From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat May 1 04:14:32 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starb{ck) Date: Sat, 1 May 93 04:14:32 +0200 Subject: [Don Rosa: Re: Disney comics mailing list digest #3] Message-ID: <9305010214.AA01832@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> [I have redirected this piece of mail from Don that got to me instead of the list. /PS] Here's some comments on an old digest that I must not have read thoroughly. A few remarks from Per Starbuck about my defining "facts" in the $crooge series. I did need to tell the story of $crooge earning the #1 dime, and before I decided what that tale might be, I at least LOOKED at that boring old Strobl/? tale and saw the bit where he's a shoeshine boy chipping mud off a ditchdigger's boots. I feel no obligation to stick to anything in a non-Barks story... BUT $crooge as a shoeshine boy as his first job seemed quite appropo, so I stuck with it. The trick was coming up with a reason for him to be paid with an American dime when he would still have been in Scotland. And as for Barks changing details of characters' histories from their very earliest appearances, I don't see Gladstone as being a nephew as an example of that. I figure he only calls $crooge "Uncle $crooge" since it's sorta his title (after all, that's the name of his comic even). In truth, Gladstone is NOT a relative of $crooge McDuck Gladstone is the son of $crooge's sister's sister-in-law. Is that a relative? From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Sat May 1 05:56:42 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 30 Apr 93 23:56:42 EDT Subject: Digest #9 Message-ID: <930501035642_72260.2635_EHK46-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON DIGEST #9: Andy Krieg wants to locate copies of my CAPTAIN KENTUCKY COLLECTION newspaper strip reprint volumes. You come to da right place -- I have a garage full of the #$%@& things! Andy (or anyone) can send me a self-addressed, stamped (enough for 3 magazines) envelope, and I'll send them copies FREE. I wish I could also supply copies of DON ROSA'S COMICS AND STORIES, but no can do. My address is me, 9711 Dawson Hill Road, Louisville, KY, 40299. HARRY FLUKS -- did you ever say where you're located? In Holland? Sweden? Burbank? I would be most anxious and appreciative to obtain Dutch reprints of my stories from you!!! I do have a few, but not many, and I would be likewise anxious to obtain duplicates of those few anyway. So, I'll take 'em ALL. You have my address above. And tell me what the costs will be. Someone said that the Fins have printed those 4 or 5 missing pages from "Back to the Klondike". I don't see the Finnish comics, so I can't say anything for sure... but I don't see HOW they could print that art since it has never been in the Disney or Egmont files, or anywhere outside of Bruce Hamilton's vault in Prescott. Maybe they took shots off a Gladstone edition, which would not be illegal in any way since, even though Disney has no copies of the art, it's still their copyrighted property. Same as the Dutch using those Barks paintings on their back covers and Egmont using them as stamp give-aways... neither Hamilton nor Barks knew about this until I happened to mention seeing same. And though they felt misused and robbed, there's not much they can do about it since the images are Disney property, not Hamilton's or Barks'. Still, Egmont had been asked NOT to use the paintings, and when I inadvertantly had let it slip, they decided to cut it out since they had some non-binding "obligation" to pay Barks a royalty for such use, just out of respect, the same way Gladstone and Disney paid Barks a royalty whenever they reprint one of his old stories (though I suspect the reason for doing that is simply to stay on Barks' bright side for when they might need his favors). From torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Sat May 1 16:11:25 1993 From: torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu (Torsten Wesley Adair) Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 09:11:25 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Don Rosa: Re: Disney comics mailing list digest #3] In-Reply-To: <9305010214.AA01832@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 May 1993, Per Starb{ck wrote: > [I have redirected this piece of mail from Don that got to me instead > of the list. /PS] > And as for Barks changing details of characters' histories from their very earliest appearances, I don't see Gladstone as being a nephew as an example of that. I figure he only calls $crooge "Uncle $crooge" since it's sorta his title (after all, that's the name of his comic even). In truth, Gladstone is NOT a relative of $crooge McDuck Gladstone is the son of $crooge's sister's sister-in-law. Is that a relative? Uncle Scrooge US's Sister - Husband Husband's Sister - ? Gladstone Wouldn't US's sister's sister-in-law be US's sister-in-law? Or do I have better relations with my brother's in-laws than US does? Of course, this means that there are four unknown relatives we have not heard about. Since they are married couples, we probably never will. Why do I have the feeling that everyone in Duckburg is related to everyone else? Or is it that all of Scrooge's relatives live in Duckburg so that they can get the best seats at the reading of US's will? I would not be surprised if Gladstone was the seventh son of a seventh son, or something like that. Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA Did anyone catch the logic error in the recent DDA story by Van Horn? From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Mon May 3 08:03:16 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 03 May 93 02:03:16 EDT Subject: Digest #10 Message-ID: <930503060316_72260.2635_EHK22-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #10: Not too much here to reply to. One's sister's sister-in-law is NO earthly relation to you. Your sister's husband is your so-called brother-in-law... but surely it stops there. Yes, you must have good relations with your... relations. Me, I'm the opposite; I dislike my wife's relatives so much that I refuse to even acknowledge that there is such a thing as an "in-law", period. My wife's relatives are hers, not mine. No way. Simply because the question is asked, I'm curious about this error in logic in some recent Van Horn story. I personally don't read his stuff. I recognize that he's a far better cartoonist than I, as far as the drawing goes. But I dislike his "Krazy Kat" style on the Barksian Ducks (which should have a more "classical" look)... and I consider his treatment of the characters to be insulting to them in its frivolity. But that's me -- I see $crooge as an adventure hero... I guess Van Horn sees him as somebody who should be throwing acorns at Chip n' Dale. From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Mon May 3 09:33:56 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Mon, 3 May 93 09:33:56 +0200 Subject: Relatives Message-ID: <9305030733.AA19343@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I concede that there really is nothing contradictory about the relationships in "Trail of the Unicorn". It isn't even possible that Barks hadn't made up his mind yet about it yet, as Barks did "Race to the South Seas" before "Trail of the Unicorn", so I was not only wrong, but utterly wrong. Don> In truth, Gladstone is NOT a relative of $crooge McDuck Gladstone Don> is the son of $crooge's sister's sister-in-law. Is that a Don> relative? Torsten> Wouldn't US's sister's sister-in-law be US's sister-in-law? I don't know what scope the in-law words usually have, but that's how Barks (or at least Sylvester Shyster, Scrooge's personal lawyer) uses them. In "Race to the South Seas" with the revelations about the relationship between Scrooge, Donald, and Gladstone: DD: And my uncle on my mother's side is Scrooge McDuck, [...] GG: So what? Scrooge McDuck is *my* mother's brother's brother-in-law, [...] that lawyer asks Gladstone "Say, aren't you Gladstone Gander, son of Scrooge McDuck's sister-in-law?" Later in the same story Gladstone is called "nephew-in-law" of Scrooge. If that is a relative? They all see it that way anyhow. Donald and Gladstone are arguing about who of them is Scrooge's favourite relative. Compare also WDC 155 where Scrooge says that "my only relatives are my nephew, Donald, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and my distant nephew, Gladstone Gander! ... What a collection!" But at least he makes that distinction between nephew and "distant nephew". At the end of "Race to the South Seas" Gladstone calls Scrooge "Uncle Scrooge" to which Scrooge replies "I'm *not* your uncle". That explains that it takes awhile before Gladstone dares to call him uncle again. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 3 09:59:01 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 03 May 1993 09:59:01 +0200 Subject: Replies to Rosa's comments on Digest #9 Message-ID: <199305030759.AA13848@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa wrote his COMMENTS ON DIGEST #9: > Andy Krieg wants to locate copies of my CAPTAIN KENTUCKY COLLECTION > newspaper strip reprint volumes. You come to da right place -- > I have a garage full of the #$%@& things! (...) > HARRY FLUKS -- did you ever say where you're located? In Holland? > Sweden? Burbank? I'm in Holland. The word 'Dutch' in my signature would indicate that. Also, (re)read my 2nd message in digest #3 (there's an unanswered Jippes question there, too 8-) > I would be most anxious and appreciative to obtain Dutch reprints of > my stories from you!!! I do have a few, but not many, and I would > be likewise anxious to obtain duplicates of those few anyway. So, I'll > take 'em ALL. You have my address above. And tell me what the > costs will be. I'll send what I can get. This may take some time, though... About the costs: no need to pay me for anything... since I'm working for the Dutch mail company, I'll get a bit (1/90000th) of my stamps back in my salary... I know two other ways you can pay me: - have a garage sale - stay a bit longer on this list. > Someone said that the Fins have printed those 4 or 5 missing pages > from "Back to the Klondike". I don't see the Finnish comics, so > I can't say anything for sure... but I don't see HOW they could print that > art since it has never been in the Disney or Egmont files, > or anywhere outside of Bruce Hamilton's vault in Prescott. Maybe they took > shots off a Gladstone edition, which would not be illegal > in any way since, even though Disney has no copies of the art, it's still > their copyrighted property. 4 of the missing pages from the Klondike story were reprinted in Finland, according to an old fanzine issue ("Sarjainfo"). The same 4 pages were reprinted in Holland in 1978, LONG before Gladstone even existed. Just like other rare Barks stories, they got copies from (copies from) fans from all over the world. They were just too happy to be able to reprint Barks stories! (BTW: That's how Holland became the first country in the world that reprinted the famous milkman story.) Only 4 1/2 of the 5 missing pages are recovered. The remaining 1/2 page has been re-penciled by Barks and inked by Jippes. All of this work has been reprinted in Holland recently, and this time they DID use some copies of the Carl Barks Library. > Same as the Dutch using those > Barks paintings on their back covers and Egmont using them as stamp > give-aways... neither Hamilton nor Barks knew about this until > I happened to mention seeing same. And though they felt misused and robbed, > there's not much they can do about it since the images > are Disney property, not Hamilton's or Barks'. I'm surprised they feel misused and robbed. I'm sure the Dutch editor doesn't know this. I think it is a good thing that these Barks paintings are published in issues for a great public and at a reasonable price. As much people as possible should be able to enjoy Barks' work, not only a few rich fans. BTW: Mr. Hamilton used some Dutch and Danish re-inked versions of Barks stories in the Carl Barks Library, without giving them any credit... (I don't know why I'm defending the Dutch editor; I have no connection with them at all. Patriottism?) --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Mon May 3 11:31:15 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Mon, 3 May 93 11:31:15 +0200 Subject: William Van Horn; Captain Kentucky Collection In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 03 May 93 02:03:16 EDT <930503060316_72260.2635_EHK22-2@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9305030931.AA24152@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Don Rosa on Van Horn: > But I dislike his "Krazy Kat" style on the Barksian Ducks (which > should have a more "classical" look)... and I consider his treatment > of the characters to be insulting to them in its frivolity. But that's > me -- I see $crooge as an adventure hero... I guess Van Horn sees him > as somebody who should be throwing acorns at Chip n' Dale. Scrooge isn't the only duck in the family, you know, and Van Horn doesn't even use Scrooge that much. There are many ways of upholding Barks's banner, and I think Van Horn's stories are worthy heirs of Barks's ten-pagers. Don Rosa again: > Andy Krieg wants to locate copies of my CAPTAIN KENTUCKY COLLECTION > newspaper strip reprint volumes. You come to da right place -- I have > a garage full of the #$%@& things! Andy (or anyone) can send me a > self-addressed, stamped (enough for 3 magazines) envelope, and I'll > send them copies FREE. Great! Thanks for the generous offer! How much postage is needed to send them overseas? -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu Tue May 4 00:35:19 1993 From: gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu (Gilbert Milburn) Date: Mon, 3 May 93 18:35:19 EDT Subject: MISC: CBG Fan Awards Ballot (This is our chance!) Message-ID: <9305032235.AA18400@unix.campbellsvil.edu> *** "DISNEY-COMICS' FANS UNITE!!!" *** Here is a copy of the Comics Buyer's Guide 1992 Fan Award ballot. Fill it out (circulate a copy to all your friends, who are Disney fans), send it in and if we all pull together -- who knows, a Disney comic-book could literally win *BIG* ... maybe even one by Don! It came to me by way of... >April 30, 1993 The Comics List Weekly Vol. 3 No. 17 (Part 9) >This Week: >Fan Guide Poll : Fill it out and get a free copy of CBG! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >Date: 28 Apr 1993 09:34:58 -0500 (EST) >From: Greg McElhatton `Wrote a better description of the rules!' ========================================== >Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 16:00:42 PDT >From: jrd at frame.com (James Drew) `Drafted a superior ballot!' ========================================== >Subject: Comic Buyer's Guide Fan Poll >COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE >1992 FAN AWARDS >What are your favorites in the world of comics? COMIC BUYER'S >GUIDE, the weekly newspaper devoted to the world of comic books, >sponsors these awards to let you, the reader, cast your ballot in >determining what the fan favorites are for the year. >RULES AND REGULATIONS: Only material with a 1992 cover date can >win. Votes for projects that did not have a 1992 publication date >on them will not be counted. This ballot may be copied and passed >on to your friends for their votes. Anyone who loves comics can >vote--but only vote once. If you vote more than once, ALL your >votes will be thrown out. Vote only in the categories you want, >and ignore any you don't. COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE is not eligible for >Category 15. Every CBG voter in the United States will get a free >issue of COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE with the results (scheduled to be >#1029, dated August 6, 1993), unless you already have a current >subscription to CBG. Votes from other countries will be counted, >but we regret that free copies of CBG can't be mailed out of the >country unless your vote is accompanied by $3.00 in U.S. funds to >cover handling and shipping. The award winners will be announced >at the Atlanta Comics Expo, held July 16-18, 1993. >Mail your ballot individually in a single envelope by June 1, 1993 >to: >Comic Buyer's Guide Fan Awards >700 E. State St. >Iola, WI 54990-0001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~cut here~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Name: Age: Street or Box: Male or Female: City, State, and Zip: I got this ballot from: (enter newsgroup or mailing list name here) Favorite Editor: Favorite Writer: Favorite Penciller: Favorite Inker: Favorite Colorist: Favorite Painter: Favorite Letterer: Favorite Cover Artist: Favorite Comic-Book Story: Favorite Comic Book: Favorite Limited Comic-Book Series: Favorite Original Graphic Novel or Album: Favorite Reprint Graphic Novel or Album: Favorite Character: Favorite Publication about Comics: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~cut here~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BTW: Although, I saw this in "The Comics List Weekly" the Idea to send this to my fellow allies of the net was entirely my idea! From bevilal at dsi.unimi.it Tue May 4 11:14:36 1993 From: bevilal at dsi.unimi.it (luigi bevilacqua) Date: Tue, 4 May 93 11:14:36 METDST Subject: Don's offer & other things... Message-ID: <9305040914.AA13407@pippo.sm.dsi.unimi.it> =========================================================================== Reply about Rosa's offer, Dear Don, Do you realize how much mad we are about your art? Do you realize how much work you will go to do in next weeks? I think your garage will be empty in two months, maybe less... Less important stuff: You're in USA, right? (about your adress...) But your surname doesn't seem American, or Dutch, or else. Did your ancestors come from Italy, maybe? Are you interested about your Italian version work? I don't buy everything by Disney Co. here in Italy, but I can try to get more info. -- Other question: Do you know, folks, everything about Rosa or it's me who doesn't know anything about him? Am I the only one who wants to know more about Rosa's person? BYE!!! . