Universes

Katie Sullivan vazali at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 3 03:49:54 CEST 2004


Hi again, everyone!  I haven't posted to the list in ages. 
Partly because I haven't had anything useful to say, and partly
because I've been distracted with other matters--including my
grandmother passing away last month.  :(

> From: "Matthew Williams"
>  A couple of days ago,
> I was
> checking out the "Jump the Shark" webpage.  If you're not
> familiar with the
> site, it's a place where readers can post their own opinions
> about when
> television shows "jumped the shark" (or went off course from a
> quality
> standpoint).  On the DuckTales page, someone wrote:
> 
> "For those interested,Scrooge McDuck immigrated from Scotland
> with his two
> sisters,Hortense and Matidla,in the early 20th Century.While
> he was going
> all over the world building an empire his sisters stayed in
> Duckburg.Matilda
> married Ludwig Von Drake.Hortense married Quackmore,son of
> Dabney and Elvira
> Duck-farmers.They had twins,Donald and Della.Della later
> married a duck
> named Daniel and they had triplets,Huey,Dewey and Louie.


Forget the unofficial tie to Ludvig--where in the world did
"Daniel" come from???

 

> Rosa wrote Scrooge's biography (one of the most popular and
> acclaimed series
> of Disney stories ever).  He filled in details about what
> Scrooge and Goldie
> 's relationship that Barks didn't touch.

Didn't or couldn't, given the time period and the editors?  ;)



> From: Kai Saarto <ksaarto at mbnet.fi>
> I for one would love to see other people
> using Glittering Goldie [...] in their stores.

I second that.  (Shocking surprise, I know.)  ;)



> From: "Klartekst" <info at klartekst.no>

> I believe there are as many duck universes as there are
> READERS. The duck universes are inside our heads and we each
> choose what we put into them. Although I don't accept all
> Don's premises, most of his stories adds a little bit to my
> own version of Duckburg, making it richer and more detailed.

I agree with that.  Everyone takes bits and pieces from
different authors and adds them to their own personal version of
the duck universe.  That's what so nice about it!  That freedom
for creativity and different interpretations is part of what
makes the comics so appealing to such a wide variety of people
around the world, I think.


>> From: "Daniel van Eijmeren" <dve at kabelfoon.nl>

> If artists want to
> have their own 
> universe, they have to fully invent one themselves. From
> scratch. But if 
> an artist writes a Disney story, then it's destinied to be
> part of the 
> Disney universe.

Yes, obviously.  But within the larger Disney universe, there
can be sub-universes.  ;)  There's the Barks universe, the Rosa
one, the Scarpa one, the Van Horn one...etc etc etc.


> I still like a lot of your jokes and twists, but for me the
> quality of the 
> overall stories themselves has been going downhill for a long
> time. And I 
> have no enjoyment or satisfaction at all in saying that,
> because I find it 
> one of greatest losses in Disney comics history.

That's a rather dramatic way of putting it.  Yes, there are some
Rosa stories I like better than others.  Some I practically have
memorized, and others I rarely re-read.  But I certainly haven't
recognized any pattern like the one you're talking about.  Maybe
it's just me?

My favorite stories, whether by Barks, Rosa, Rota, Scarpa, or
whomever, are the adventures in faraway lands.  The more
"domestic" stories can be funny and entertaining, too, but
generally speaking I prefer the "Indiana Jones" style tales.
What I love about Barks and Rosa stories is that I feel like I
*am* in those places, at those times.  Lesser creators may send
characters to some random, fictional jungle that could be
anywhere from Africa to Mexico to the Disney backlot in Burbank.
 There's just this generic, "fake" feel to it.  Barks and Rosa
don't do that, and that's what makes them my favorite comic book
creators.  They thread authentic visual and linguistic detail
into the stories to make the places seem real.  They don't
insult my intelligence by creating silly, cheesy settings that
have no context.  They even *gasp* do research!  
I like reading about real places, even seen through the lens of
a world with talking ducks!  Things like that help me connect
with the story and the characters.

There's also something nice about following the characters
through one writer's eyes over an extended period of time.  When
you read stories by a different creator every month they can
still be fun, but there's no sense of progression.  I enjoy
Rosa's stories because, although the characters are still very
much the ones I love and recognize in other Disney comic books,
they also develop uniquely under the pen of a specific writer. 
Moments, conversations, exchanges...things that are only a panel
or two of any given comic story and don't seem that significant
at the time...they all add up after years of reading Rosa
stories, and eventually you come to a fuller understanding of
the characters by putting all those little pieces together. 
Themes emerge from the cumulative effect of all those stories,
over time.

Um...did that make any sense at all?  It sounded clearer in my
head than it looks on the screen.  >_<

I guess all that can be distilled to read, "I like Rosa's
writing, and the continuity."  ;)

> I'm wondering if I'm really the only one here, on this mailing
> list, who 
> thinks that you are at your best when you make original
> stories of your 
> own, with *new* elements, without leaning on recycled Barks
> elements.

I don't see the Barks-based Rosa stories as "leaning" on the
previous work.  I see them as building on established lore that
we already know and love, refreshing it and adding a new angle
to it.



> From: Chris Hilbig <chilbig1 at satx.rr.com>
>    As far as Don Rosa's temperament is concern, I realize he
> may come  
> off as a pre-madonna to many fans

LOL!  I'm sorry, I really shouldn't tease like this when English
isn't the first language of the majority of the list members,
but...

pre-madonna = coming before the virgin Mary (Or something like
that--it's not a term I've ever seen used in English)

primadonna = the word you were looking for ;)

Heehee...

Anyway, I could not disagree more with that statement, garbled
language or not.  If anything, Mr. Rosa seems humble to a fault,
in my opinion!  He's always saying he doesn't consider himself a
good artist, that he doesn't like the way his art looks, and he
doesn't even necessarily LIKE drawing!  It's fine that he feels
that way, but considering his popularity he would be justified
in occasionally tooting his own horn a little.  He doesn't, at
least that I've ever seen.

> A great  
> number of creators are extremely passionate about their work,
> and put  
> their heart and soul into what they do. 

It's the creators who make that emotional investment who create
the best stories, IMO.



Well, there's my $00.02.  ;)


Katie Sullivan
http://www.sullivanet.com/



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