Gemstone

[BJ Wanlund]

--- dcml-request at nafsk.se wrote:
> > From: "jerryblake2 at juno.com"
<jerryblake2 at juno.com>
> To: dcml at nafsk.se
> Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:45:48 GMT
> Subject: Re: Gemstone
> 
> The original Gladstone comics under Bruce Hamilton
> were clearly a labor of love (unlike the comics the
> Disney company put out during the famed Interregnum,
> which were pretty much an attempt to make quick
> money), and the new Gemstones releases have also
> been clearly undertaken as much for love as for
> money. David Gerstein in particular has gone out of
> his way to give us reprints of Gottfredson and
> Scarpa classics that I thought I'd never see (like
> Pflip's Strange Power and The Delta Dimension) and
> reprints of classic vintage Big Bad Wolf and Bucky
> Bug stories. The Gemstone folks are on our side, so
> to speak, and we should stop acting (or, more
> precisely, Daniel should stop acting) as if they're
> trying to lie to us and trick us into buying their
> products. I didn't care for a lot of the recent
> Gemstone material (mainly the new Egmont stories),
> but I'm still very sorry to see so many titles bite
> the dust. 
Well, they haven't bit the dust...at least not YET.  I
was just at Gemstone's website, and lo and behold,
they had a GLADSTONE link on their main Disney Comics
page!  Being a huge fan of the Gladstone comics,
mainly DDA and DD, I clicked the link!  A lot of my
favourite Duck stories are in the issues that are
offered.  In fact, just recently I found my original
copy of DD #300, as pristine as I had kept it all
those years!!  I'm definitely in need of filling holes
in my Gladstone Disney Comics collection.  Plus,
they're really inexpensive in US dollars, and I won't
be trashing Steve Geppi any time soon.  In fact, I
wish to personally thank him for his terrific job in
bringing back the Disney Comics in America!  He took
what was basically, for all intents and purposes, a
"dead" property and breathed new life into it!  He
should be praised, not trashed!!  Steve Geppi, I know
you read this list.  I want to, in front of everyone,
thank you IMMENSELY for doing such a great job for
Disney comics!  My first Disney comic was Donald Duck
Adventures #29, as I mentioned here before.  The whole
idea of Disney comics (at least to me) is to make it
affordable as well as accessible to everyone.  This is
the one gripe I have about the Gemstone Disney comics
so far.  It is priced quite far out of the reach of
most kids, and even though you HAD low-cost comics for
the children (DD&F, MM&F), someone inside Gemstone
decided they just HAD to discontinue the two lines. 
Here's my take: The old Donald Duck comics from
Gladstone had more pages (64 if I'm not mistaken),
plus it had a chronological collection over numerous
issues of Donald Duck (or DD) of Al Taliaferro's
brilliant Duck comic strip.  My request is that
Taliaferro gets at least a modicum of respect and
actually gets the "trade paperback" treatment.  I know
you got Gottfredson at some point, now let's get some
Taliaferro respect going!  Besides, that would make MY
job much easier (making the definitive Donald Duck
book for the new generation of children) because I
want to use some of Taliaferro's strips for the
extensive comic book section that I'd like to put in
the book.  If Gemstone wants this published through
them, I have no qualms about doing the book.  There
are also several Barks comics I'd like to see either
reprinted or put inside some special TPB: Donald Duck
Finds Pirate Gold (Donald's first comic story), The
Seven Cities of Sebollah (and I'm certain I didn't
spell that one absolutely correctly), some Junior
Woodchucks stories (if you absolutely must use the
redrawn ones done by Daan Jippes, by all means go
ahead) and The Firebug (yeah, I know that was
reprinted already, but it'd be nice for this Barksian
collection of epic proportions).

BJ


 
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