About the United States and a word on art...

[Harry Fluks]

Fredrik Ekman <d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se>:
 
> Per wrote:
> >one of "our" states must go to leave room for Calisota.  (Which one?)
> 
> To which Harry, the humourist, replied:
> >I think he skipped Minnefornia.

Yes, I know it wasn't that funny. My reply was sent before I could stop
it...
 
> (...)
> This is quite often the case with Gutenberghus/Egmont stories. They copy
> stories both from their own production and from others. I don't quite know
> why they do this, but I have two theories:
> 
> 1: The authors must create yet another story and lack the imagination to
> make one up for themselves.
> 
> 2: The editors decide they like the story, but don't like the original art,
> so they have it remade. Alternatively, it might be cheaper to have one of
> their own artists doing it than to buy it from the foreign company. Pure
> speculation. Does anybody know?

Thom Roep (yes, he again) once said in an interview that there is a fixed
price for a page of Disney art, regardless of the origin or quality of the
work. And all Disney comic producers _have_ to deliver at that price.
If theory 2 sub 2 is true, then that price should be higher than the
costs to let someone redraw the pages...

Theory 2 sub 1 is true in at least some of the cases. Some stories are redrawn
because the editor didn't like the art (I remember a story from 'HDL Back To
School', redrawn by Vicar). The Danish coded the story 'D-BTS 1', so they
knew what the origin was.

> Another interesting thing: In most stories, especially from the 70's and
> 80's, it's extremely easy to identify the country of origin on the drawing
> style alone. Especially for D-, S- and H-coded stories.

Well, some editors 'use' the same artists (Spanish, South American), so
this is not always the case.

> I-coded stories,
> on the other hand, are most easily identified by the fact that they don't
> look like anything else! Why is this so?

I think every editor has its own "view" on Disney comics. The Dutch had the
idea to make all Donald's beaks as long as the old Barks beaks (they don't
have that policy anymore though). In Holland, they have an 'art director'.
He is the judge of all the work produced. His task is to get a certain
uniformity in the comics. "The work should be Disney's, not Van Schuylenburg's,
Jippes's, Milton's or Heymans's". Of course, they still leave some room for
an artist's own style.
I guess other editors have someone like that, too.
I understand that in Italy, they don't reprint Danish or Dutch comics. So
they don't have the problem that their own comics don't look like them...

--Harry.

Harry Fluks                    ()_()     Dutch Disney comics freak
PTT Research, Leidschendam      (_)      H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl 
"Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!"