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<p class=MsoNormal>It’s time for grief and gratitude. Let me echo Olivier’s
comments in expressing my deep appreciation to the Gemstone publishers and all
the Gemstone staff for a terrific run of excellent comics. Thank you for
enabling us to see all of Don Rosa’s stories in the language in which he
wrote them. (It was so frustrating in the post-Gladstone years to know that
there were more Rosa stories we might never get to see! If all you had done was
to print Rosa’s stories, it would have been “dayenu”.) Thank
you for Marco Rota’s Money Ocean, Egyptian Prince’s Secret, Night
of the Saracen and Haunted Houses. Thank you for making available some of the
best work of other writers/artists: William and Noel Van Horn, Scarpa, Jippes, Branca,
Ferioli, Gattino, Transgaard, Geradts, Heymans, Korhonen, the McGreals et al.
Thank you for Don Markstein’s Bungaloos and John Lustig’s Melvin
and Janet Gilbert’s Hotel Transylvania. Thank you for introducing Carl
Barks to some lucky young people of my acquaintance. Thank you (as I wrote
earlier) for single-handedly saving my godson’s academic life by
providing him with attractive reading matter with a rich vocabulary. Thank you
for the excellent production values that distinguished your output. Thank you
for the “American” coloring, which I prefer to the European; you
already know from my letters that I’m a big fan of Susan’s coloring
in particular. Thank you for the wonderful “Treasures” volumes, and
for the archival research (yay, David Gerstein!). Thank you for digging up and
publishing obscure fan-requested stories. Thank you for your top-flight
customer relations, which I experienced from *<b>everyone</b>* from editors to
the person who handled the subscriptions to the office manager (thanks,
Heather, for the Halloween giveaway comics!). As a female, over-fifty duckfan,
I thank you for Uncle Scrooge 379, which reprinted the Barks story I liked most
in childhood (The Phantom of Notre Duck) *<b>and</b>* included two (count ‘em,
two!) stories with positively portrayed, strong older female characters: John
Lustig’s Miss Quackfaster and the witch Aradia in Paul Halas’
Magica story! And thank you for Uncle Scrooge 383, which printed in prestige
form my favorite comic story ever, Rosa’s Guardians of the Lost Library. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I’m in mourning that there will be no Donald Duck “Treasures”
volume, no complete set (in English) of Jippes’ redrawn versions of the
Barks JW scripts, no complete set of the Barks/Rosa collection, no “prestige”
reprinting of Rosa’s “Fir-Tree Fracas” or “The Duck Who
Never Was” (maybe that would have been in the Donald “Treasures”?).
And acute withdrawal has set in, in the absence of my monthly Duckburg fix. But
even so, gratitude overwhelms the grief. Thanks to one and all for six happy years
in Duckburg. And to those of you who came to Gemstone from Gladstone, thanks
for all those comic-blessed years as well.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Elaine<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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