Disney-comics digest #672.

DAVID.A.GERSTEIN 9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk
Wed May 24 12:47:56 CEST 1995


      Great digest today!  Our resident comic-creators are 
multiplying fast!

ERIK:
      Eli Squinch's Egmont appearance was in D 91420, MM in "The 
Secret of Shark Reef" (16 pages, art Esteban).
      It appeared in Germany (and other Egmont countries, I suppose) 
in 1992 and Holland in 1993.  In some countries, the local 
translators didn't know that Eli was a character from old stories, so 
they gave him a new name.  For example, in Holland, Squinch got the 
name Udo J. Uitziger, when the old stories called him something else 
(thanks to Harry for that information).
      Some translations also implied that Mickey (and even Pete) had 
not met Squinch before, but the German translation isn't like this, 
so I'd suspect that the original version of the story had it that 
Squinch was a recognized character.  (On the other hand, the German 
version DOES give Squinch a new name...)
      If you have some way of accessing the original English version 
of this story, I'd like to confirm that the character in this story 
is indeed Squinch, and not merely drawn to look like him.
      Our own Dave Rawson and myself have used Squinch in more recent 
stories which have yet to be published (and in my case, drawn).  
Egmont does have a character guide for Squinch, so all further 
stories with him should seem canonical enough and be drawn correctly 
as well.

KNUT:
      Squinch's personality is based (loosely) on Charles Dickens' 
Uriah Heep, and I think Gottfredson was just trying to get a 
Dickens-style flavor to the name when he came up with Eli Squinch.  
If anything, I think that Squinch's name simply relates to his 
frequent squinty expression.

LAFFALOT (I hope that's not your real name):
> Eli Squinch is the name of the man in Shawshank Redemption who actully killed
>  the wife and lover of Andy Dufrense, a crime for which Andy went to jail.
      The plot thickens!  "Shawshank Redemption" (a great film, IMHO) 
was based on a Stephen King story, which suggests King must be a 
Gottfredson fan.  But King based his story on a real incident, so 
maybe there was a real Eli Squinch out there somewhere!
      I can imagine Stephen King being inspired to his (sometimes 
rather potboilerish, IMHO) tales of horror by "The Phantom Blot".

GIANFRANCO:
      Interesting to hear about your recent Italian stories.  Ever 
thought of using Eli Squinch (or Eli Squick, as he's called over 
there)?  ;-)

JORGEN:
>> [Marvel has] just cancelled ALL their Disney titles but two 
> Quite funny then, that they still advertise subscriptions to all
> their titles
      This is because the comics we're seeing in the shops now were 
sent to be printed before news of the cutdown was issued.  Remember, 
only three months before Gladstone's first run of comics stopped, 
they were still advertising subscriptions to them.  Same goes for 
Disney Comics.  There's a big time-lag between when management makes 
a decision and when it's reflected in the comics themselves.
      [In regard to Marvel's audience liking their Disneys]
> Yes... have you ever read the letter collumn in any of these magazines?
      Do you honestly think Marvel would print many letters that 
implied readers didn't like their comics?  I think most people who 
don't like the Marvel Disneys simply don't write at all.  They don't 
have much hope that Marvel, with its company ego, would want to think 
it was doing anything really wrong.
      When I said yesterday that my local shops ordered less of the 
Marvel Disneys, I forgot to mention that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST still 
leads the pack.  So I'm willing to bet that it's the style and 
quality of the comics that has caused their failure, although I 
haven't read a lot of the issues and am not in a position to make a 
judgement as to their quality, myself.

JORGEN ALSO SAID:
> Norwegian DD&Co is running an old Mickey story now.
      It's in the British weekly, too:  "The Mysterious Crystal Ball" 
(1954).  Quite a surprise to see it...
> They just call it the good old kind of Mickey Mouse...
      I don't think the story itself is anything really great (it 
follows the rule that "only Goofy is funny," and since Goofy isn't in 
it, the story lacks humor), but the art -- WOW!  Mickey even has his 
pie-eyes back!  This is the period of Murry's art that I genuinely 
adore!  (He does give MM a hat, but he was just copying how MM was 
drawn in the cartoons of the period...)
      Quite a shame that Egmont didn't run "The Lost Legion" (the 
story that follows this one) instead.  As we've mentioned, there's a 
danged good Mickey story, regardless of who wrote it (we don't know). 

JORGEN:
> BTW: DAVID:Did you get those things I sent to Santa Barbara? 
      Gosh -- YES!  Of course!  What a swell Rosa picture -- and of 
course, a comic book with a certain story in it  ;-)  Thanks a lot!  
Do I still owe you something for it?  (I think I still owe something 
to Fabio and Gilbert, too.  You'll get yours, folks.)

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
      "Oh, I wouldn't THINK of giving ye my gun for such a purpose!  
But if you should borrow it, without me knowin', an' Mickey jest 
HAPPENED to get shot with it -- well, don't forget ter bring it back 
when you're finished with it!"  -- Eli Squinch



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