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | TH...TH...THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! Luigi | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Tue May 4 15:14:50 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 04 May 93 09:14:50 EDT Subject: Digest #11 Message-ID: <930504131450_72260.2635_EHK27-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS: Why do I sometimes get "returned, undeliverable mail" in my E-mail box? It's my replies to these digests, and it seems that my replies are included in the next digest, so I don't know what was "undeliverable". I wish I knew who to ask these posers to. As for Gladstone's relation to $crooge, "Race to the South Seas" IS the story to go to... but only partially, as Barks made an ERROR in that story in explaining who Gladstone was to $crooge. Barks pointed this out to me himself when I was quizzing him while building my "official" Family Tree. The line in that story of Gladstone being the son of $crooge's sister's sister-in-law is the accurate one. I can't recall what the second phrase was in the story... something about $crooge being somebody's brother or such... but it is clearly contradictory to the previous line and should be ignored. ALL will be clear when my Tree is printed throughout the Egmont countries in a few weeks. As far as poor fans having the right to see all of Barks' work like the rich fans... well, isn't that the age-old question? If Barks owned his own work (which he doesn't), shouldn't he have the right to profit off or prevent the use of it at his whim? That's the way every other creative field on the planet works, EXCEPT DISNEY COMICS. Disney is one of the last hold-outs to the middle ages in this respect. I'd be quite upset by how little I'm paid for my (popular?) stories, and how I make not a cent in royalties no matter how many companies use it or how well my comics sell... but I KNEW that would be the way it would be. It still is far from fair. I don't know of any other creative people, whether in movies or TV or music or writing or newspaper strips or most all other comic books who are flat-out ROBBED of their rights the way Disney comic book freelancers are. But that's the way it is. However, the blade cuts both ways, as you say: Oberon can "swipe" Gladstone's work and Hamilton can "swipe" Oberon's stuff, and nobody has to pay or give credit since it's ALL Disney property. But notice: by this system, Oberon profits, Hamilton profits, but the CREATORS still don't profit a penny. Any fool can see how unjust that is. Hamilton pays Barks a small voluntary royalty to stay on his good side -- but Oberon doesn't need to worry about that. This inclusion of the CBG awards in this digest -- is this to suggest that Disney fans should vote for DISNEY comics? That is an utter waste of time in America! In Norway, one of my stories won "Best Comic of the Year" over everything else in the world! But in America, my work is not even reported as existing in things like CBG. Disney comics are the pariah of American comics, those which comics fans are taught to shun. Voting for Disney comics in American award polls is futile and laughable to any typical American comics fan of 1993. What would it cost to send CK #1-3 overseas? I dunno... give me your address and we'll see. Who was that... Per? S'all. From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Wed May 5 15:11:23 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 05 May 93 09:11:23 EDT Subject: Digest #12 Message-ID: <930505131123_72260.2635_EHK38-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #12: #12 only contained a most interesting message to me from Luigi in Italy! Yes, my ancestors are from Italy. In fact my father was born there, in a small village at the foot of the Alps called (I think) Montiago or Moniago or something like that. My grandfather's name was Gioachino which no one in America could pronounce, so they called him Chino which became spelled "Keno" which is the name I was given. My grandmother was from Venice; her name was Chilistina Titiano, and claimed direct lineage to/from Titian, having proof in documents which have since been lost. There are still lots of Rosas in north Italy (I'm the last Rosa in America) and I hope to visit there someday... only one doesn't get rich working on Disney comics for reasons I explained last time. I would be VERY VERY interested in seeing reprints of my work in Italy -- but I didn't think there WERE any. Italy has only digest sized Disney comics, and I do comic-book-size comics. Besides, some years ago Italian Disney comics started developing into something that look more like Harvey comics (the American company that does stuff like Casper and Wendy the Good Lil' Witch)... and my art definitely doesn't fit that mold. But if you can find Italian reprints of my work, that would obviously mean more to me than any other foreign (to me) reprints of my stuff! From mas at cs.bu.edu Wed May 5 21:48:08 1993 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Wed, 5 May 93 15:48:08 -0400 Subject: Disney... Message-ID: <9305051948.AA28939@csa.bu.edu> > (......) I'd >be quite upset by how little I'm paid for my (popular?) stories, and >how I make not a cent in royalties no matter how many companies use it >or how well my comics sell... but I KNEW that would be the way it >would be. It still is far from fair. I don't know of any other >creative people, whether in movies or TV or music or writing or >newspaper strips or most all other comic books who are flat-out ROBBED >of their rights the way Disney comic book freelancers are. But that's >the way it is. I've been hearing for quite a while about the evils of Disney Comics - forgive my ignorance, but is anything any different in the U.S. now that Gladstone is publishing the books rather than Disney? Do they pay royalties at all? >In Norway, one of my stories won "Best Comic of the Year" over >everything else in the world! !! Which story was this? >Disney comics are the pariah of American comics, those which >comics fans are taught to shun. Hmm - does this put you in the same category as those who did Tintin, Asterix, and Little Nemo... ? >Voting for Disney comics in American >award polls is futile and laughable to any typical American comics fan >of 1993. Perhaps, but that won't stop me from voting... :-) mark semich - mas at csa.bu.edu P.S - Does anyone know when Gladstone is going to start publishing Don Rosa's Life of Scrooge?? I'm really looking forward to this... From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Thu May 6 18:08:30 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Thu, 6 May 93 18:08:30 +0200 Subject: "Undeliverable mail"; relations; ownership In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 04 May 93 09:14:50 EDT <930504131450_72260.2635_EHK27-1@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9305061608.AA08580@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Undeliverable mail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don Rosa: > Why do I sometimes get "returned, undeliverable mail" in my E-mail > box? It's my replies to these digests, and it seems that my replies > are included in the next digest, so I don't know what was > "undeliverable". This is something that I guess several posters to the list might have been wondering about. What's happening is that there's something wrong with one or two of the ~50 addresses the message gets sent to, so the mailer programs *at that site* sends back a "bounce message" to whomever sent that message to inform them. Of course it would be better if I got all those bounce messages instead, but I don't know if there's anything I can do about it. If you want to steer them to me, just add a header line "Errors-To: owner-disney-comics at student.docs.uu.se" to your messages. Of course I try to change or sometimes remove erroneous addresses in the subscription list every time I get one of those bounce messages, so I hope they are not too frequent. Relationships in Race to the South Seas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don> I can't recall what the second phrase was in the story... Don> something about $crooge being somebody's brother or such... but Don> it is clearly contradictory to the previous line and should be Don> ignored. Aren't you referring to the very line I quoted where Gladstone Gander is said to be son of Scrooge McDuck's sister-in-law, which is a contradiction only if you can't call your sister's [proper] sister-in-law a sister-in-law. English is not my first language, so I have no opinion really, but at least Torsten seemed to think that possible. Anyway, it's pretty clear how they are related in that story, and it agrees with Barks's tree too. Don> ALL will be clear when my Tree is printed throughout the Don> Egmont countries in a few weeks. You never mentioned what other changes you made to Barks's tree except using Della instead of Thelma as the name of Donald's sister, but I guess I'll get to know that anyway then. Do you happen to know which week? Ownership of stories etc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sure, it would be great if Barks had gotten the rewards of the popularity of his stories instead of Western or Disney etc., but I don't see why that would make anyone upset about Disney publishers publishing a story as Barks intended it *instead of* the censored version? They would have been making money off Barks whatever version of whatever story they printed, but this way they tried to give the readers something extra and they treated Barks's story in a better way than it'd ever been treated before. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Thu May 6 22:39:59 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Thu, 6 May 93 22:39:59 +0200 Subject: Russ Cochran Message-ID: <9305062039.AA13789@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> [Wm. Hathaway erroneously sent this to me, instead of to the list: /PS] Date: 06 May 1993 12:24:28 -0400 (EDT) From: HATHAWAY at stsci.edu Subject: Re: This and that To: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Hi - Last week I got a pastcard from Russ Cochran (sp?) - formerly of Gladstone. The card said that he has separated his business connection with another person from Gladstone and was going on with a separate business and was asking if recipients of the postcards wanted to be on his new mailing list. (Paraphrase - I don't have the card with me - his grammer was better than mine.) Has anyone else gotten such a postcard and is there any info on what is going on? Anything we should know? Is there trouble with the publishing or is this just a not-unexpected evolution of different interests/products??? I'm all for more people getting involved with producing Duck stuff, but I'm curious if this is a positive/negative/neutral development. Thanks, Wm. Hathaway Baltimore MD From dat91oto at ludat.lth.se Fri May 7 11:16:19 1993 From: dat91oto at ludat.lth.se (Ola Torstensson) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 11:16:19 +0200 Subject: The Duck of Africa (?) Message-ID: <9305070916.AA00686@ludat.lth.se> Hi there, I don't think this has been mentioned (though if it has and I've missed it, sorry): the latest issue (#18) of Kalle Anka & C:o (the Swedish weekly duck book) contains a new installment in the "Life of Scrooge" series. It's called "The Duck of Africa" (at least in translation). Which part is this - number six? I think I've missed a few parts. Anyway, it's quite a good story - thank you, Mr Rosa! Though I wonder how many Swedish little kiddies will understand the "Wizard of Oz" reference. [ I just showed it to a friend here who's not a duck/Disney fan as such. He really liked the drawing style, and the story too - he giggled ferociously throughout! ] One thing intrigues me: what do Scrooge and The Antagonist Whose Identity Shall Not Be Revealed To Those Who Have Not Read The Story say in the original (English) dialogue in the last two panels on the next-to-last page? Stefan Dios (the translator) has managed a pun that is utterly un-retranslatable to English... By the way, I met Stefan Dios a few days ago and took the opportunity to ask him if any stories by Rosa were forthcoming, and he said they will appear every five or six issues. He had just finished the translation of a story that will be published from "issue 24 or 27 or something" onwards as a three-parter. It's about "Yukon and gold-digging and stuff"; could this be "The King of the Klondike"? Ola Ola Torstensson \ "I must warn the reader to discount much of dat91oto at ludat.lth.se \ what I say as the ravings of a fanatic who Undergraduate, Dept of Computer \ thinks he has just seen a great light." Science, Lund University, Sweden \ -- Donald E. Knuth From gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu Fri May 7 15:05:45 1993 From: gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu (Gilbert Milburn) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 09:05:45 EDT Subject: Questinons & Special Thanks!... Message-ID: <9305071305.AA07423@unix.campbellsvil.edu> Dear fellow fans of Disney, Some questions for Don Rosa... Don, when we talked some years-ago about "DUCK TALES", you had mentioned how much you enjoyed the show. You said and I quote: "It's far better than that G.I.JOE-junk, garbage, that the American youth-public have been forcibly expose to for the last 10 or 15 years!" end quote. You also said on the some subject: "I think that Launchpad Mc Quack is one of the best new characters that I've seen in the last 10 or 20 years!" Now I understand what you meant by comparing the difference between the Barks stories and DUCK TALES with D.C. Comics characters (like Batman) with their SUPERFRIENDS counterparts. Yet, to utterly destroy the show because of it's a "kiddie" version of Bark's classic is a bit drastic. However I still would love to see you do the spoof on "D.T." that you discussed once before on this list. Let's go back to Launchpad for a moment, shall we. I remember in one of our many conversations, you had muttered something about utilizing him as one of your generic background characters in some of your stories!! Do you ever think that you will ever do this?? While I'm are talk "L.P." how do you feel about "DARKWING DUCK" (I know you probably *HATE* it! -- right?), just thought I'd ask. Per, thank you ever so much for the invitation to join this little forum. I've have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this list on Disney comics! You people have actually made a very bad year for me a lot more bearable. Although I will not be on campus this summer... I will be in from time to time to check my E-mail, work on some art projects and *perhaps* send off a few messages. Therefore you won't be hearing as much out of me as you usually do (don't all applaud at once!). It's been loads of fun and thanks for being there for me when I really needed you the most! Thanks again for everything, Gil Milburn  From bevilal at dsi.unimi.it Fri May 7 17:40:46 1993 From: bevilal at dsi.unimi.it (luigi bevilacqua) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 17:40:46 METDST Subject: Warning: this letter can be dangerous...bis Message-ID: <9305071540.AA24488@pluto.sm.dsi.unimi.it> ====================================================== Hi everybody, Some days ago I was thinking about Duck people and normal (human) people. A famous Italian comedian found many problems in the Disney world! So, here I am, to reanswer those questions to you but first... WARNING! -------- If you want to live a quiet life with your Disney comic-books DON'T GO ON reading this letter... Otherwise you can have many mental problems. ================================================================== ================================================================== A matter of reality or not? - All the ducks are NAKED below their ...ehm... navel. They wear only shirts or jackets! But they wear hats... - Not only Pluto and Goofy are two dogs; They belong to the SAME race of dogs! But one is a "dog" and one not! Maybe Pluto is Goofy's son... ...naahhhhh! - If MM is a mouse and Goofy is a dog --> MM is a giant!! Maybe MM has some ormonal problems... - Sometimes MM has not shoes, but he has ALWAYS gloves: WHY? - When Goofy become SuperGoofy he doesn't wear any mask, but NOBODY recognize him!! Are not they all fools? - Grandma Duck is, of course, a duck. But she BREED COWS (like Clarabelle!) HORSES (like Horace!) and CHICKENS (like Gyro Gearloose!). And that is not ALL. Sometimes they (the ducks) eat TURKEY !!!!! They are almost relations!!!! ========================================================================= ========================================================================= IT'S INCREDIBLE, ISN'T IT ???!!!! That's enough, here and now. It can be a good activity, to find every "strange" aspect in Disney world. Do you agree? BYE!!! . