DCML Digest, Vol 60, Issue 7

olaf.solstrand at andebyonline.com olaf.solstrand at andebyonline.com
Thu Feb 14 18:39:35 CET 2008


Don Rosa wrote:

> I was rather perturbed that so few publishers
> gave this information to readers with my posters each month. I wrote an
> introduction to the series, a description of the thought process behind
> each poster, a list of the Barks stories featured in each group of
> scenes, and finally a TITLE to each poster. The main intro and
> individual intros were not essential to the presentation, nor were my
> comments on the list of Barks stories -- that could all be omitted. But
> if the featured Barks stories are not briefly listed and the poster
> title offered to identify the topic of the poster, HOW would the average
> reader know what the @#$% I was doing? Unless the reader was a Barks
> scholar of the first water, he'd never recognize that all the various
> images were panels copied from famous Barks stories -- most scenes would
> simply look nonsensical. Even *I* would not recognize all of the scenes
> I chose in all 12 posters! But then to not even give readers the
> poster TITLE to identify the topic! Readers would have NO idea what the
> poster meant! Well...

I have to strongly disagree with what you're saying here, Don.

First of all: Every work in this business, including posters, *should* be
strong enough to stand on its own legs. A poster should be a decent
poster, even if one removes the paratext. Of course, there is nothing
wrong with writing so much extra information about a poster, but the whole
purpose with a poster is to hang it on a wall, not to study it in the
light of an article. The article and title are bonuses, but the poster
should not depend on the paratext.

Second: I think you're underestimating your readers here. You're saying
that without the title, readers have no idea what the poster means? Uhm,
not really. For instance, take the "The #1 Dime!" poster. Anyone can see
by just glancing at that poster that the theme clearly is the number one
Dime. The Christmas poster is so stuffed with Christmas symbols that it's
obvious that it has something to do with Christmas. None of the titles
really say anything that's not also clearly stated in the images. Your
readers aren't stupid. When we see a poster filled to the edge with
monsters, we understand that the topic for that poster is "Monsters!"
without it being told in plain text.

Third: Okay, so not many of us get all the Barks references. I sure as
heck doesn't. But... So what? That's where the fun begins! Because most of
us know enough Barks stories to at least recognize some of the images, and
understand that these posters hold references to Barks stories. And when
we understand that, we can start HUNTING! Trying to *solve* the
complicated jigsaw you was kind enough to create for us was the most
interesting part with the whole poster series, and that would have been
ruined completely if such a list of references was printed next to the
poster. The posters would still be okay, but personally I *prefer* that
they don't have such a list of stories. That would have ruined much of the
fun for me.

(And I must confess, I've always disliked that all your articles end with
a "D.U.C.K. spoiler", too. I don't want them. I like spending several
minutes struggling with trying to find the dedication -- isn't that the
main purpose of hiding them? When playing hide-and-seek, one doesn't leave
the seeker a note stating "SPOILER: I'm hiding in the woodshed"! Sure, one
always has the choice of not reading them, but... It's not as if they're
written in ROT13 either. One glance on the wrong page, and the searching
is ruined.)

I have all twelve posters. And I still can't grasp how you call them "a
total mystery for readers". They're posters. It's obvious from the motives
what they're intended to show, and though I admit that your articles are
an interesting appendix to the posters, I love the dimension of FUN added
when that appendix is missing.



Olaf Moriarty Solstrand




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