfect Danish. Now, reading this list, I hear that Pegleg Pete has a very characteristic accent, and that the same goes for Brer Rabbit, and early Mickey Mouse. And Huey, Dewey and Louie call Scrooge 'Unca', whereas in Danish they use the normal word for Uncle! Seems like we're missing out in Europe. Even Dr. Erika Fuchs, who's translations of Barks are (rightly) held in very high regard here chose to make everyone speak High German. I guess some things are just too hard to translate. I love the idea of having the "square" people speaking Nynorsk. This, to me, gives exactly the right bizarre touch to them, but maybe Norwegians don't find Nynorsk bizarre... Btw., Pegleg Pete is still called Sorteper in Denmark, even though it means Black Pete. (Note, whoever maintains the interlingual file, that it is one word, at least I have never seen it as two.) -- Erik Corry, Freiburg, Germany, +49 761 406637 erik at kroete2.freinet.de From maittola at snakemail.hut.fi Sun Oct 30 08:49:49 1994 From: maittola at snakemail.hut.fi (Mikko Henri Juhani Aittola) Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:49:49 +0200 (EET) Subject: Noel Van-Horn, British weekly Message-ID: About Noel Van-Horn: The 'Goofy in hypnosis' story (D93392) appeared here in AA 41/94. The one-pager D93027 was published in 38/94 alonside with another one-pager coded D91221. (Goofy buys statue from art-shop). I'm quite sure the artist is same in these stories despite the latter one-pager is from '91. About British weekly: How long has this been published? Maybe Don's WENDIGO-story HAS appeared in English after all!! David, I think you should type in the subscription address for British weekly. I'm sure some fans in the US are very interested reading new Egmont stuff as quickly as possible. /Mikko From 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk Sun Oct 30 16:56:03 1994 From: 9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk (DAVID.A.GERSTEIN) Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 15:56:03 +0000 Subject: Donald's German name(s), etc. Message-ID: <27866D54AFA@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Dear Folks, First thing to discuss today are the foreign names of some characters. I have learnt that before the Nazis banned Disney characters, Donald had the name Schnatterich. I mentioned that a few months ago. What I DIDN'T know, was that this was only his name in COMICS. In a storybook based on "The Wise Little Hen," Donald was named Emmerich, and the name was used in a few other places too. What a mess. So Donald had TWO names in Germany before World War II. A similar situation seems to be behind the use of the name Pferdinand for Horace. In a letter to me, Dwight confirmed that this was his name in a STORYBOOK, suggesting that once again, it was a case of a translator who knew nothing about comics working with the characters in a different medium... Groan. How characters work together === ========== ==== ======== As far as I'm concerned, Horace and Goofy would be great together if used right. They would work very much like Laurel and Hardy, in fact. Like Oliver Hardy, Horace thinks he knows how to do absolutely everything (referring to his "Horsecollar Touch" in a few of the 1930s stories!), and is good at bossing others around, but in fact causes himself lots of accidents. You don't see Horace bossing Mickey around, but he sure gives it to Goofy and Clarabelle both in the mid-'30s. And Clarabelle never listens to him, naturally. Why doesn't Horace boss Mickey around? Because Mickey's the one guy who (to Horace) seems to know how to do everything. Of course, Mickey DOESN'T know how to do everything (something some writers forget), and his real tragic flaw is his eternal enthusiasm and curiosity. Mau Heymans goes to the dogs (and cats) === ======= ==== == === ==== ==== ===== A few weeks ago there was a really WEIRD Dutch story in the Danish AA & Co. There was a radio contest for people to do the best animal imitations, and Donald and Jones both decided to enter. It just looked too weird to see Donald up on stage imitating a cat, I'm sorry. And then there were the scenes of Donald and Jones up late at night on the back fence, yowling and barking at one another. I just couldn't really believe that they would take their animal imitations so seriously. And while the pair did this, we cut briefly to Bolivar and a cat complaining about the noise. I imagine Bolivar should have had a thought-balloon, but instead he was just talking with a word balloon -- what a shock! Dialect and Magica De Spell ======= === ====== == ===== On the subject of DIALECT, Zeke Wolf also speaks in it. Definitely an "uneducated" type of dialect, although not quite as backwoods-sounding as Br'er Rabbit's speech. And some people write Magica de Spell talking in dialect, too -- they drop every "the" from her speech (i. e. "Give me dime, Scrooge!") as if she doesn't know English that well. I think that this stems from DuckTales, where Magica spoke with a very thick accent that sounded both Italian and sort of Slavic, too. What bothers me, though, is that I have also seen a few stories in which SCROOGE was written