DCML Digest, Vol 44, Issue 15

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Sun Oct 22 17:14:30 CEST 2006


From: Mark Small <smalley58au at yahoo.com>
>>>>> when I come across news of Don Rosa, he is on tour, or visiting some
comic conference. I don't think he has time to think about new stories while
he is being feted upon like this.
...Can anyone (even Mr Rosa) enlighten me? 

Gosh, that's the way my life has been for about the last 15 years, not just
lately! Does it leave me time to do ANYTHING? Not much! Consider that when
any other author or cartoonist gets this popular (for whatever weird reason)
& busy... and other Americans in this situation who spring to mind and with
whom I'm often at European conventions would be Neil Gaiman and Jeff
Smith... they hire an assistant(s) to take care of most things for them. But
that's not an option to me working in this system.  I still answer 100% of
my own mail everyday, personally see about all that's needed from me by
Egmont or Gemstone or any other publisher, do all my own organizing & travel
planning with convention sponsors, publishers, etc., deal with my own
lawyers, as well as try to keep up with my *normal* life as much as I should
in continuing with my comics, books, music, movie collections, and running
my own household which includes maintaining a 25 acre (10 hectare) estate
like a national park with trails and meadows. How can their be time for all
that?! There *hasn't been* for 15 years, but I always put the Ducks first.
Lately circumstances have caused me to place everything on a more even keel,
so I am taking care of my own life a bit better than I have in the past two
decades... not being an iota less busy, but just channeling the work % in
different directions... I'm still missing far too much of all the things I
always expected to do in life which I see I'm not getting done as the years
roll past. Plus my wife is retired (schoolteacher) now and would VERY much
like me to simply start selling my comics collections and retire with her so
we can both enjoy ourselves, travel, etc., rather than me locking myself to
the drawing board so earnestly for 3-4 months nonstop on each project. I
sold just a fraction of my comic collection last year, just the "new" stuff,
1970-1985 stuff, and (with the help of friends) I made more $ in 6 months
than I made in 6-7 *years* of doing Duck comics. So you can imagine how I'm
torn between what to do next. There's no pension waiting for anyone who
spends their life making comics, but I have a pension waiting my use in my
collections of "stuff". Just waiting. But I love making $crooge stories!
But.... but... 
But I'm still working on the two projects that Egmont tells me are most
urgent at the moment -- I am completing my contributions to the 4th ROSA
HALL OF FAME book for one Egmont division, while for another division I am
creating a series of 12 posters for the 60th anniversary of Carl Barks'
$crooge McDuck in 2007. And yesterday a  big mucky-muck in another Egmont
division called me about another special project being considered for next
Spring. When I get those projects done, then I can see about a new
story......




More information about the DCML mailing list