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | TH...TH...THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! Luigi < bevilal at ghost.dsi.unimi.it > | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri May 7 19:46:41 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 19:46:41 +0200 Subject: Lost messages? -- ftp archive news -- Life of Scrooge Message-ID: <9305071746.AA05924@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Lost Messages? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is a warning to all recent posters. I recently said that you shouldn't think your messages didn't get through just because you got a bounce message. Well, recently I goofed up with the list of subscribers in a way that I think means that your messages really got lost, so if you sent something after that message of mine and it's not in this list of recent postings it didn't get through -- please resend it! Wm. Hathaway (via me) Russ Cochran Ola Torstensson The Duck of Africa (?) Gilbert Milburn Questinons & Special Thanks! Luigi Bevilacqua Warning: this letter can be dangerous...bis News at the ftp archive (ftp.lysator.liu.se:pub/comics/disney) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have now created a new subdirectory "characters" for lists and descriptions of Disney characters. I put Rich Bellacera's list of recurring characters there and the first "HOOZOO" file as well as a new version (2.0b) of the "International Disney Comic Character Names" that I got from Fredrik Ekman. Life of Scrooge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ola Torstensson: > Which part is this - number six? I think I've missed a few parts. The Life of Scrooge section in the Don Rosa index at the ftp archive now (I just updated it!) says (slightly reformatted as the American and Dutch columns were all whitespace anyway): > Code Scan Pg Title > ============================================================= > D 91308 K92-33(DN)15 LS1 The Last of the Clan McDuck > D 91411 K92-33(DN)28 LS2 The Master of the Mississippi > D 92008 K92-47(S) 15 LS3 The Buckaroo of the Badlands > K92-45(D) > D 92083 K93-02 15 LS4 The King of the Copper Hill > (aka The Flash in the Copper Pan) > D 92191 K93-11 15 LS5 The New Laird of Castle McDuck > D 92273 K93-18 12 LS6 (... of Africa?) > LS7 > LS8 The Argonaut of White Agony Creek > (aka The King of the Klondike) [in three parts] > > The series on Scrooge's life will be twelve (?) stories in all. > Don Rosa is currently (April 1993) working on part 10. Of course I'd be happy if Don would supply us with some more info. Ola again: > Though I wonder how many Swedish little kiddies will understand the > "Wizard of Oz" reference. Well, I did. :-) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From rivers at beno.CSS.GOV Fri May 7 19:52:03 1993 From: rivers at beno.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 13:52:03 EDT Subject: Russ Cochran's new company Message-ID: <9305071752.AA01689@beno.CSS.GOV> I too have received one of the postcards from Russ Cochran, saying that he has stopped being a business partner with Bruce Hamilton in Another Rainbow / Gladstone. He says that his new company will issue a catalog in a few weeks. Is anyone privy to the arrangements of the original Hamilton / Cochran / Barks / Disney deal and can thus explain who will now get what? Specifically, will Cochran be able to sell Barks lithographs, or does Another Rainbow have an exclusive license to sell those? If Hamilton retains rights to the lithographs, then just what will Cochran sell? I suppose we shall see soon enough when he distributes his catalog, but I wonder what kind of items we should expect to find offered there. What sort of deal did Barks make when Another Rainbow was founded? Is he a legal partner in the company, or is he just a vendor to them? Can he take his art work to another distributor that offers him a better deal? What say-so does the Disney Corporation have in determining who can sell the lithographs? (It's hard to imagine their allowing anyone to sell anything with a duck on it unless they have total licensing control!) I suppose I'm just being nosey, but I would like to know what business arrangements underly the sale of Barks-inspired merchan- dise, especially now that Don Rosa has told us all about the truly wonderful deal he and other Disney artists and authors are given for the royalties on the international reprinting of their stories :-) Wilmer Rivers rivers at seismo.css.gov From mcm at holonet.net Sat May 8 06:24:57 1993 From: mcm at holonet.net (Martin McMenamin) Date: Fri, 7 May 93 21:24:57 PDT Subject: mailing list Message-ID: <9305080424.AA06513@holonet.net> From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sun May 9 11:02:35 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sun, 9 May 93 11:02:35 +0200 Subject: Warning: this letter can be harmless... In-Reply-To: luigi bevilacqua's message of Fri, 7 May 93 17:40:46 METDST <9305071540.AA24488@pluto.sm.dsi.unimi.it> Message-ID: <9305090902.AA02666@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Luigi wrote: > - All the ducks are NAKED below their ...ehm... navel. > They wear only shirts or jackets! > But they wear hats... > ... > - Sometimes MM has not shoes, but he has ALWAYS gloves: WHY? Why not? Maybe a Duckburgian might be astonished that you are NAKED on your ...ehm... hands. And marvel about someone sometimes not wearing a shirt, but ALWAYS trousers! That there are dog-animals and dog-humans, mouse-animals and mouse-humans etc. is no problem to me. It's only a bit troublesome with characters like Chip & Dale who sometimes cross the boundary in some ways. So I rather think it strange when, in Barks's "The Gilded Man", the ducks' find it discomforting to find stuffed (animal) ducks. > - When Goofy become SuperGoofy he doesn't wear any mask, > but NOBODY recognize him!! Are not they all fools? Maybe that is somehow part of his super powers? By the way, the name is "Super Goof" without an ending y. If there'd been one then the similarity of names would of course make anyone realize that they are the same. :-) Finally I'd like to remind you all of my quote quiz. There are only a few days left to enter it before the deadline. (Mail your answers to me Wednesday or sooner *Greenwich Mean Time*. So better mail it Tuesday if you live in America.) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Ta ta, boys! I'll see you in the funny papers!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 10 11:52:05 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 10 May 1993 11:52:05 +0200 Subject: Replies to various old mails Message-ID: <199305100952.AA17952@athena.research.ptt.nl> Here are some reactions on the various postings of last week. Don Rosa's taste ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don about Mickey: > I'll be glad to do a Mickey Mouse story after someone else writes > and draws classic Mickey comics for 25 years and gets me interested in > those cute ink lines. As of right now... feh. and Don about Italian comics production: > they are Disney comics as if done by Harvey artists, > which is not at ALL to my liking). and about Van Horn: > I dislike his "Krazy Kat" style on > the Barksian Ducks (which should have a more "classical" look)... and I > consider his treatment of the characters to be insulting to > them in its frivolity. I have been wondering - Don, is there *any* Disney comic you like besides Barks and your own stories? I'm very curious about that... BTW: my favourites are 1. Barks, 2. Jippes, 3. Rosa. In that order. 8-) Volker Reiche ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Per: > (...) there's an article "Donald Duck = > Artist's Dreamfigure?" by Volker Reiche (...) Whatever happened to Volker Reiche? He once did some (6) stories for the Dutch in the early 80s, and I have seen some of is "Hamburger Donaldist" work. Is he still doing Disney comics? If not, why did he stop? The Van Horn "ray" story ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Torsten: > Did anyone catch the logic error in the recent DDA story by Van Horn? The only thing I saw, was that Huey wore his cap in the last panels of the story, while that cap should have been 10 times bigger... but he could have gotten a spare cap between two panels... Keno Don Rosa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don: > My grandfather's > name was Gioachino which no one in America could pronounce, so they called > him Chino which became spelled "Keno" which is the name I was given. Did you know that "Gioachino" is the same name as "Joakim/Joachim"? This is the Scandinavian name for Scrooge! So in a way, your name "Keno" actually is the same as "Scrooge". Coincidence? 8-) That's it for now.. --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Mon May 10 16:29:10 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 10 May 93 10:29:10 EDT Subject: Digest #14 Message-ID: <930510142909_72260.2635_EHK12-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON DIGEST: I just had a looong message "returned" to me as "undeliverable". I didn't see its contents posted in this last digest. Perhaps it'll be in digest 14 -- we'll see. Someone asked about "Duck of Africa" (which is supposed to be entitled "The Terror of the Transvaal", originally titled "The Prey of the Transvaal Viper"). Where was the "Wizard of Oz" reference? Maybe I've forgotten my own dialogue... or did Mr. Dios add something? Anyway, in those panels where $McD is turning the bad guy into the sheriff, the dialogue was just something like "Here's a bad guy" and the badguy saying --- no, I remember... it was a small gag where $crooge says "here's a bushwhacker" and the Boer says, "I never whacked a bush in my life. I swear"... sort of a running gag where he swears innocence to everything all through the story. And yes, the upcoming 3-parter is "The Argonaut of White Agony Creek" where $crooge finally becomes rich. Did someone want a list of future episodes? #7 is "The Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never", part 8 is the one in the Yukon, part 9 is "The Billionaire of Dismal Downs, part 10 is "The Invader of Fort Duckburg". I'm currently writing part 11, another 3 parter, and I have yet to pick a title. Someone asked if I'd ever use Launchpad, even as a gag background character. Sure, I'd do that, since I like the guy. BUT I don't think I'd better since readers would see that use as my acknowleding the cexistance of the DuckTales characters in my Duck universe. So I'd better leave them alone. As for Darkwing Duck, I like the show, what little I've seen of it (I don't watch much on TV except old movies). But again, I see it as a universe unto itself, apart from all other Disney universes... and I AM a bit bothered, as I was by ROGER RABBIT, that Disney moves further along its course of abandonning its own image in favor of the Warner Brothers style that TV watching Americans have come to prefer. I'm sure it's the right thing to do, but I don't hafta like it. From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Mon May 10 16:36:56 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 10 May 93 10:36:56 EDT Subject: Digest #15 Message-ID: <930510143655_72260.2635_EHK12-3@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #15: I see now that my previous long message was NOT included in the last digest. Does that mean it never came through? And why not? I still have the "returned" message -- is there a way to re-send it? Anyway, I don't know if ANY of my messages are coming through now, but here goes. Someone asked (I read these digests too fast to recall who asked what) whether I liked any Duck comics or Disney comics besides Barks' and my own. I am not particularly pleased with my own as I keep saying! I LOVE doing them, but my results always embarrass me. Anyway, no... I like a few other artists who have worked on the Ducks, like Jack Bradbury... but since the stories left me cold, I still ONLY like Barks. I love Jippes art --he is the absolute tops of modern Duck artists.... but again, he doesn't write his own stories, and whoever DOES write them doesn't seem too inspired. Of course, his current revamping of the old Barks JW stories is interesting! Now... is anyone seeing this message??? From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 10 17:00:27 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 10 May 1993 17:00:27 +0200 Subject: David Gerstein on Gladstone and Disney comics Message-ID: <199305101500.AA01529@athena.research.ptt.nl> I saw this letter in rec.arts.disney. I thought it was interesting enough to forward it to this list. (and Don: yes, I received your comments on digests #14 and #15.) --Harry. From: 96dag at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney Subject: Re: Disney Comics Date: 6 May 1993 21:20:45 -0400 Organization: Williams College, Williamstown, MA Lines: 185 Distribution: world Message-ID: <1scdhdINN68b at bigbird.cc.williams.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bigbird.cc.williams.edu Dear Folks (and esp. Mr. Lawton) Gladstone's comics aren't going to be quite the same this time around as they were in the late 1980s. First of all, Mickey Mouse is NOT going to be the main character in "Mickey and Donald." The comic, though taking up where "Mickey and Donald" left off in Mar. 1990 (the first Disney Comics issues being cover-dated June 1990), is now called "Donald and Mickey" and gives Donald the lead spot. The Gladstone line will be all BIMONTHLY, at least at first. They're testing the water: with some success, their line will expand so that the titles come out more often. DONALD AND MICKEY: Mixture of medium-length Donald stories and medium-length Mickey stories (13 pgs. for each character). The Mickey stories in this book will be mainly the post-1930s stuff by folks like Paul Murry, Bill Wright, and perhaps Romano Scarpa. There may also be Floyd Gottfredson's Sunday gags here and there. DONALD DUCK: Mixture of short DD stories by Carl Barks, Danish and Dutch artists, William Van Horn and Don Rosa. DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES: Long DD stories by Carl Barks, Italian, Danish and Dutch artists, and perhaps Van Horn and Rosa. UNCLE SCROOGE: Mixture of short US and Beagle Boys stories by Carl Barks, Danish and Dutch artists, Van Horn and Rosa. UNCLE SCROOGE ADVENTURES: Long US stories by Barks, Italian, Danish and Dutch artists, Van Horn and Rosa. WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES: Mixture of Donald Duck 10-page stories by Barks and Van Horn, Li'l Bad Wolf and other 4-6 pg. shorts, and Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey 1930s strips beginning with "Lair of Wolf Barker," which is from 1933 (previously in a 1987 Gladstone Album, but now with airbrushed computer color) The Gottfredson stuff will be published in serial form, a little hard while we're on bimonthly issues, but with some success that will change. The only thing I'm nervous about with this line is Mickey. What title are they going to use to test Mickey's selling power? It took so much money to reformat Gottfredson's old strips into comic books that Gladstone LOST MONEY on their old (1986-90) Mickey book, yet Gottfredson also has apparently much more respectable sales than most MM artists, so if there's anyone who should lead off a MM regular book, it's him. Yet there's no way Gladstone can gauge the sales of such material now. The only place where Mickey actually appears on the cover is D&M, and due to the nature of the Mickey stories they're running the version shown in the cover art will have to be the less-saleable-in-comic-books post-1940s