Starting with #3 (Rosa in Holland)

[Harry Fluks]

Don Rosa's COMMENT ON #41:

> 	Harry F. -- the excuse you got from the nice folks at Oberon doesn't
> make 100% sense to me. If they KNEW it was part 3, why did they 
> still put it into the schedule when there is SO MANY OTHER Duck stories they
> could have used instead? 

A story has to match some requirements for being used as an opening story in
DD Extra:

1. The story should be available *including* the colouring;
2. The story should be new, i.e. never printed in Holland before;
3. The story should be good enough to let people buy the comic (which implies
   Rosa, Van Horn or Rota).

Apparently, there were not many new stories available, and those that were,
were not that good to be a lead story. Beekman said they really discussed the
fact that they started with part 3, but they decided they had no other
choice at that moment.
Strange though, that Egmont delivers part 3 first... maybe they deliver
their stories in random order?

> Sounds like they didn't realize 
> it until too late, or that the idea of a set of Duck stories that need to be
> told in a certain sequence is such a totally new concept 
> to a Disney publisher that they just didn't know how to deal with it (though
> it doesn't seem like it would take much finesse).

Well, they may have problems with that. There was an Egmont series a while
ago, with Donald and the nephews traveling in time. The first 44-page episode
was by Marco Rota, the 2nd by Vicar (and I have not seen more of it).
When the Dutch published the stories, they changed the ending of the 1st story,
and they let Michel Nadorp draw a new beginning and ending of the 2nd
story, so that each story is a story of its own, and not a part of a
sequence.
(Fortunately, they don't do that kind of stuff with Rosa stories.)

> 	I wish I could know how their use of the Sneekah Peak story works out
> ("Fortune on the Rocks").

I'll give a report as soon as I have the comic (I hope I can re-translate 
the texts from Dutch to English...).

> 	How did I know there were no credits or explanations given in the
> Dutch use of that "Pied Piper" story? I may not be able to read 
> Dutch, but I can read "ROSA" or even "BARKS" when I see it. If there had
> been an explanation in the comic, I would have seen those 
> two names surrounded by wild European gibberish, right? Or is your friend
> at Oberon saying that the credits were stuck in some other 
> section of the comic, and I missed them?

No, you didn't miss them: they're not there.

BTW: that same story ("Pied Piper") is now reprinted in a comic album,
Uncle Scrooge #50. The album contains the 38-page Rota story "The Money 
Ocean" as a lead story, and the Piper story as a fill-in.
Those albums always have an introductory text, explaining who Carl Barks is
(though his stories were only in #1 - #30), and with some explanation
about the lead story. In this album, it is the first time they mentioned
the name of an artist other than Barks: Marco Rota. They missed the chance 
to explain the background of Pied Piper (again)...

--Harry.