in dialect -- I really don't go for that. They tried to make him sound Scottish. The best example is the story in US 257, "Coffee, Louie, or Me?" The dialect sounds as piratical as it does Scottish, and besides, I never thought Scrooge's dialect was supposed to be strong enough that it affected his speech, save an occasional use of "lads". Upcoming Gladstones in January ======== ========== == ======= From Diamond Previews for this month: DDA 31 has as its cover Carl Barks' JW adventure "Traitor in the Ranks" as redrawn by Daan Jippes, with a MAGNIFICENT cover (perhaps by Pat Block). Backup feature is Ben Verhagen's "A Car-Gone Conclusion". Donald has taken up work at a used-car shop in deserted Pizen Bluff; he would like to impress Uncle Scrooge by making good at this miserable job, and ultimately does (only I'm not telling you how). I wrote the English for this Dutch story. WDC&S 596 has William Van Horn's "The Terror of Duckburg" and part four of "Monarch of Medioka." Just what is "The Terror of Duckburg" about? US 291 has Rosa's "Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never," a truly great story of Scrooge in Australia, if the German version's anything to go by. Some absolutely great scenes as Scrooge deals with (it looks like) another McViper, as well as an aboriginal seer who looks deep into his future. And (although Previews didn't note it) I've been told that the backup is Vicar's "A Case of Too Much Money," another for which I wrote the English. Scrooge is trying to rid himself of valueless Castrovian Rubleniks, but the elements seem to conspire against him. You'll notice that my dialogs are beginning to appear in greater numbers now. This should continue through mid-'96! After they print these two, there are at least eleven of my foreign dialogs Gladstone has yet to print -- and that doesn't count parts 2-3 of the Scarpa lentil story in USA 31-32, or an original Egmont story of mine which should appear in USA 34. Some of these dialogs were done as early as 1990, so the quality may fluctuate a bit, as I like to think that I've gained experience and quality with time! (Boy, I HOPE so.) I still kick myself when I look at some of my earlier work -- I ALWAYS see something I coulda done a LOT better. I'll be back sooner or later, folks. All the best, David Gerstein <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> From deckerd at agcs.com Sun Oct 30 17:40:37 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:40:37 -0700 (MST) Subject: dialect In-Reply-To: from "Erik Corry" at Oct 29, 94 04:14:27 pm Message-ID: <9410301640.AA01758@gtephx.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3397 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941030/bad6f888/attachment.pl From erik at kroete2.freinet.de Mon Oct 31 02:40:02 1994 From: erik at kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 01:40:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Donald imitates cat story Message-ID: Regarding the Dutch story where Donald imitates a cat, I really loved it. It's just like Donald to get so totally obsessed with something trivial and pointless. Dwight Decker says that Pegleg Pete has no accent - what do I know. I got this idea from a recent post by David Gerstein, where he said: > Pete, as usual in DD stories, uses a silly alias -- in this case, > Woimly Filcher. But his dialect, personality and (of course) appearance > are obvious as always. From fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl Mon Oct 31 11:55:59 1994 From: fluks at pcssdc.pttnwb.nl (H.W. Fluks) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 11:55:59 +0100 Subject: Disney-comics digest #476. Message-ID: <9410311055.AA21170@ux08.pttnwb.nl> Don (I assume you read this when you have returned to the USA): Yes, I mixed up the original and the Gladstone version of Lo$ 5: Gladstone made Horense's beak smaller, not bigger. Sorry. David: > This week's British MM contains [...] a Scalabroni Scrooge two-pager (H89139) I credited this story to Jose Colomer Fonts (the one Gladstone called "Colomer" in their credits for "Danger Island"). Why do you think it is Scalabroni? Fredrik: > Seriously, David; there ARE no good Madam Mim stories. I seem to remember a Mim story that really made me LAUGH (which is rare). But that was a Dutch story. And Mim was not so nice. So it was probably not published in Scandinavia. About the titles in the Database: I'm also curious what Ole has to say about it. We could decide to list the characters as []\{}| and then write a little post-processing program to replace them by the characters you want. One thing I have to do is replace the [] of comments by some other characters. --Harry. From deckerd at agcs.com Mon Oct 31 18:02:40 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 94 10:02:40 MST Subject: Pete's Manner of Speaking Message-ID: <9410311702.AA02109@gtephx.com> There seems to be some confusion about what exactly is meant by the words "accent" and "dialect." My understanding of them is that Pete has a distinctive personal manner of speaking (the technical term in linguistics is "idiolect"), but I wouldn't call it an accent or a dialect. He's