Mickey. What's more, the only Gottfredson stories they're running seem to be those that were already in their early albums. I'm sure the new printings will have better color, but how saleable will they be? Also, Gottfredson's stories are so long that even in serial form, if WDC&S is only a 26-page book, they'll have LONG chapters. That means that there's very little room in WDC&S for non-Duck and non-Mickey stuff. I honestly think that Gottfredson should really be in D&M with the Paul Murry stuff in WDC&S. Those are in 8-pg. parts and thus there's more room for other non-Duck, non-Mickey stuff in the only book that can handle it. Other than this one comment, I have little to complain about for the Gladstone books, and I don't think I'll have much to grouse about in the future, because I loved Gladstone's old books (I have a complete selection of them) and if that's anything to go by, these will be great. They're gonna have Disney's good paper quality, I might add. Mickey fans: I hope you didn't miss, however, Disney's issues #582-83 and #585 of WDC&S. The first two contained a hitherto-unreprinted Gottfredson story (his personal favorite) from 1936. It had been banned for featuring atomic power, but that ban was lifted now and the story is SUPERB. #585 contains an extremely early story from 1931 with a version of Mickey right out of "Steamboat Willie," one of Gottfredson's earliest stories. (The fifth he worked on from the start.) Please, everyone, write in to Gladstone and give them your best. I'm all for them. Also, write all the letters you can for a Mickey title, particularly one with classic Gottfredson. We could use it. And in the meantime, what do you fellow Mouse enthusiasts think of switching the Mickey artists in WDC&S and D&M? Also, if you can take it, buy two of every comic with Gottfredson's work in it. The better they sell, the more likely we'll see a Mickey title... and you can sell your doubles for more in five years. Gladstone's first issues may come out at ANY TIME. They will be WDC&S 586, DDA 21 (they're picking up where THEIR old DDA series left off, NOT Disney's) and US 281. They may be even beginning to show up in comic shops THIS WEEK. Next month we get the first issues of their other three books, and in July the cycle begins again. Gottfredson fans: I'd recommend heartily ALL Gladstone issues of MM, as well as Disney's WDC&S #562, 563, 567-572, 575, 580-583, 585 and GOOFY ADVS. #9. All of these feature at least some of his work. (Mickey Mouse Advs. #10 is not his work, despite the credits given) The reason for the cutdown in 1991 was that Disney's first 1-1/2 years of comics were done by Len Wein, a fellow from Marvel. If anyone was reading those, you probably noticed that they had very garish colors, Marvel-like attitudes to stories, and often very crowded art. This was an attempt to sell Disneys to the superhero crowd. Of course, most superhero fans found it beneath their DIGNITY (sniff!) to buy 'kids' stuff like Disneys, and Disney fans were alienated by bizarre approaches to their favorite characters (their Mickey Mouse Advs. title, particularly, after the first ten issues, owed nothing to Gottfredson and had very colorless, "action" stories which were basically long chases with little personality. There was also a rule that no Gottfredson could be used in that title: too old-fashioned). When the sales figures for the first year showed interest taking a nosedive, Len went elsewhere and collectors who were formerly under him took over. Since then, the Disneys have been occasionally excellent and at least pretty doggoned good. But most people haven't noticed, since the gigantic post-Wein cutdown turned many fans off completely. I don't know why, because since then the books have been far better. The complete run of Disney Comics from WD Publishing (NOT INCLUDING Cartoon Tales softback books) was: ALADDIN GN. (RETURN OF) ALADDIN 1-2. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST GN. (NEW ADVS. OF) BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1-2. CHIP 'N' DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS 1-19. DARKWING DUCK 1-4. DISNEY COMICS ALBUMS 1-8. DISNEY COMICS IN 3-D 1. DONALD AND SCROOGE GN. DONALD DUCK ADVS 1-38. DUCKTALES 1-18. DUCKTALES: THE MOVIE GN. GOOFY ADVENTURES 1-17. JUNGLE BOOK GN. JUNIOR WOODCHUCKS 1-4. LITTLE MERMAID GN. LITTLE MERMAID 1-4. MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES 1-18. 101 DALMATIANS GN. PETER PAN GN. RESCUERS DOWN UNDER GN. ROGER RABBIT 1-18. ROGER RABBIT IN 3-D 1. (May never have been distributed. I do have a copy, however) ROGER RABBIT'S TOONTOWN 1-5. SEBASTIAN 1-2. SHIPWRECKED GN. TALESPIN 1-4 (LIMITED SERIES), 1-7 (REGULAR SERIES) UNCLE SCROOGE 243-280. WALT DISNEY'S AUTUMN ADVENTURES 1-2. WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES 548-585. WALT DISNEY'S HOLIDAY PARADE 1-2. WALT DISNEY'S SPRING FEVER 1. WALT DISNEY'S SUMMER FUN 1. WHITE FANG GN. Many projects that were advertised were never released: for example, many #18s and #19s of titles that were curtailed; a Roger Rabbit GN "I Hate Toons"; a Mickey GN "Space Mickey" (this story WAS broken up and printed in the Disney Adv. Digest which isn't listed here); a Scrooge GN "The Oak Island Treasure"; a Super Goof Comic Album Special (actually released as Disney Comics Albums #8); and I think that's it. Most of these ARE listed in the Overstreet Price Guide, which quite obviously made the fatal error of listing what was SOLICITED, not what was actually published. This really casts a lot of doubt as to how accurate Overstreet is... Well, I've gotta go. This may be my last major letter for a while as finals are coming up. Anyway, I'll try to answer most questions about Disney comics that are fielded my way, just send 'em to me at David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu Your friend, David Gerstein "Ya've gotta just swallow hard an' tell yerself, 'The Mail Must Go Through!' An' when you're done... ya feel just swell!" -- Mickey Mouse, "The Mail Pilot" by Floyd Gottfredson, 1933 ----- End forwarded message From torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Mon May 10 19:27:59 1993 From: torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu (Torsten Wesley Adair) Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 12:27:59 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Logic error in DDA Message-ID: In Rosa's Scrooge and Donald collection, there appeared a story in which the Beagle Boys "froze" time. Mr. Rosa, at the end of the collection, noted that he forgot to consider that the air molecules would be frozen too. I did not think of this until I read it. In the recent issue of Donald Duck Adventures, Donald Duck gets shrunken, then enlarged, by a ray gun invented by Gyro Gearloose. First Donald gets shrunken, and ends up in the carpet with a fly. The nephews discover Donald's lifesize cap, and deduce that Donald has been reduced. Thus they start zapping the carpet, causing the fly to become the size of a bird. Donald gets hit, and returns to normal. What I would like to know is this: why didn't the carpet fibers become enlarged as well? Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA I wonder if Disney gives out no-prizes? From mas at cs.bu.edu Mon May 10 22:06:14 1993 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Mon, 10 May 93 16:06:14 -0400 Subject: Jippes In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 10 May 93 10:36:56 EDT <930510143655_72260.2635_EHK12-3@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9305102006.AA28438@csa.bu.edu> >From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM> >I love Jippes art --he is the absolute tops of modern Duck >artists.... but again, he doesn't write his own stories, and whoever >DOES write them doesn't seem too inspired. Of course, his current >revamping of the old Barks JW stories is interesting! Are these current JW stories being published in the U.S.? From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Mon May 10 23:19:55 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Mon, 10 May 93 17:19:55 -0400 Subject: My discussion of Gladstones and Disneys Message-ID: <9305102119.AA16199@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, I have to give a bit of updated info when it comes to that list of mine of what Gladstones will be having, etc. Mainly: My intimations on the format of WDC&S were made from the first two issues Gladstone's solicited. With a Duck 10-pager and at least 10 pages of Mickey, they aren't going to be able to jam in anything else over 6 pages, so that's how I came up with my "schedule". In fact, the second WDC&S they're doing has a Van Horn story, "Out of Harmony's Way," so I'm also wrong about the first story being usually Barks. I just assumed that given what Disney's version of the title was like. All my other intimations about Gladstone's coming titles are from such solicitations, but those are the only errors I noted that I made (or at least that I KNOW I made.... _gulp!_) In response to asking about non-American Gottfredson reprints in English I was told about Horst Schroeder's publications, which are now out of print. Does anyone have used copies they're willing to sell or Xerox? (Not that I know that I can afford them... but I'll just ask and find out, since I AM interested.) Well, folks, I must be off. Your friend, David Gerstein "Phooey on Sir Quincy Quack! Double phooey... and yuck!" -- Nephews via W. Van Horn, "The Bees Have It" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Tue May 11 09:30:33 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 11 May 1993 09:30:33 +0200 Subject: Jippes Message-ID: <199305110730.AA14095@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa: > I love Jippes art --he is the absolute tops of modern Duck > artists.... but again, he doesn't write his own stories, and whoever > DOES write them doesn't seem too inspired. Of course, his current > revamping of the old Barks JW stories is interesting! Mark Semich: > Are these current JW stories being published in the U.S.? I have not seen them in the USA (yet). I hope Gladstone will reprint them. (And I guess none of them has been reprinted yet outside Holland.) Jippes has done 6 stories up to now, for the Dutch Disney publisher: story Dutch Title (lower case) Barks' Story code issue script date JW 8b 92-07 bad day for troop 'a' 70-01-01 H 9202 JW 11a 92-43 traitor in the ranks 70-10-26 H 9285 JW 12b 92-13 storm dancers 71-02-04 H 9212 JW 13a 92-29 the day the mountain shook 71-05-04 H 9251 JW 13b gold of the '49ers 71-05-25 (?) JW 14 92-01 duckmade disaster 71-07-30 H 9201 The Dutch publisher wanted to reprint ALL Barks' work, but they didn't Tony Strobl's and Kay Wright's art. So they let Jippes redraw the stories. Jippes agreed to do this, because he needed the money! Let's hope he will finish (re)drawing ALL the JW stories... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From dat91oto at ludat.lth.se Tue May 11 09:44:36 1993 From: dat91oto at ludat.lth.se (Ola Torstensson) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 09:44:36 +0200 Subject: The Terror of the Transvaal Message-ID: <9305110744.AA00665@ludat.lth.se> Don Rosa writes: > Someone asked about "Duck of Africa" (which is supposed to be entitled > "The Terror of the Transvaal", originally titled "The Prey of the Transvaal > Viper"). Where was the "Wizard of Oz" reference? Maybe I've forgotten my own > dialogue... or did Mr. Dios add something? I'm the one who asked. I don't have the book with me, but the way I remember it is that when $crooge wanders around on the savannah after the Boer deserts him, he mutters about the fact that he's not afraid, (having fought wild animals before, in Kansas) just angry. Then a lion jumps at him, roaring, and $crooge says something like "... then again, I'm not in Kansas anymore!" That's how it appears in the translation, at any rate. Am I reading too much into it? Maybe I think of "The Wizard of Oz" every time I hear "Kansas." :-) Ola Ola Torstensson \ "I must warn the reader to discount much of dat91oto at ludat.lth.se \ what I say as the ravings of a fanatic who Undergraduate, Dept of Computer \ thinks he has just seen a great light." Science, Lund University, Sweden \ -- Donald E. Knuth From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Tue May 11 16:01:32 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 15:01:32 +0100 Subject: Continuity Message-ID: <930511150132.00001579.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> Don Rosa: >Someone asked if I'd ever use Launchpad, even as a gag background >character. Sure, I'd do that, since I like the guy. BUT I don't >think I'd better since readers would see that use as my acknowleding >the cexistance of the DuckTales characters in my Duck universe. >So I'd better leave them alone. There's actually an interesting case of continuity between the Duck Tales and the "normal" Duck universe in the latest Swedish Kalle Anka & C:o (19-20/93). There's a Van Horn comic (D92205) that loosely translates to "The Magic Box". In the comic, which features Donald, his nephews and Magica, there's a flea (Swedish name; Baron Vicke Virum) that made its original appearance in Van Horn comic "The whistling ghost" (or something) coded AR148 and printed in Swedish MP 9/90. This flea has a leading role in both comics, despite the former being a DD and the latter a DT. And, indeed, why not? I also think I've read a Disney Comics DT episode where there are a lot of references to old Barks stories, so this kind of continuity can obviously work both ways. Of course, just because it exists, it doesn't have to be good... And if Mr. Rosa doesn't want to mess upp his normal universe with DT characters, then what about making a Launchpad McQuack solo adventure? To my knowledge, this has only been done in one-pagers before. Then, theoretically, there needen't be any question at all as to which universe he belongs to at the time. > Now... is anyone seeing this message??? Yup! :) /Fredrik Ekman ------------------------------------------------------ | | | | "By definition, one can only | Steve Gerber, | | go so far in a world between." | Howard the Duck | | | | ------------------------------------------------------ From ttgrq at info.win.tue.nl Tue May 11 15:32:29 1993 From: ttgrq at info.win.tue.nl (Andreas Gammel) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 15:32:29 +0200 Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-ID: <9305111332.AA19556@wsinfo09.info.win.tue.nl> I have 2 questions: I've been gathering the weekly Dutch "Donald Duck" magazine for a little while now (1960-1975:95% complete, 1975-1993:30% complete), and I was wondering if there are any other people, apart from Harry, around interested in this hobby. Please respond. Is there a digest of Disney stories (date, artist, writer, story code, title, issues) somewhere around. Could anyone mail it to me ? Andreas "You wanna fight ?" Gammel From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Tue May 11 16:27:55 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 11 May 93 10:27:55 EDT Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-ID: <930511142754_72260.2635_EHK12-3@CompuServe.COM> Try again. --- Forwarded Message --- Date: 07-May-93 08:18 EDT From: Mail Delivery Subsystem >INTERNET:MAILER-DAEMON at compuserve.com Subj: Returned mail: User unknown Sender: MAILER-DAEMON at compuserve.com Received: by ihc.compuserve.com (5.65/5.930129sam) id AA20683; Fri, 7 May 93 08:17:52 -0400 Date: Fri, 7 May 93 08:17:52 -0400 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-Id: <9305071217.AA20683 at ihc.compuserve.com> To: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com ----- Transcript of session follows ----- >>> RCPT To: <<< 550 /home/bern/d83/starback/lists/disney-comics: line 0: clawton.tfs.com (Chris Lawton)... User unknown 550 disney-comics at minsk.docs.uu.se... User unknown ----- Unsent message follows ----- Received: by ihc.compuserve.com (5.65/5.930129sam) id AA20678; Fri, 7 May 93 08:17:53 -0400 Date: 07 May 93 08:11:31 EDT From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM> To: Subject: Re: Digest #13 Message-Id: <930507121130_72260.2635_EHK23-2 at CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #13: Per: Don't forget about ME! I need copies of the Swedish comics with my stories in 'em, TOO! Nobody sends me those things! I sometimes get copies from a couple of very nice young Swedish fans, but they can hardly afford to be mailing me stuff overseas like that when Egmont or some older Duck fan could afford to much better! Replies to various queries: The only thing that is changing now that Gladstone takes back over from Disney is that they will carry on a policy that Disney started toward their end, that which allowed me to do some covers for them: Gladstone is allowed to return my art! I am the first (and only) hoomin bean who has ever had artwork returned from