Scrooge, Schroeder and Slip-ups

[Larry J. Gerstein]

	Dear Harry Fluks (and everyone),

	In the last digest you told me:  "In one of your letters [in Disney's
US 255] you mention a German artist re-inking Barks's "King Scrooge the
first" for Gladstone. The artist must be Ulrich Schroeder. Disney replied
that the reinked story was sent back to the artist, so that he could make
some minor changes. The artist then destroyed the work because he was not
satisfied with it!  Are we supposed to *believe* that??"

	Bob Foster is honest.  That is what he was told by Gladstone,
although he remarked to me on the phone that it seemed surprising.

	Yet there are some easy tempers among them Duck artists and writers,
as well as their feathered charges.  Reportedly, Fred Milton did some long
Duck story for Oberon in the '70s, then found out it was going to be
published as a regular comic rather than an album (or vice versa), so
withdrew it, hid (or destroyed?) the original art, then redid the story with
his own freshly-invented anthropomorphic GEESE and had it published by
someone else!!!!

	(Fans of Mr. Milton would do well to locate Harvey Comics' Woody
Woodpecker Giant Size #1 if they want to see a Duck-like story with non-Duck
characters, by the way.  One of the stories in that, "Danger at Sea," is by
Milton and is the only Milton Woody to see print here.  But it was seemingly
printed at random, since it was the only foreign story ever to appear in
their Woody series, and no more have been seen since.  Gladstone should
really have the license for Lantz's and MGM's characters... what do you guys
say?)

	As for whether the original art was destroyed, my guess is that Mr.
Schroeder DID wreck it.  "Didn't Gladstone think to make copies of it before
they sent it back to him?" you ask.  Why, of course.  They printed four
panels from it in their CBL set V, but the fact that they didn't use that
version for the whole story shows that whatever was done to the original, Mr.
Schroeder DOESN'T want it to be seen.  (And maybe Gladstone didn't make
copies of the WHOLE story.)

	So we're stuck with Tony Strobl's version.

	On another note:  Gladstone's DD 280 (which came out hereabouts on
Wednesday) has 16 1936 Taliaferro Sundays in it, comprising, I think, every
one that was printed in WDC&S 1!!!  So if you have WDC&S 582-83 and DD 280,
you have all the real COMICS that appeared in WDC&S 1, ladies and germs.

	Gladstone will be presenting most of the early Taliaferro stuff in DD
in chronological order, apparently.  I say "most of" because in 1989 Disney
DID stop them from using a story with Donald among the Indians, and looking
through my '40s WDC&Ses I notice that Taliaferro loved Chinese laundry jokes.

	I hope that most coming DD issues have less Taliaferro than this one
did, though.  Having 16 one-page gags in a single issue and only one full
story is a little bit wearing, I think.  I wouldn't mind, say, two full
stories (one Barks, one foreign or Van Horn or Rosa) and six pages of
Taliaferro, though.  We'll see what other letter-writers say.  (I DID love
#280, though!  I just hope it won't be the norm from here on.)

	...Yeah, it's nice to have Gladstone back.

	Your friend,

	David Gerstein