a tough guy, not well educated, impatient, abrasive, bad-tempered, often an outright criminal: he speaks standard English with no regional accent, but with often poor grammar, with considerable use of slang and colloquialisms, not to mention criminal jargon. He doesn't speak with an accent (in the sense of a foreigner trying to speak English or a native English-speaker from a region with a distinctive local pronunciation); he's just rough and a little sloppy. Different writers approach him with varying degrees of phonetic spelling, but even if he was written with perfectly proper English, you'd still know it was him just from his attitude and maybe an occasional "HAR!" A dialect is more advanced than a regional accent, and usually includes not just differences in pronunciation but different words as well. About the third definition down, my dictionary allows that a dialect can be the language distinctive of a given class or profession, so maybe Pete could be described as speaking with (or in) a criminal dialect -- but I don't think so. Most writers I've seen have never taken it beyond having Pete use a word like "loot" or "swag." In any case, an individual character's distinctive pronunciation or characteristic choice of words aren't really accents or dialects (unless the character is, say, Southern American like Brer Rabbit, or Scottish, like Scrooge's relatives). Goofy and Pete have distinctive ways of talking, but the word is probably "idiolect." From reading Barks, I get the idea Scrooge did not speak with an obvious Scottish accent in the present day. Maybe some trace of it was left in his pronunciation, but Barks never spelled it out. Scrooge seemed to talk like an old American man of the 1950s (which is hardly surprising, since his dialogue was being written by an American man in later middle age in the 1950s). The Duck Tales innovation of having Alan Young voice Scrooge with a Scottish accent was kind of strange to me and I'm not sure I like it. At Egmont, the house language is English, even though the company's offices are in Denmark. Comic scripts are in English so local publishers in umpteen different countries can translate them into their local languages. In my rendering of scripts by Danish, Italian, and Swedish writers into English, I've been told to make the scripts read like they were written in English in the first place; i.e., they have to read smoothly, as if written by a native speaker. They have to be funny, yet not depend on puns. Dialect, phonetic spelling of accents -- all that has to be only lightly hinted at, if at all, just for the merest touch of flavor, since it would be lost in the translation and might only confuse the translators. So imagine Brer Rabbit stories where all the characters are speaking quite proper English (instead of "Ah'm takin' a powerful likin' to de notion of whackin' up alongside de haidbone, Brer Fox," -- insert "you" between whackin' and up). At Gladstone, since the stories are being published in English, I can use more exaggerated speech patterns (I really had fun with the Dutch pirate story I recently translated for Donald Duck Adventures), but word has come down that Disney itself, which has to approve stories intended for American publication, gets Really Nervous about obvious ethnic accents. Well, hush mah mouf! Hoot mon, laddie! Ach du lieber! Heap bad news for paleface funnybook writer! Sacre bleu and oo la la! Must use honorable Engrish ranguage as same is wlitten in honorable grammar book! Oh well... --Dwight Decker From jorgenb at ifi.uio.no Mon Oct 31 18:41:34 1994 From: jorgenb at ifi.uio.no (=?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F8rgen_Andreas_Bangor?=) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 18:41:34 +0100 Subject: Mostly about Madam Mim Message-ID: <199410311741.6069.sognsvann.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> David: "The Madam Mim story doesn't sound half bad." I meant to answer to this several days ago, but when I was composing my letter, one of the disk servers went down. The one with my home directory... David doesn't think it sounds too bad, but hasn't read many Mim stories. Harry wonders if it's a remake of an older story. The reason why I don't like it, and probably why Harry think he has read something like it, is, as Fredrik says, there are 537 other stories where she's doing about the same thing. One of the better, though, is a story where a hole lot of new houses are built in the same area as Mim's. When the houses are finished and ready to be sold, they want Mim's house removed, because it doesn't match the other houses. Mim doesn't want to move. They even offer her one of the new houses if she'll move out of hers. They explain to her that her house doesn't match the other houses (Mim's house is _very_ old and shabby), and she solves the problem by changing all the new houses so they match hers. At the moment I can only think of two stories where Mim's not too nice. One of them is a story I mentioned earlier, where Mim and Magica works together to get the dime. They fail, but the result is that the dime is out there somewhere, in somones wallet. The