the Disney Corporation which is a sure sign that they are slowly coming into the 20th century, and may get here about the time the rest of us go into the 21st. My story which won "best comic of the year" in Norway was "Return to Xanadu". Beat out other nominees like "Gotham by Gaslight" and such. In reply to what Americans might think of Disney comics as compared with Asterix or Tintin or Nemo: Americans would at least have HEARD of the Disney characters. Recently there have been Asterix and Tintin shows on cable TV, and that new Nemo animated feature... so at least a FEW Americans now have heard of those characters. But prior to the last 2 or 3 years, no American outside of a small percentage of hardcore comic collectors would have ever even heard of Asterix or Tintin. Nor would any American have a fraction of the knowledge of old American newspaper strips that the average European does. Does that surprise and of you Euro folks? It shouldn't. This is truly a nation of wealthy morons. And what other changes did I make in Barks old Family Tree? The only other one I can think of is that I eleiminated the business of Gladstone's parents dying from overeating at a free picnic, so he was never adopted by $crooge's sister Matilda. I saw no purpose behind such a "plot twist" which would have been very hard to get included in a comic book. Unfortunately, this left Matilda an "old maid"; I wanted to have her married to Ludwig Von Drake; I like Ludwig and that would be the ONLY way he could actually be a relative of Donald. But I was vetoed by everyone from Bob Foster to Carl Barks on that one... so poor Matilda is still an old maid. (Actually, she'd be DEAD by now, anyhow. $crooge is the last McDuck alive.) From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Tue May 11 16:26:01 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 11 May 93 10:26:01 EDT Subject: Digest #16 Message-ID: <930511142601_72260.2635_EHK12-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON DIGEST # whateveritwas: I browsed David Gerstein's info on Disney and Gladstone and spotted just a few errors. Gladstone's comics are not bimonthly to "test the waters". They will remain bimonthly. Hamilton feels that the comics will sell twice as good if they are on the stands twice as long, and since Disney buyers are not the must-have-every-Thursday-by-3-PM fanatics that the typical American comic book zombies are, he's probably right. There's nothing that will enhance Mickey's selling power. His unpopularity has been proven resoundingly for decades. Everyone has their personal idea of how to make Mickey sellable, but decades of readers not wanting MM indicate it's a waste of time. The only reason that Gladstone will publish ANY Mickey stories whatsoever is because the license with Disney demands same. They happily got out of having to publish a solo MM title since even Disney was forced to realize that there was no hope in doing that, so they couldn't very well demand that Gladstone do so. Also, missing from the list of all Disney Disneys was the DONALD & $CROOGE #1-3 which was sold only in packs at certain Walmarts. Its contents were the same as the comic album of the same name, minus one short gagstory. And I, as always, dislke the term Gerstein uses: GM as meaning "Graphic Novel". It was a COMIC ALBUM as are all such oversized comics. The term "graphic novel" is a contradiction in terms created by people who somehow feel embarrassed to be reading comic books unless they have a fancier name. Feh. Other comments: Per, I did not FORGET that the air molecules would have been frozen in my "On Stolen Time" story; I chose to IGNORE the fact in order to tell the tale. I later decided that saying something else other than time-freezing was going on would have solved that problem ( and not been so silly an idea). And I imagine those Dan Jippes/Carl Barks JW remakes will be used by Gladstone. Why not? Every Disney comic book story ever done anywhere on the planet is available to them for their use at the same price... free. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Tue May 11 22:34:43 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 16:34:43 -0400 Subject: Don Rosa on Mickey Message-ID: <9305112034.AA20216@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear network users, I wrote to Don Rosa recently, and part of my letter responded to the comments he made about my posted info on Disney Comics. (That is: last week, someone else beat ME to the punch by sending you my views on the new Gladstones and 'complete' checklist of all Disney Comics issues.) I realized that my comments might be useful to everyone here, so I'll just excerpt them from the letter I wrote to Don: ******* I immensely prefer the term "Comic Album" to "Graphic Novel": as you put it, 'feh'. Calling the DONALD AND SCROOGE album the latter term was a mistake; I ONLY referred to the others that way as that's the name they were advertised as. Thanks for mentioning the three D&S one-shots containing the material that was in that album. The existence of those is a new one on me. You know, maybe Wal-Mart also distributed the obscure Roger Rabbit 3-D comic that Disney published... My comments on the (monthly? bimonthly?) schedule of the Gladstone books and how that could change were simply what I thought was my own intuition. Of course, there was someone (you!) around to correct me: as Barks put it, "there are other things besides echoes that come back... bill collectors, cats and sins!" (I don't have the story accessible now [WDC 105], so that quote may be slightly off) As for Mickey's selling power, YES he's less sellable than the ducks when it comes to comics. When KK Publications first started WDC&S in 1940, Donald was on top of Mickey in cartoon popularity, so they put Donald on the cover (even though -- as it would be for the first few years -- there was far more Mickey than Donald in the book). Only the first MM one-shot had Gottfredson, and after that BAD new stories were used; hence, except for the very first issue, not one single doggoned comic with Mickey on the COVER (using his image, successful then as now, as MERCHANDISE selling power) ever gave readers the Gottfredson that was always the Mouse's best shot at immortality. Thus, Mickey as the headliner of a comic was never linked during the golden age of Disney comics to Gottfredson. Thus, even when MM's popularity as a cartoon character soared in the 1950s due to the television 'Club', those newfound Mickey fans found nothing that would hold their attention in the comics. (My opinion of stories by Dick Moores, Paul Murry and Bill Wright in the foregoing is not good. Some were decent, but none of them made Mickey anything more than a bland adventure hero, most used very formulaic Hardy-Boys-like mysteries, never tried to do anything with the depth of Barks, etc.) So now we have a state in which Mickey's image as a comic book character was shaped, until 1986, and again from 1990-91, by the most visible Mickey material being second-rate. Is it any wonder that so many collectors shy away? MM in Gladstone's run often printed letters from Duck fans who'd avoided Gladstone's Gottfredson book for a long time simply due to the bad taste PREVIOUS Mickey titles had left in their mouths, but then bought it and liked it. Despite the bad state that Mickey is in, Gottfredson STILL makes him sell better. Len Wein had a policy against the use of his work, it being old-fashioned in use of the pie-eyed Mickey! Hence only three 6-pagers appearing before he left. After he did and Gottfredson was used more frequently, sales showed that his work increased WDC&S sales. His material sold far better than Dick Moores', which had the regular slot before. Gottfredson DID sell better than other MM artists, and still does. He just can't overcome the kiddie image that Mickey was blighted with from 1943-1985 and from 1990-91. The suspicions of Duck readers who, naturally, found Murry's WDC&S and MM work inferior to Barks' issue-sharing stories, did the rest, and still do. ******* I'll add to the foregoing: Perhaps the worst thing about Murry's, Moores', Jippes' and (to some extent) Wright's is how completely uninteresting Mickey is. Also, the potency of Mickey as a merchandising image derives from the simplicity of the "classic" (best-selling) Mickey, that of the 1930s (or the 1940s one, as long as he only has short pants, gloves and shoes on). Later artists, particularly Murry and Moores, obliterated that by dressing Mickey to the nines in a smothering layout topped by a boring porkpie hat. (If Mickey has to have a hat, I like the straw boater he was wearing in 1940-41 strip continuities. It fits the natty personality that Mickey had in his days of comic success... the 1930s.) And again: I am ready to admit that after 1943 the Gottfredson stories are essentially Bill Walsh stories and thus maintain far less of the classic feeling. Although I prefer Walsh-written stories to the later new-to-comic-book material, I still regard "prime" Gottfredson (1930-1942) as the "classic period" for Mickey, just like Barks' "classic" period was about 1948-1960 (interestingly, both being 12-year periods). Gottfredson has also been hurt by Disney's longtime refusal to acknowledge his fan following. Unlike with Barks, his work did not remain before the public eye: after the 1946 continuities, his work was not reprinted in U. S. comic books AT ALL (let alone in a prominent position!), and during the breeding days of comic fandom (the 1960s) Barks became widely known, while Disney refused to reveal Gottfredson's identity or reprint his strips until ten years later, once a 'pantheon' had been established that most comic fans considered essential. Whitman added another nail to the coffin by only reprinting 2 Gottfredson stories once the artist's identity came out ("The Bat Bandit" and "The Bar-None Ranch"). Big deal. It's a monument to his talent that, essentially, after only seven years of semi-regular comic-book exposure, his work DOES outsell Murry, Bradbury, and others. If only it sold as well as Ducks... Get a Fellow Barks Fan Interested in Gottfredson Today!!! Your friend, David Gerstein "Of course you're cookin, ya big rummy! What did ya THINK they were doin' to ya?" -- Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson, "In Search of Jungle Treasure" ------- End of Forwarded Message From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Tue May 11 22:38:30 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 22:38:30 +0200 Subject: Gottfredson list from David Gerstein Message-ID: <9305112038.AA19124@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Here is something that new list member David Gerstein sent me about the same time he joined the list. (BTW: Do you all think large lists like this should be posted to the list, or would it be more appropriate to just put them on the ftp archive and mention that they are there for those who want them?) /Per + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + _Complete List of Gottfredson Daily Strip Stories Not Reprinted or Scheduled by Gladstone or Disney as of Disney Comics' Disbanding._ List Compiled by David Gerstein I have included issue numbers for those that have been reprinted either by Dell or outside of the regular line (i. e. Uncensored Mouse). There are a few weird breaks at ends of lines here, but my e-mail system may have confused this former Macwrite file somewhat. [I took the liberty of editing away a few weird breaks. /Per] ______________________________ "Lost on a Desert Island" (1/13-3/28/30) By Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks and Win Smith. (Reprinted in Uncensored Mouse #1-2, 1988) "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley" (4/1-9/20/30) Never reprinted (except for first 3 weeks which were in Uncensored Mouse #2) By Disney, Smith and Gottfredson (whose art begins on May 5, 1930). "Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers" (9/22-12/29/30) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson, Hardie Gramatky and Earl Duvall. Introduces Mickey's tough pal Butch (first major character created by Gottfredson), who also appears in "Boxing Champion," "High Society," and "Circus Roustabout" (although only briefly). His personality is reminiscent of Taliaferro's Donald Duck. "Mickey's Flute" (12/30/30-1/3/31) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson and Duvall. "The Picnic" (1/5-1/10/31) Never reprinted. Gottfredson/Duvall "Traffic Troubles" (1/12-1/17/31) Never reprinted. Gottfredson/Duvall "Mickey Mouse Vs. Kat Nipp" (1/19-2/25/31) Never reprinted. Gottfredson/Duvall; 33 daily strips total. The art is almost reminiscent of William Van Horn's work; Van Horn would be an ideal candidate to draw a cover illustration for it. "Mickey Mouse, Boxing Champion" (2/26-4/29/31) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson, Duvall and Taliaferro. A superb early comedy with tongue-in-cheek artwork. "High Society" (4/30-5/29/31) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson and Taliaferro. "Mickey Mouse and the Gypsies" (7/19-11/7/31) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson and Taliaferro. "Clarabelle's Boarding House" (12/1/31-1/9/32) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson and Taliaferro. "The Great Orphanage Robbery" (1/11-5/14/32) Reprinted (in English) in Italian book, Mickey Mouse 1932. But never in America. By Gottfredson and Taliaferro. "Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island" (5/16-11/11/32) Reprinted (in English) in Italian book, Mickey Mouse 1932. But never in America. By Gottfredson, Taliaferro and Ted Thwaites. "Mickey Mouse and his Horse Tanglefoot" (6/12-10/7/33) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson, Osborne and Thwaites. "The Sacred Jewel" (10/15-12/29/34) Prepared by Gladstone, but knocked off the schedule at the last minute. By Gottfredson, Osborne and Thwaites. "Mickey Joins the Foreign Legion" (3/21-8/8/36) Prepared by Gladstone, but knocked off the schedule at the last minute. By Gottfredson, Osborne and Thwaites. "In Search of Jungle Treasure" (4/5-8/7/37) Reprinted, WDC&S 4-5, 36 pages (one whole strip and portions of three others deleted to save space). By Gottfredson, Osborne and Thwaites. "Mighty Whale Hunter" (2/7-7/1/38) Reprinted in Mickey Mouse Magazine from Vol. 4 No. 3 to Vol. 4 #12 (20 pages, two per issue). By Gottfredson, Osborne and Thwaites. "The Plumber's Helper" (7/2-12/10/38) Never reprinted. By Gottfredson, Thwaites and Osborne. "Mickey Mouse meets Robinson Crusoe" (12/12/38-4/13/39) Reprinted in Mickey Mouse Magazine Vol. 5 No. 2 through Vol. 5 No. 12, then WDC&S 1. (Total: 29 pgs; two per issue, except WDC&S 1, with five pgs.) By Gottfredson, Thwaites and Osborne. "An Education for Thursday" (1/15-4/20/40) Reprinted in WDC&S 22-24 (60 pages 3 panels deep) and in MM Four Color 268 (as "Mickey's Surprise Visitor") in 1950 (48 pages with panels in weird layout, mostly eight to a page. Some enlarged to splash panels.) By Gottfredson, Merrill de Maris, Thwaites and Bill Wright. "Love Trouble" (4/14-7/5/41) Reprinted in WDC&S 36-39 (48 pgs w/ extra title panels) and MM Birthday Party 1 (1954 Dell Giant). 46 pgs. total in Birthday Party. By Gottfredson, De Maris and Wright. "Mickey Mouse, Super Salesman" (7/7-10/4/41) Reprinted in WDC&S 91 and 92 probably with extensive condensation. 19 pgs. By Gottfredson, De Maris and Wright. "The Mystery of Hidden River" (10/6/41-1/17/42) Never reprinted (although REDRAWN version in WDC&S 112-117... be careful, this isn't the real thing!) "The Gleam" (1/19-5/2/42) Reprinted in WDC&S 81-85 as "The Jewel Robbery". "Goofy and Agnes" (5/4-8/15/42) Reprinted in WDC&S 86-90, By Gottfredson, Bob Karp, Dick Shaw and Bill Wright. "The Black Crow Mystery" (8/17-11/21/42) By Gottfredson, Shaw and Wright. Reprinted in WDC&S 56-60. "Goofy's Car" (11/23-11/28/42) By Gottfredson, Shaw and Wright. Reprinted in WDC&S 66. "Working to Win" (12/14-12/23/42) By Gottfredson, Shaw and Wright. Reprinted in WDC&S 62 with no title (3 pgs.) "Mickey Mouse's Wild Holiday" (5/31-6/26/43) By Gottfredson, Shaw and Dick Moores. (1st Dick Moores Mickey Mouse) Never reprinted. "The Nazi Submarine" (6/28-7/17/43) By Walsh, Gottfredson and Moores. (1st Bill Walsh Mickey Mouse) Never reprinted. NOTE: What do you fans think of putting the anti-Nazi stories in a special Disney commemorative comic to commemorate WWII? (Also several of those below) "Mickey Mouse on a Secret Mission" (7/19-10/23/44) Reprinted in WDC&S 45-48, 32 pgs. total. By Gottfredson and Moores. NOTE: A WWII story with Nazis shown. "Pluto the Spy Catcher" (2/7-2/19/44) Reprinted as "Pluto Catches a Nazi Spy" in WDC&S 62. 