<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Hi all!<BR>
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Well I got my copy of Gemstone's offering for Free Comic Book Day. One thing that struck me about the 'Riddle of the Red Hat' is that it really (to me) doesn't look like it was drawn by Barks. I know it was, but my eyes couldn't really detect his style/way of doing things. After seeing Paul Murry's first story in Vacation Parade, I think it was for the best that Barks was a Duck and not a Mouse artist. His art for Red Hat seems basically like anything you'd encounter in a regular Mouse story of the 1940's/50's. The art wasn't bad by any means, but there wasn't anything that made it stand out either. As for the story itself, it's pretty good, a bit better than the average Mouse story I think.<BR>
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As for the second story "Second Richest Duck" I, like many here, have read the story before. I read it again today, hasn't changed any, still great as ever. Not much more to be said on that account.<BR>
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All in all, I think Gemstone's FCBD offering this year, measures up pretty well to 2003's offering of Maharajah Donald, etc.<BR>
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Question to Gary Leach: I've been reading at Arthur's DCW about Miky Mysterio, an Italian comic magazine that was around for a few years in the mid 1990's and was revived in Greece in 2002. It's basically Mickey being a detective, etc. with the stories apparently being rather well done in comparison to a lot of stories in that genre. I was wondering if Gemstone had any plans on printing some of those stories? Perhaps in MMA? The Greek magazine is 100 pages long, but I don't know if the stories themselves are of suitable length to be included in MMA.<BR>
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Derek Smith</FONT></HTML>