solution is that Scrooge owns every single chewing gum machine (put on a dime, and a chewing gum comes out...) in the entire country. He'll then check the dimes from everyone until he finds it. The other one is a short story where Ludwig van Drake is going out in the forest, where it's silent, to read his books. Mim is skeptical in the beginning, she doesn't like noise, but when she finds out that he's seeking silence she's very cooperative. She even makes the birds sing with no sound, and put slippers on a rabbit to make them silent. Then van Drake is going to sleep, and he's snoring... She haunts him out of the forest, then goes to sleep, and snores so the roof is lifting from the house. And, yes, another story comes to mind. I'm afraid this story would upset some people on the list. In this story Mim becomes a member of the Junior Woodchucks. As far as I remember she's supposed to be some sort of adult that's supposed to supply the children with interesting things. In the end of the day they go inside her house, and Mim is listing a hole bunch of interesting things (toads, spider webs, bat wings etc.). HDL: "WOW! This is the best science lesson we've ever had!" Mim: "Science lesson? This is the evenings menu." Whereafter HDL, runs away as fast as they can. Mim: "Well, this is probably the best after all. I would never manage to be as nice as these Junior Woodchucks." "A Goofy Midas" These Goofy stories don't seem to be very popular... They were published in Norway in the late 70's and early 80's, and, as far as I remember, they were very popular. I like them myself, but unfortunately I miss a few albums (I've never read the Frankenstein story...). Erik: > I love the idea of having the "square" people speaking Nynorsk. > This, to me, gives exactly the right bizarre touch to them, but > maybe Norwegians don't find Nynorsk bizarre Was this sent to the list? I'm actually quoting Dwight here... Do Norwegians find Nynorsk bizarre? That's a question with a lot of answers... Some people, usually living in the south eastern part of Norway (I live there myself), seem to find it very bizarre. I've never understood why. All Norwegians have to learn both languages in school. Some people find this very annoying, and want to use all the time to learn one of them better (if they can't learn to write in two languages that similar, I don't even think they can handle _one_ of them). These are, of course, the "fanatics" that want Nynorsk removed. On the oposite side are the people who are insulted with the smallest sign of making fun of Nynorsk (I guess some of them want Bokmal removed...). The rest of us laugh at the two extremes (remember: This is _not_ the U.S. :) Anyway, the people who use Nynorsk regularly, is a minority, so in any way, Nynorsk is some kind of different. The "experiment" with strange people speaking Nynorsk has not been repeated, though, except for the reprint. And, yes. Don Rosa is coming to the university on Wednesday :-) Jorgen A. Bangor (jorgenb at ifi.uio.no) From deckerd at agcs.com Mon Oct 31 19:45:08 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 94 11:45:08 MST Subject: Returned mail Message-ID: <9410311845.AA02242@gtephx.com> There are some things I don't understand about the inner workings of this list. Whenever I post a message, I get three or four copies returned from me saying "undeliverable" or "host unknown," but other people respond to it, so somebody must be getting it. Not all e-mail addresses seem to work both ways, either. David Gerstein sent me a private e-mail note today, which I received okay. I spent half an hour and 91 lines replying to it, only to get it back with a "host unknown" message two minutes later. After this I'm sorely tempted to throw a brick through the screen and go back to stamps and envelopes... --Dwight Decker From deckerd at agcs.com Mon Oct 31 19:58:19 1994 From: deckerd at agcs.com (Dwight Decker) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 11:58:19 -0700 (MST) Subject: Answer to David In-Reply-To: <9410311853.AA08215@gtephx.com> from "Mail Delivery Subsystem" at Oct 31, 94 11:53:21 am Message-ID: <9410311858.AA02274@gtephx.com> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4410 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/attachments/19941031/4995d89c/attachment.pl From Christian_Hoepker at du.maus.de Mon Oct 31 17:19:00 1994 From: Christian_Hoepker at du.maus.de (Christian Hoepker) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 94 16:19:00 GMT Subject: finding e-mail addresses Message-ID: Montag, 31.10.94, 18:13 Hi, i'm searching for a special e-mail-adress. If there is any possibiliti to find out if: Walt Disney Company, CA has an internet adresss or an other e-mail-adress. Please answer to Christian_Hoepker at Du.Maus.DE. Thanks for help Christian ## CrossPoint v3.0 ## From kkoehler at keenenh.mec.mass.edu Thu Oct 27 13:27:05 1994 From: kkoehler at keenenh.mec.mass.edu (kkoehler@keenenh.mec.mass.edu) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 08:27:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: un Message-ID: <009868FCFDD71BC0.00002D67@keenenh.mec.mass.edu> unsubscribe