4 pgs. By Walsh, Gottfredson and Moores. NOTE: A WWII story with Nazis shown. "The War Orphans" (3/13-4/15/44) Reprinted in WDC&S 49-50, 12 pgs. By Walsh, Gottfredson and Moores. NOTE: A WWII story with Nazis shown. "Billy the Mouse" (1945) Reprinted in WDC&S 63-66, 28 pgs. By Walsh and Gottfredson. "Mickey's Great Grandfather" (2/25/46-3/2/46) By Gottfredson, Manuel Gonzales and Bill Wright. SHORT STORIES. These "continuities" lasted two to three weeks in length and while good, weren't very complex (kind of an equivalent to Barks' ten-pagers). A few were reprinted by WDC&S and those are noted with issue numbers. The rest haven't been reprinted (except portions of a few more disjointed stories as half-page gags in WDC&S issues.) From here on all stories (short and long) are by Walsh and Gottfredson, with Bill Wright through "Mickey the Icky" (1947). "The New Girlfriend" 3/11-3/23/46 "Mickey's Mini-Plane" 3/25-4/13/46 "The Mystery Next Door" 4/15-5/4/46 WDC&S 93 (9 pgs.) "The Sunken Treasure" 5/20-6/1/46 WDC&S 94 (6 pgs.) "Trailer Trouble" 6/3-6/15/46 "The Candidate" 7/1-7/13/46 "The Little Genius" 7/15-7/27/46 "Goofy's Boat Race" 7/29-8/10/46 "Eviction" 8/26-9/7/46 WDC&S 77 (6 pgs.) "Goofy's Rocket" 9/9-9/21/46 "Mickey's Menagerie" 9/23-10/5/46 "The Cure for Hiccups" 10/7-10/19/46 "The Search for Geeko" 11/4-11/16/46 "Arctic Adventure" 12/2-12/14/46 "Morty's Escapade" 12/16-12/28/46 WDC&S 128 (5 pgs.) "The Fiendish Cat" 12/30/46-1/11/47 "Truant Officer Mickey" 1/13-1/25/47 "Goofy's Inheritance" 1/27-2/8/47 "Mickey the Icky" 2/10-2/22/47 "Pluto's Amnesia" 2/24-3/8/47 "Peg-Leg Pete Reforms" 3/10-3/22/47 "Home Movies" 3/24-4/5/47 "Shutterbug Mickey" 4/7-4/19/47 "The Boxer" 4/21-5/3/47 "Mickey's Strange Flower" 5/5-5/17/47 "The Midget Racer" 5/19-5/31/47 "Mickey's Pet Shop" 6/2-6/14/47 "Mickey's Helicopter" 6/16-6/28/47 "Pluto's Trial" 6/30-7/12/47 "The Spook Specialist" 7/14-7/26/47 "Mickey Writes the Songs" 7/28-8/9/47 "Horace's Nerves" 8/11-8/23/47 "The Skyscraper Adventure" 8/25-9/6/47 "The Foundling" 9/8-9/20/47 EEGA BEEVA STORIES. Here are all the Eega Beeva stories that have not been reprinted. He was in three years of stories. "Mickey Makes a Killing" 12/29/47-2/7/48 "Pflip the Thnuckle-Booh" 2/9-2/28/48 "The Kumquat Question" 4/6-4/28/48 "Mickey Mouse and the Atombrella" 4/30-10/9/48 NOTE: I noticed that this story was once scheduled for Mickey and Donald, then bumped. Was this because of the atomic references? Barks' "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" and the original "Sky Island" were once in cold storage for the same reason but have been allowed to see reprint recently. Might this story be in the same boat? "An Education for Eega Beeva" 10/11-10/25/48 "Pflip's Strange Power" 12/27/48-3/5/49 "Be-Junior and the Aints" 3/7-8/6/49"Itching Gulch" 8/8-10/22/49 "The Syndicate of Crime" 10/24/49-1/28/50 "The Lost Treasure of Moook" 1/30/50-7/8/50 STORIES WITHOUT EEGA BEEVA. (By Walsh and Gottfredson only) "Mousepotamia" 7/10-9/30/50 "Lost Beneath the Sea" 10/2-12/30/50 "Tzig-Tzag Fever" (1/1-3/24/51) "Dry Gulch Goofy" (3/26-6/23/51) "The Ghost of Black Brian" (6/25-10/20/51) "Uncle Wombat's Tick Tock Time Machine" (10/22/51-1/19/52) "The Midas Ring" (1/21-4/19/52) "The Isle of Moola-La" (4/21-10/2/52) "Hoosat from Another Planet" (10/3/52-2/28/53) "Mickey's Dangerous Double" (3/2-6/20/53) "The Magic Shoe" (6/22-10/28/53) "Mickey Takes Umbrage" (10/29/53-1/30/54) "A Fatal Occupation" (2/1-5/15/54) "The Kid Gang" (5/17-9/18/54) "Uncle Gudger" (9/20-12/31/54) "Dr. X" (1/1-5/20/55) "Pluto in Love Trouble" (5/21-6/25/55) "Li'l Davy" (6/27-10/4/55) From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Tue May 11 22:57:31 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 16:57:31 -0400 Subject: Rosa Norwegian story Message-ID: <9305112057.AA20895@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, The Don Rosa checklist that you have on ftp.lysator.liu.se mentions that Mr. Rosa has done a "long story about books for Norway, which also exists in an American version with 1 panel different, to be published 1994." What is this? Has the American version already been printed, or is it just an alternate version Mr. Rosa has prepared to be printed here once the Norwegian version has appeared there? In other words, can anyone (particularly you yourself, Mr. Rosa, if you're reading this) help me and others with the identification of this mysterious story? Thanks a lot! David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu "One side, Gloom! Little Rollo has a PLAN!" -- Floyd Gottfredson, "Mickey Mouse: Bellhop Detective" (a story that, I'll admit, is not one of Gottfredson's best -- it has a few logic errors -- but nonetheless contains some good moments) From clawton at tfs.COM Tue May 11 23:20:40 1993 From: clawton at tfs.COM (Chris Lawton) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 14:20:40 -0700 Subject: Why is Mickey ... ? Message-ID: <9305112120.AA21720@mailsrv.tfs.com> Hi everybody! This is my first post to the comic mailing list so I'll take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Chris Lawton. I have lived in Pleasanton, CA (about 40 mile east of San Francisco or about 10 miles west of Lawrence Livermore Labratories) for the past 17 years. I'm now 25. I work as a software engineer at TRW Financial Systems in Oakland, CA. I've alway been a huge fan of everything that is Disney - especially Mickey and Roger Rabbit stuff. I recently discovered comics when Disney started publishing new titles a few years ago. (Mickey Mouse Adventures and others) I stoped when Disney cancelled most of the titles I was buying. :( I just heard about Gladstone starting again with Disney stuff so I've got the bug again. :) Anyway, my question is: what is about the Ducks that make them so much more popular than all the others? I think that it's 'cause they are a "gang" of similar characters. Whereas with Mickey, for example, is alone. (Well not really alone, but no "gang") Or is just the action of the Ducks? (i.e. Donald is really hyperactive in all his shorts where Mickey isn't so much) Or I am I completely missing the point? Chris From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Tue May 11 23:45:16 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 23:45:16 +0200 Subject: Various replies Message-ID: <9305112145.AA20143@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Harry: > Whatever happened to Volker Reiche? He once did some (6) stories for the > Dutch in the early 80s, and I have seen some of is "Hamburger Donaldist" > work. Is he still doing Disney comics? If not, why did he stop? I don't know, and I'd too be interested in the answer. He has done some non-Disney comics with his own characters as well though, maybe that's what he's up to nowadays? Andreas: > Is there a digest of Disney stories (date, artist, writer, story > code, title, issues) somewhere around. Could anyone mail it to me ? Standard answer: look at the ftp archive: ftp.lysator.liu.se, directory pub/comics/disney. Don't miss Harry's Dutch index in the dutch/ subdirectory. Anyone who doesn't know if they can use ftp to fetch files and how to do it and can't find a local guru to tell them all about it, feel free to ask me. Don: > Per, I did not FORGET that the air molecules would have been frozen in > my "On Stolen Time" story; I chose to IGNORE the fact in order to tell > the tale. It wasn't me who thought there was anything strange about that. I didn't the shrink ray thing in Van Horn's story was strange either, as I don't know much about how those things work anyway. How would I know if the carpet fibers ought to have become enlarged as well? > Per: Don't forget about ME! I need copies of the Swedish comics with > my stories in 'em, TOO! Nobody sends me those things! I sometimes > get copies from a couple of very nice young Swedish fans, but they > can hardly afford to be mailing me stuff overseas like that when > Egmont or some older Duck fan could afford to much better! When you before just asked about *Dutch* comics I guessed that (Swedish translator) Stefan sent you his extras, but I guess not. I'll try to find those extra copies of those books to send you. What do you already have? (Wouldn't surprise me if those youngsters have more money than I do, though. :-) Chris Lawton: > This is my first post to the comic mailing list so I'll take a moment to > introduce myself. Good move! Maybe that is something we all ought to do? > Anyway, my question is: what is about the Ducks that make them so much more > popular than all the others? If we're talking comics the answer to that question is Carl Barks. You wrote that you've always been a Disney fan, but that you recently discovered comics, so then it's not strange if you didn't realize it, but really it's as simple as that. Here in Scandinavia it's almost universal that all kids read Disney comics, so we are all grown up on it. I find it hard to imagine how I would have reacted to Barks's comics if I had seen them now for the first time. (~26 hours left to enter my quote quiz.) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From rivers at beno.CSS.GOV Wed May 12 00:23:01 1993 From: rivers at beno.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 18:23:01 EDT Subject: of mice and ducks Message-ID: <9305112223.AA19473@beno.CSS.GOV> Chris Lawton writes: > Anyway, my question is: what is about the Ducks that make them so much more > popular than all the others? > > I think that it's 'cause they are a "gang" of similar characters. Whereas > with Mickey, for example, is alone. (Well not really alone, but no "gang") > > Or is just the action of the Ducks? (i.e. Donald is really hyperactive in all > his shorts where Mickey isn't so much) > I think part of the difference between Mickey and Donald (and the other ducks) is in their visual appeal. David Gerstein makes the important point that > Also, the potency of Mickey as a merchandising image derives > from the simplicity of the "classic" (best-selling) Mickey, that of > the 1930s (or the 1940s one, as long as he only has short pants, > gloves and shoes on). Later artists, particularly Murry and Moores, > obliterated that by dressing Mickey to the nines in a smothering > layout topped by a boring porkpie hat. > When you cover the mouse in "human" clothing from head to foot, there isn't very much left to distinguish him from anybody else in comics. None of the duck artists ever made that mistake. Since Mickey's ears render his face rather rigid in comparison with the rubbery mugs most other comics characters posess, it is especially important to use Mickey's body language fully, and his average-man-in-the-street clothing makes this difficult to do. Beyond the visual aspects, however, the principal problem I have with really getting interested in Mickey is that no one in his stories has any major character flaws that lead them into comic situations. Well, O.K., Goofy is stupid, and Chief O'Hara is amazingly incompetent, but it's still not the same as with the inhabitants of Duckburg, where everyone has some trait that can be counted on to lead to interesting plot developments. The ducks are always getting into trouble because Donald is hot-tempered, Scrooge is stingy, Gladstone shuns working for a living, Gus Goose shuns working at all, Granny lives 50 years in the past, Gyro never sees any down-to- earth practical approach to anything, the nephews are always up to something, etc. Mickey doesn't have any real personal problems like these, so whatever happens to him is just random (usually boring) circumstance. He needs to have his stories evolve from his own person- ality, and this won't happen so long as his writers are restrained to keep him totally likeable. A mouse should be mischievous, scurrying around from one self-created predicament to another - any number of very funny situations could be built around a busy-body Mickey who has little time or patience for the laws and social rules imposed on human society. However, Disney's corporate emblem is constrained to represent all that is highest, noblest, and least interesting in life, so we will probably never see Mickey realize his potential as a comics character. Meanwhile, Donald can commit all manners of atrocity short of serial axe murders and the readers will love him precisely on account of his failure to fit in with the sedate world of perfect people. Wilmer Rivers rivers at seismo.css.gov From clawton at tfs.COM Wed May 12 00:44:13 1993 From: clawton at tfs.COM (Chris Lawton) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 15:44:13 -0700 Subject: of mice and ducks Message-ID: <9305112244.AA23083@mailsrv.tfs.com> >Chris Lawton writes: >> Anyway, my question is: what is about the Ducks that make them so much more >> popular than all the others? >> >> I think that it's 'cause they are a "gang" of similar characters. Whereas >> with Mickey, for example, is alone. (Well not really alone, but no "gang") >> >> Or is just the action of the Ducks? (i.e. Donald is really hyperactive in all >> his shorts where Mickey isn't so much) >> >I think part of the difference between Mickey and Donald (and the other >ducks) is in their visual appeal. David Gerstein makes the important >point that >> Also, the potency of Mickey as a merchandising image derives >> from the simplicity of the "classic" (best-selling) Mickey, that of >> the 1930s (or the 1940s one, as long as he only has short pants, >> gloves and shoes on). Later artists, particularly Murry and Moores, >> obliterated that by dressing Mickey to the nines in a smothering >> layout topped by a boring porkpie hat. >> >When you cover the mouse in "human" clothing from head to foot, there >isn't very much left to distinguish him from anybody else in comics. >None of the duck artists ever made that mistake. Since Mickey's ears >render his face rather rigid in comparison with the rubbery mugs most >other comics characters posess, it is especially important to use >Mickey's body language fully, and his average-man-in-the-street clothing >makes this difficult to do. Beyond the visual aspects, however, the >principal problem I have with really getting interested in Mickey is >that no one in his stories has any major character flaws that lead >them into comic situations. Well, O.K., Goofy is stupid, and Chief >O'Hara is amazingly incompetent, but it's still not the same as with >the inhabitants of Duckburg, where everyone has some trait that can >be counted on to lead to interesting plot developments. The ducks are >always getting into trouble because Donald is hot-tempered, Scrooge >is stingy, Gladstone shuns working for a living, Gus Goose shuns working >at all, Granny lives 50 years in the past, Gyro never sees any down-to- >earth practical approach to anything, the nephews are always up to >something, etc. Mickey doesn't have any real personal problems like >these, so whatever happens to him is just random (usually boring) >circumstance. He needs to have his stories evolve from his own person- >ality, and this won't happen so long as his writers are restrained to >keep him totally likeable. A mouse should be mischievous, scurrying >around from one self-created predicament to another - any number of >very funny situations could be built around a busy-body Mickey who has >little time or patience for the laws and social rules imposed on human >society. However, Disney's corporate emblem is constrained to represent >all that is highest, noblest, and least interesting in life, so we will >probably never see Mickey realize his potential as a comics character. >Meanwhile, Donald can commit all manners of atrocity short of serial >axe murders and the readers will love him precisely on account of his >failure to fit in with the sedate world of perfect people. >Wilmer Rivers >rivers at seismo.css.gov You're mentioning "all that is highest, noblest, and least interesting in life" is well understood. But wasn't that how Superman was supposed act, too? Superman has had PHENOMINAL succsess and longevity. (Even now he's "back from the grave") Of course, he has neat powers to make life interesting. (SuperMic? :) :) ) I think that those traits can make for intersting situations if the character in question is started in the right place. Put Mickey on the wrong side of the tracks and watch what happens to him and how he deals with the situation. Again another example: Star Trek's Federation. Lots of good guys with the best of intentions encountering lots of bad guys. Chris Mickey's #1 Fan! :) :) From rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com Tue May 11 15:44:00 1993 From: rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com (rich.bellacera@amail.amdahl.com) Date: Tuesday, 11 May 1993 15:44 PT Subject: o/~ Now it's time to say goodbye...o/~ Message-ID: Hi everyone. I'm sorry to say that I will be loosing my account by the end of this month. My company is having *another* lay-off and I'm slated to be released this time around. I will really miss this group. I've learned quite a lot about the past of Disney Comics and their masters (Carl, Don, Floyd, et al). Oh well. I'll maintain the e-mail address and maybe one day