Ducks, Vikings and Misanthropy

[Larry J. Gerstein]

	Dear Folks,

	It saddens me to see that Carl Barks not only doesn't like Don Rosa's
stories, but treats Mr. Rosa curtly and apparently tries to avoid him.
	Mr. Barks DOES seem quite misanthropic, though, from just the general
feel a lot of his stuff has (and particularly the editorials about him in the
CBLIC albums lately!).  This is no excuse for such behavior, however.

	A correction for disney.index:  The second story planned for DiDDA
20, "The Bad Penny" by Vicar, was bumped and replaced by "The Ice Planet,"
also by Vicar.  I don't know if the earlier story was actually completed in
an American version and if so, why it might have been bumped.
	(Later this summer I'll be back at home with a near-complete
collection of Disneys and I can REALLY fill in some gaps then!!!)

	As for whether Donald's temper and Scrooge's nastiness rub off on all
duck writers/artists... say it ain't so!  I've been doing duck stuff for
Disney (briefly) and Egmont for several years, now, and I get nothing but
delight out of it.  Okay, I can't say I agreed with all Disney's policies
when I was working with them (but that was the management, not the editors
who I dealt with), and I have a hard time corresponding regularly and
successfully with folks in Denmark, but fer gosh sakes, I get a THRILL out of
working with Disney (*and* Carl Barks) characters, and a THRILL chatting and
discussing things with fellow fans and historians!
	I also have a tendency to run off at the mouth.  You heard it here
first.

	By the way... Disney prepared three long Egmont time-travel DD
stories for use here, planning to make albums out of them, but as so often
happened the publishing division laid eggs when it came to figuring out how
to market them, so they never appeared.  They were announced in lettercols
several times, however, and Gary Gabner's writing and someone's color were
apparently finished for them.
	I have mentioned that to John Clark and maybe Gladstone will print
them.  I have seen Vicar's "Back to the Stone Age!" in a German printing, and
it's far, far beyond anything Vicar ever did elsewhere.  I don't know what
Rota's item is like, but I can't imagine it's that *bad!!!*  And there's a
third story, either.  Bob Foster tells me that one of the three is about
Vikings.  Is this the Rota, or the mysterious third one?

	I must head for the tall timber, folks.  But I'll be back.

	Your friend,

	David Gerstein

	"Why a duck?"  -- Chico Marx