digest #150

[Don Rosa]

From: "Arie Fachrisal"
>>>>>>>>.At long last the Kalevala story is being printed now in my
country.
The good news, the Kalevalian rune-o-meter lines translations were typed
with italic letters. The bad news, None of the eight-syllabels, or the
"bullet" to stress the words were translated perfectly.

Well, if I had to choose between wanting them to use a unique font OR
translate using the proper 8-syllable beat, I'd choose the font. The
rune-o-meter beat would be less noticeable of the two, and the important
thing is that the reader recognizes that dialogue as coming from
supernatural beings and spoken in some otherworldly manner.

>>>What's more interesting is that i heard rumors that the coloring were
done
by local studios, not by the foreign studios. Whether this is true or not,
i
have no idea. So i'll just describe the local version's colors. The first
panel: Scrooge money bin is colored green and the 2nd panel, all the coins
are yellow.

As I suspect you know, the Money Bin is plain white concrete. Due to
decades of European miscoloring, it's less obvious as an error, but the
coins should be mostly silver with a few copper pennies scattered around,
as the whole gag is that it is simple pocket-change, not valuable golden
coins. But Europe has done that for so long that it's not worth tampering
with the tradition. For example, if I found out that Barks had always
intended the colorists to make the Money Bin bright red, I'd still want it
to remain white because it would be too shocking a change in one of the
secular icons of my life. Maybe Europe feels that way about those
miscolored coins.

From: "Rodney w bowcock jr."
>>>I just got the new Overstreet price guide, and it looks like
"values" for US 179, DD 222 and WDC&S 480 have finally been adjusted.  US
179 has the current market value of $125. which seems to fit nicely with
the prices we've seen it going for lately.

That seems a very reasonable amount. I've been following the sales of that
comic on eBay for a year or so... eBay is by no stretch of the imagination
the ONLY place stuff is sold in the world, yet a U$ #179 goes on sale there
once each month.

>>>>One last thing:  The price guide says that US digest 5 is scarce,
meaning
that only 20-100 copies are known to exist.  Can this be correct?

Of course not. It's hard to find because, as you know, it contains Barks'
last published story whereas all other issues were all reprints and hardly
of any interest except to mindless "completists" (like me!). I was buying
those Digests off the stands in the 60s, and that #5 came out right along
with all the others. And if there was no lack of them in Louisville (where
we had hideously poor magazine distribution in those days), there was no
lack of them anywhere. I would not say it's *common* to find one of those
Disney Digests, but #5 is no more or less scarce than #4 or #6.

From: Pietro Reynaud-Bersanino
>>>In 1930 sailor suit was a usual suit for young boys ... and DD was a
young
boy.

What? Rich kids wore sailor shirts back around 1905, not 1934. Donald wore
that outfit because they were creating a DUCK character, so like many other
duck characters before and after Donald, he was dressed like a sailor
because ducks travel around in water. The cartoon also showed him living on
a boat and dancing a sailor hornpipe. He was wearing the sailor-suit
because he was a sailor-duck (if only for that ONE time).
I wish Donald was not created wearing that sailor suit... I'd rather draw
him wearing normal clothes. But it really doesn't bother me so much since I
grew up with Donald long before I knew what a sailor suit was, so I just
see it as a "Donald Duck suit". Therefore I actually do feel like I'm
drawing him in normal clothes even though I'm not.

Someone else was discussing the characters seen in some early British
Disney storybook and why or whether they appeared before or later. It would
seem obvious that this storybook was not done by anyone connected with the
Disney Studios, just the same way Euro Disney stuff is created now... and
lordy knows that in 1930 they had very little control over foreign
licensing. This storybook used some Disney characters and made up others to
suit its needs. If a "Donald Duck" was used in 1930 in a one-shot British
storybook, it was surely just a coincidence -- Donald is a very common name
in England. It might have come out "David Duck" or "Dennis Duck" or...

But *I* have a question for a change: this has been puzzling me for a month
or so. Recently most all the weekly Egmonts came out with a cover showing
Huey, Dewey and Louie playing baseball. That alone would make me wonder a
bit, as baseball is not something kids outside of North America play much,
but never mind that... what puzzled me greatly was that they are playing
ball with a playmate who is a cartoon *ghost*, a Casper-sorta kid ....
(!?!?) .... and the ball is passing through the ghost's body. What's that
all about?!?!? Who is this ghost they stuck on the cover?
Another question: they tell me that "The Coin" has been published in
Finland, but the publisher says that the printer used the wrong scan
line-density so that the art looks all pixelated. Anyone notice that? Does
it look too bad? Meanwhile, I think "Attaaaaack!" was just printed in
PICSOU. And I sent "The Three Caballeros Ride Again" in about a month anna
half ago, so it should be appearing about 6 months from now (though that's
just a guess -- I have no connection with the scheduling).