you'll hear from me again. Until the end of the month I'd like to maintain my membership, tho. > My name is Chris Lawton. I have lived in Pleasanton, CA (about 40 mile east > San Francisco or about 10 miles west of Lawrence Livermore Labratories) for > past 17 years. I'm now 25. Hi Chris. I live just a few miles from you (in San Jose) and pass by Pleasonton everytime I drive to my brother's house (in Dixon). So, Howdy neighbor. To the rest: Take care. I'll try to post one final time (at least) before I'm completely gone. -Rich From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 02:16:50 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 20:16:50 -0400 Subject: of mice and ducks Message-ID: <9305120016.AA27320@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, I've been reading your responses to my discussion of Mickey. What's important for me to stress is that in the BEST Gottfredson Mickey stories, the characters DO have more complex personalities. Let's start with Goofy, roundly criticized as "stupid." In "Mickey Mouse, Mighty Whale Hunter" (reprinted in Abbeville's GOOFY book, apparently complete and with about all of the original dialog, although relettered), Mickey is in one of Gottfredson's favorite situations. Having immobilized Peg-Leg Pete's harpoon, escaped Pete for the time being, and preparing to leave Pete's whaling ship (where he was taken after being kidnapped) for his own _Lady Daffodil_, Mickey suddenly realizes that there's no lifeboat to return in... he's stuck! (There's one of MICKEY's flaws right there; in his enthusiasm, he didn't check to see if his entire plan was feasible!) Suddenly, who should show up but GOOFY, who may not exactly know the best way of going about things but who had the guts to steal a lifeboat from the _Daffodil_ himself, escape in it, and find his way to the _Orca_ where Mickey was held captive. So who says Goofy's dumb NOW? Well, a moment later he realizes that he didn't keep track of HOW he found the Orca, and now he can't find his way BACK. There's Goofy at his best: he is always undercut by his mistakes, but when the situation requires it, he can figure out what to do. No matter that, as some animation historian put it, "he thinks longer and harder than most." He also has a deep sense of decency. Look at the last panel of "MM's Thanksgiving Dinner," a Gottfredson short story reprinted a year ago in WDC&S 567. Mickey, trying to kill a Thankgiving turkey, has been overcome by emotion, and when he knuckles under and has something else for dinner (giving the turkey some) Goofy gives him a perfect wry, indescribable _look_ that has some depth to it. It's hard for me to exactly describe what makes the picture different from a more typical one, but it's there. But now, of course, MICKEY. Mickey has real emotions and failings... plenty of them. You just have to know where to look. The story "Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island" (1932) has never been reprinted due to its cannibal caricatures (aside from one English reprint in Italy... see my list that I posted recently), but contains perhaps the most tearful moment of all Gottfredson's strips. Wrecked on an island after leaving Sylvester Shyster's ship via emergency raft, Mickey discovers the wreck of Minnie's ship, the _Potluck_, and assumes she has been killed. He spends an entire STRIP trying to get over it and control his sadness, and right in the middle of his lament he's grabbed from behind and captured! Who says Mickey's perfect? Like Donald, his emotions have rendered him blind to his dangerous situation. The 'deepest' Mickey story of all HAS been reprinted here, "Monarch of Medioka." It was Gladstone's most expensive album at $13.95, and I know few fans who got it. That is an awful loss, as it is unquestionably Gottfredson's finest story, in my opinion more so than "Sky Island" and "The Phantom Blot" (which seem to be the two other general contenders). I recommend that everyone, even Duck fans who haven't gotten Gottfredson comics in the past, try to find a copy of it, as it is undoubtedly one of the best comic strips ever done. (Redrawn version does exist [1950] but the original art is so unbelievably striking that it just doesn't get better than this.) It also contains very deep interpretations of Mickey and Minnie. Mickey, the essential double in appearance of King Michael XIV of Medioka, is taken there to function as a substitute while the king, a spendthrift, is given a paid vacation. The king refused to balance the budget which was long overdue, and the country, still halfway feudal in these modern days, is falling apart. So Mickey goes to work on it, but faces a peasant rebellion in which the serfs are being manipulated by demagogue Duke Varlott (who wants the throne himself). Varlott strides right into Mickey's throne room to tell him his plan: it's either the frying pan or the fire, because if he exposes Varlott, Varlott will expose _him_. And if he doesn't take action, Varlott will kill the real King Michael, who he's holding captive. Sitting sadly and quietly in the throne room, Mickey tries to find flaws in Varlott's plan and cannot. Where's our perfect thinker? He ISN'T one. Minnie, meanwhile, hears secondhand a news article about Michael's vacation (cut short, of course) in the US. In a very typical move for Minnie, she decides to round up Mickey and bring him home to face the music, since she assumes Mickey's spending the money the two of them won for finding a treasure in the previous continuity. Having met Michael just before the latter's kidnapping, she realizes Mickey is in Medioka, and goes with fire in her eye to the palace, where Mickey sits, a bird in a gilded cage. When Minnie enters, Mickey jubilantly falls into her arms. It is an emotional moment if you're involved with the story... and in this one, it's easy to be, even if you aren't usually a Mickey fan. Together, Minnie and Mickey paste together a difficult plan and manage to pull it off, but not before many nervous moments. Both Mickey and Minnie show bravery, but the strength of the story is that neither is in complete control; unlike the later dreary post-1945 stories, Mickey is far from dull and Minnie is not a compound of sit-com female stereotypes. (She DOES nag Mickey and try to 'improve' him at the beginning and end of the story -- but that, like Scrooge trying to teach Donald the value of being 'smarter than the smarties,' is a running theme in the MM stories.) "Monarch of Medioka," in its original form, is a wonderful experience for any Disney fan, and is proof that Mickey is not perfect and can be a fantastic character when shaped right. That is where Murry, and everyone else after Gottfredson, went wrong. Mickey is NOT perfect. He IS more competent than Donald. If Donald fans ONLY want characters with personalities just like Donald's, though, life would be dull. Unfortunately, with the post-Gottfredson Mickey (EXCEPT for Romano Scarpa's, but those have hardly seen print over here) life IS dull. I'm not disagreeing with that for an instant. But the REAL Mickey is a fine character. I am now working for Egmont (was Gutenberghus) in Denmark, on original stories. For the time being, since beginners are meant to do short stories in general, I'll be doing Duck material (starting with an Uncle Scrooge which I sold two months ago), but when I do Mickeys, they will be bona-fide Mickeys with a character who Barks fans can appreciate. I am going to try to come to a compromise between Gottfredson and Barks for my story style when that happens, as well. I want to get Mickey into more emotionally interesting situations, and I'll do my best to. I'm also going to try to specify that my stories, when I do them, be drawn by artists who normally do the Ducks, and that Mickey be drawn in the 1940s style. According to Bob Foster, the Danes may be doing just that type of story in the not-too-distant future as a regular format. If Barks fans tried to get more of a handle on Gottfredson, they would really like him. I'd say that fewer Gottfredson stories deal with very deep angles than Barks' do, but _they're out there._ I'll give a few titles (some not available in English, but who knows what will happen?): "Mr Slicker and the Egg Robbers", in which a despondent Mickey tries to commit suicide but subconsciously is set against it... this in 1930, no less!; "Blaggard Castle", in which Mickey is a very impulsive character and in which Horace Horsecollar is seen with more depth than usual; "The Captive Castaways," "MM in the Foreign Legion" (Abbeville's may be slightly censored, but is pretty complete), in which Mickey struggles with his conscience and determines Pete's fate when the tables are turned several times, "The Miracle Master," a pessimistic story in the Barks tradition as Mickey finds that his impulse to enthusiastic helpfulness leads him to desolation and loose ends in a brilliantly curdled tale"... and the list goes on. Well, I have to be off. I have a paper to write, and it's not about Gottfredson. But I again encourage every Duck fan to try one of the Gottfredsons I've discussed, and see what you think. They're strip stories, so they take a while to get going past the gags toward the beginning in most cases, but they're good... honest, Barks fans, they're good! Sincerely, David Gerstein. "Psychology, my dear, and propaganda... today's modern weapons!" -- Minnie Mouse via FG, "MM Super Salesman" (1941) [I DO NOT recommend Dell's 1948 reprint of this, which cuts about 2/3 of the strips out of the story. It makes little sense. Sadly, I haven't seen the original.] From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 02:25:35 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 20:25:35 -0400 Subject: P. S. Message-ID: <9305120025.AA27630@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> As for uninteresting-Mickey vs. uninteresting-Superman: Superman has VIOLENCE, which sold in the 1940s just as it does now, only now they're less covert about it. Mickey has some violence, but not really more than the Ducks and besides, it's comic violence usually (outside of the Blot). Mickey isn't KNOWN for it. And as far as I'm concerned, thank goodness he ISN'T. In the Disney Comics MMA series, they tried to do superhero-like stories with Mickey, using a VERY dull version of Mickey without any enthusiasm whatsoever, and since they couldn't really show anything ROUGH happening, the stories were just long chases. *Yawn.* Is it any wonder THEY failed? If Mickey Mouse was really known for violence, he'd sell, trust me. But what an awful thing to happen to Mickey. Gottfredson's stories often have long, slapstick battles with a threatening edge to them (i. e. "Island in the Sky," "In Search of Jungle Treasure"), but those are by no means all the stories offer. Of course, Murry's cops-and-robbers kick offers very few things that are even remotely exciting after, say, his first five years of stories. (And even in those, Mickey is no real personality.) Violent or not. But who wants a punch in the jaw when you can use your head? Your friend, David Gerstein "I've got him so mad he can't THINK! And when ya stop THINKIN'... you're half licked!" -- Mickey Mouse via FG, "Island in the Sky" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 04:34:31 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 22:34:31 -0400 Subject: More on Mickey... Message-ID: <9305120234.AA02758@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Just reread the "of mice and ducks" arguments and I noticed that someone challenged me to come up with stories in which Mickey's personality sets the story moving. A few examples: 1931 "MM vs. Kat Nipp" Mickey hears of the town bully Katt Nipp, decides that his ugly shack on the wrong side of the tracks would be better as a playground for kids and decides to singlehandedly cause Nipp's downfall. 1931 "MM Circus Roustabout" (in this month's WDC&S I might add) Mickey's attempts to sneak into a circus without pay cause him to accidentally acquire a job. His desire to make good then accidentally traps him in a power struggle between the Skeleton Man and his boss. 1931 "MM Boxing Champion" Mickey starts a rivalry right away with Minnie's cousin Ruffhouse, the boxer, by assuming he's a rival suitor and socking him down unprovoked. This sets up a showdown between the two, and when Mickey wins, Ruffhouse realizes Mickey's got something he doesn't have and he'd better learn from him. Thus, Mickey becomes his trainer. 1933 "The Mail Pilot" Mickey, defying Minnie's wish that he get a normal job, decides to become a mail pilot and aggressively works at mastering the craft of plane-flying until he's a success. And then the intrigue begins... 1939 "The Miracle Master" Mickey hopes to show up Minnie's antique-collecting mania, so after a Barks-like succession of schemes-that-build, he finally accidentally encounters a genuine magic lamp, and the story takes off. Mickey's personality has set up the whole plot. 1938 "Mighty Whale Hunter" Mickey (again!) exuberantly defies Minnie by signing on a whaling ship in search of adventure. Then his personality plays an integral function in the plot when his sympathy for whales and condemnation of whaling (in 1938!) set him against the others in the crew, eventually framing him for wrecking the ship's engines. 1942 "MM Working to Win" After seeing that Percy Pig has a job in a war plant, Mickey decides to get one, too, then his old-fashioned outlook comes into conflict with the women who work at the plant, all of whom are better than him. 1946 "MM as Billy the Mouse" At his cousin Carrie's ranch, Mickey decides to go undercover disguised as a bandit, but fails to plan a method of subterfuge beforehand. Thus, his nervous attempts at impersonation throw him into wild and unpredictable situations. Those are just a few of the plots spawned directly FROM Mickey. A few others ("The Crazy Crime Wave," "Island in the Sky," "Goofy and Agnes") are spawned by Goofy's personality; if you think Goofy's personality is simple stupidity, that last story is particularly enlightening. I'm not denying that Gottfredson obviously loved the situation of "Mickey getting sucked into an adventure against his will or completely as a surprise". The same, albeit less frequently, is a staple of Barks' stuff: for example, "Frozen Gold" (Donald really DOESN'T want to get into that adventure!), "Adventure Down Under" (Donald's hypnotized condition is no relation to his real personality, and it could have happened to anyone!), "DD and the Titanic Ants," "Queen of the Wild Dog Pack," (Scrooge just finds something's wrong and goes after it as a matter of business!) etc. I'd really like to rewrite the "hoozoo" on Mickey. It seems completely derived from the post-Gottfredson mouse, as epitomized by the words "nice guy," denoting someone inneffectual and boring. Words to describe Mickey are "enthusiastic," "overzealous," "emotional," "aggressive," "scheming" and even "chauvinistic" after a fashion (Mickey often makes some crack about 'women' after a conflict with Minnie, and is inevitably shown in the same daily to have the same problem he's condemning! "The Miracle Master"'s first strip is the best example of this). And how about 'conceited'? Mickey all too often, particularly in the early stories, leaps before he looks. The negative opinion so many Barks fans have of Mickey is, I see now, almost entirely due to the prominence of Paul Murry's Mouse, which just can't compete with Barks' Ducks. Does Gladstone know about this? Maybe they ought to think about whether or not they really want to have more recent artists in _Donald and Mickey_ or JUST Gottfredson and Scarpa in both D&M _and_ WDC&S! (Okay, I mean Murry's AND Bradbury's AND Moores'. Not to slight individual talent, just their attitudes toward MICKEY.) Again: Barks Fans, Gottfredson is No Murry! There's More to Mickey than you Think... Your friend, David Gerstein "The only way to get ahead of Mickey Mouse is to run in front of him!" -- Mickey via WD, "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 04:58:06 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Tue, 11 May 93 22:58:06 -0400 Subject: Continuity In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 11 May 93 15:01:32 BST Message-ID: <9305120258.AA03407@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, One interesting thing about "The Magic Box" (which I have not seen) is that it was originally planned and contracted for Disney. The later Van Horn stories Disney published were quite out of the order they were done in, and "Magica's Missin' Magic" (as it was then called) was to have been the backup in DiDDA #17. However, an earlier-made story, "Kid Stuff," was substituted for it there, and indeed Disney never did get around to buying the former story because of the decree that their number of purchased original stories was to be slashed. It would have been the next one bought (and from the looks of things at the time, might have been put in DDA 22, where presumably "Kid Stuff" was originally meant to appear). Or so Bob Foster told me once. The interesting thing about Baron Itzy Bitzy, the whistling flea, (that's his real name, although it could be "Baron _Von_") is that "The Whistling Ghost" in DT 10 is not his first appearance. Earlier on he appeared in the four-page story, "Lost on a Dog," which was in a Gladstone US issue! It looks like this character is Van Horn's attempt at a continuing character, a pet of the Ducks... and a most bizarre one, since he doesn't have any real characteristics other than singing and biting. The solicitations for the third month of Disneys mention a new Van Horn entitled "Out of Harmony's Way." Is this original for Gladstone, or also European? Your friend, David Gerstein From mamcconnell at happy Wed May 12 05:43:26 1993 From: mamcconnell at happy (Mark McConnell (MacBear)) Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 21:43:26 MDT Subject: Mickey stories Message-ID: <0096C5CD.C50057E0.10377@happy.uccs.edu> Now that we seem to have a few resident mouse experts on this list-- does anyone remember an adventure with Mickey in Lostralia? I read this story in the early '70s and don't even know what it was called. It was probably a reprint, but the story was great. Lostralia is the place where you lost socks go during washing, where lost change goes... You get the picture. I tend to go with the premise that the duck adventures work better because of familiarity of characters. Most of the characters are ducks, while the rest are somewhat related birds. Nothing to lend to confusion. Of course, greater characterization didn't hurt. Mark From torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Wed May 12 06:06:10 1993 From: torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu (Torsten Wesley Adair) Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 23:06:10 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Digest #16 In-Reply-To: <930511142601_72260.2635_EHK12-2@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: On 11 May 1993, Don Rosa wrote: > COMMENTS ON DIGEST # whateveritwas: > And I imagine those Dan Jippes/Carl Barks JW remakes will be used by > Gladstone. Why not? Every Disney comic book story ever done anywhere on > the planet is available to them for their use at the same price... free. You mean I could move to some second world country where Disney comics aren't published, get a license from Disney, and print Disney Comics? Seriously, what does a Disney license cost? What's keeping some entrepreneur from moving to some unknown country, and publishing Disney material in such perfect form that these publications are sought after like the Disney postage stamps? (I guess Another Rainbow is doing this already, huh?) I assume that if creator X sets up his own Disney license, the only renumeration he would get would be from the sale of his publications. I wonder if there is any "gentleman's agreement" between creators that creators will not use another person's creation without first asking. Sure, there is no legal argument here, as Disney owns the trademark and copyright, but I still wonder. Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA From torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Wed May 12 06:46:07 1993 From: torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu (Torsten Wesley Adair) Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 23:46:07 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Various replies In-Reply-To: <9305112145.AA20143@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 May 1993, Per Starback wrote: > It wasn't me who thought there was anything strange about that. I > didn't the shrink ray thing in Van Horn's story was strange either, as > I don't know much about how those things work anyway. How would I > know if the carpet fibers ought to have become enlarged as well? Torsten here. Having spent too much time reading Marvel Comics, and trying to figure out how Spider-Man can stick to walls, I tend to question science fiction when it appears in comic books. I guess my Suspension of Disbelief needs to be loosened. > Chris Lawton: > > This is my first post to the comic mailing list so I'll take a moment to > > introduce myself. > Good move! Maybe that is something we all ought to do? Ahem. My name is Torsten Adair. I am a library science student who hopes to infiltrate libraries from the inside, and thus expose a greater number of the American populace to the wonders and excitement of reading comic books. I am 23 years old, and I once read the Dell/Western/Gold Key Disneys as a child. I started collecting comic books in 1984, and bought the early Gladstones. While not a devout Disney Comics collector, I do enjoy the stories, and I find them a nice balance to the more heavier Cerebus and Sandman. My mother comes from Hanover, Germany, which explains how an American like myself got such a non-American name. I have two questions: What other Disney Comics stories (outside of the Ducks) should I look at? Any other artists/writers? Any opinions on Disney Showcase? I vaguely recall a Donald Duck story involving DD buying a lot of plants for his garden? I am certain it was Barks. Did anyone besides Barks do DD/US stories for Dell? Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Wed May 12 15:53:42 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 12 May 93 09:53:42 EDT Subject: Digest #17 Message-ID: <930512135342_72260.2635_EHK21-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #17: First off, was that index the last thing in that digest? We have an approaching thunderstorm, and interference kept tossing the digest off my screen and It( had to recall it a half dozen times. Finally I just didn't bother. And as for that index and looong digests: yes, since it's already costing ME too much to read through this stuff, please don't put such things in digests. (I think there's lotsa noise in this message, eh?) Someone said that Jippes' JW stories have not been used outside Holland. Egmont has used at least one or two. I still feel sure that anyone who does not object strongly to the mixing of the DUCKTALES and the BARKS universes must obviously have come to Barks via DuckTales, or they would never wish to permit such a heinous crime! I objected strongly to the DT story that made references to old BARKS comics rather than old DT episodes. To my way of thinking, that was preposterous and insulting! NOISE! And I have no reason to ever do a Launchpad solo story. Whatever for?f* From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Wed May 12 18:03:35 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 17:03:35 +0100 Subject: Van Horn and David Gerstein... Message-ID: <930512170335.0000188f.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> David Gerstein wrote: > I am now working for Egmont (was Gutenberghus) in Denmark, on >original stories. For the time being, since beginners are meant to do >short stories in general, I'll be doing Duck material (starting with >an Uncle Scrooge which I sold two months ago), but when I do Mickeys, >they will be bona-fide Mickeys with a character who Barks fans can >appreciate. I am going to try to come to a compromise between >Gottfredson and Barks for my story style when that happens, as well. >I want to get Mickey into more emotionally interesting situations, and >I'll do my best to. That's very interesting! Would you care to give us titles, codes and (if possible) details of when and where they will be printed for the stories you do? And another thing about the continuity between Van Horn's DT and other Duck stories: The only thing about his DT works (those that I've seen) that makes them different from any U$ is that Launchpad McQuack appears in the place of Donald. A frien of mine even read "Sky-High High-Jinx" without realizing that it was a Duck Tales! When questioned about the matter, he was absolutely certain that he had seen Donald in the comic. /Fredrik Ekman ___________________________ ______| |______ \ | In Donaldismo Veritas | / > |___________________________| < /______\| |/______\ From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Wed May 12 17:51:48 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 17:51:48 +0200 Subject: Replies Message-ID: <9305121551.AA19251@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Torsten: > Did anyone besides Barks do DD/US stories for Dell? Many have done Donald, like Jack Bradbury, Dick Moores, Phil de Lara, Tony Strobl and Paul Murry. Gladstone reprinted some of those stories, mostly in their small-size digests, but usually not particularly good stories. There are some great non-Barks stories though, but I guess they didn't know where to find them and only saw the non-Barks ducks as fillers they didn't care particularly much about. Scrooge, being Barks's creation, wasn't used much by other artists at that time though, Strobl being the main exception. Don: > First off, was that index the last thing in that digest? (...) There is a listing of the contents at the head of every digest. The messages after the Gottfredson list were: : David A Gerstein Rosa Norwegian story : Chris Lawton Why is Mickey ... ? : Per Starback Various replies : Wilmer Rivers of mice and ducks so evidently you skipped four messages. > And as for that index and looong digests: yes, since it's already > costing ME too much to read through this stuff, please don't put such > things in digests. Maybe I will abstain from posting indexes and other reference material to the list, and just give a pointer to where they can be found at the archive. But I will never act as a censor and put just some messages in the digests and ditch others. The only exceptions I've made are a duplicated message and messages really meant for disney-comics-request, as their authors didn't *mean* to send them to the list. Yes, some digests get big, but that's the purpose of a digest form of the list, isn't it?: Fewer but bigger messages. Almost all subscribers still get the list one message at a time as they are sent out. If the cost is a problem I still think you ought to get net access some other way. I've already sent you a pointer to somewhere in Louisville you can get net access for probably much less than Compu$erve charges. > Someone said that Jippes' JW stories have not been used outside > Holland. Egmont has used at least one or two. Are you sure? I know that Stefan has translated a couple of them, but I don't think they are printed yet. He works about half a year before publication I think. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From rivers at beno.CSS.GOV Wed May 12 18:20:32 1993 From: rivers at beno.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:20:32 EDT Subject: Strobl et al. stories Message-ID: <9305121620.AA00512@beno.CSS.GOV> Torsten: > Did anyone besides Barks do DD/US stories for Dell? Per: > Many have done Donald, like Jack Bradbury, Dick Moores, Phil de Lara, > Tony Strobl and Paul Murry. Gladstone reprinted some of those > stories, mostly in their small-size digests, but usually not > particularly good stories. There are some great non-Barks stories > though I'll throw this one out to the group: what are your favorite stories by those authors? My favorite is perhaps Donald in Mathemagic Land, since I read it at an early age before I had encountered many of those topics in school. I suspect many other people on the net were first introduced to mathematical concepts via that comic! (Of course, my favorite duck story of all time was Barks' Land Beneath the Ground, and now I am a seismologist. I wonder whether there's any connection?) Wilmer Rivers rivers at seismo.css.gov (the Internet gateway to the Terries and Fermies!) From gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu Wed May 12 19:17:08 1993 From: gilbert at unix.campbellsvil.edu (Gilbert Milburn) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 13:17:08 EDT Subject: Don, Launchpad & other stuff! Message-ID: <9305121717.AA11247@unix.campbellsvil.edu> "I'm bbaaaackk!......." A few li'l impetuous remarks... > Date: 10 May 93 10:36:56 EDT > From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM> > Subject: Re: Digest #15 > COMMENTS ON #15: > I see now that my previous long message was NOT included in > the last digest. Does that mean it never came through? And why > not? I still have the "returned" message -- is there a way to > re-send it? Per (& Don!) I think I have an idea -- as to what happen here... when I came in to check my messages today, I noticed that Don's CompuServe account-address (72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM) was missing from one of my digest headers!.. If I understand correctly when you (Per) send out the digest you put a line in the header that says something to the effect of: "To: (a list of electronic-mail- addresses...)" and this what distributes the mail to everyone on the digest; to his/her respective mail-boxes (it's that right?). If this is the case Don is missing one of the D.C.D. (Disney- comics-digests) that you recently sent out! Well, enough about that... Also, Fredrik Ekman recently cited a comment made by Don on: Mon, 10 May 93 10:29:10 EDT... > Date: Tue, 11 May 93 15:01:32 +0100 > From: Fredrik Ekman > Subject: Continuity >Don Rosa: >>Someone asked if I'd ever use Launchpad, even as a gag background >>character. Sure, I'd do that, since I like the guy. BUT I don't >>think I'd better since readers would see that use as my >>acknowledging the coexistence of the DuckTales characters in my >>Duck universe. So I'd better leave them alone. (*The "someone" was me Don!*) Fredrik then went on to say... >And if Mr. Rosa doesn't want to mess up his normal universe with >DT characters, then what about making a Launchpad McQuack solo >adventure? To my knowledge, this has only been done in one-pagers >before. Then, theoretically, there needn't be any question at all >as to which universe he belongs to at the time. I *really like* this suggestion!... =P So, how about it Don?!.. you could do a little one page gag (like: "The Paper Chase") or a 10/12-pager, featuring Launchpad McQuack in his own wee-little (solo) adventure -- say for: "WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES" (in an issue in which none of your other stories appear in!.. of course!!!). You can even attach a *BIG* disclaimer as an epilogue(sp?)... "This story in NO way, shape or form has any connection between the DuckTales t.v. show and the "normal" Duck universe or to any Duckburg characters for that matter, namely... $crooge! This story was only done for the pure fun of it!" (or something to this effect) See how it goes-over -- who knows, YOU could do for: Launchpad what Barks did for: Donald, Uncle $crooge and the boys!! =) =D Gil Milburn P.S. Don, tell Doug Adams (of Comicbook World -- not to be confused with the Hitchhiker-fellow!) that I said "HELLO" when he stop in to help you move your @?#%$*! this weekend!  From clawton at tfs.COM Wed May 12 19:57:45 1993 From: clawton at tfs.COM (Chris Lawton) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 10:57:45 -0700 Subject: More on Mickey... Message-ID: <9305121757.AA09840@mailsrv.tfs.com> Hi! Torsten Adair wrote the following about my questions about Mickey; >Well, first of all, there is the design aspect. Donald is more malleable >than Mickey. DD's bill can be sculpted in a variety of ways, and his face >is more expressive than Mickey's. > >Second, DD has had a better creator than MM. Carl Barks produced a wide >variety of work that was seen consistently in comic books. MM, who was >best mastered by Floyd Gottfredson (sp?) did not receive as great a >distribution. The stories that were printed in comic books were pretty >lackluster, and did not contain any of the wonderful background elements >found in Barks' work. > >Third, there is the characterization. MM is a wimp. Plain and simple. >(Pegleg) (Black) Bad Pete could rape Minnie Mouse in front of MM, and MM >wouldn't do a thing. MM would probably give his high pitched nervous >laugh and turn away. DD, on the other hand, shows emotion. He is a nice >guy, until he gets angry. He encounters everyday trials that most of us >face. He is more real. > >Fourth, you can't belong to this list unless you hate Mickey Mouse. |) > >Fifth, the sad truth is that MM underwent a lobotomy in the early Forties, >shortly before "The Sorceror's Apprentice" was filmed. This explains the >redesign MM underwent before Fantasia. Points one and two are well taken. However, three, four and five... About point Three... I CANNOT believe that MM would ever sit by and do nothing when it comes to Minnie. Or Pluto or Goofy or Donald... It's just not his style. He's too good to let something that bad happen and not get involved. (yes, this could be a flaw) I think that MM shows this well in the 1990 (?) short The Prince and the Pauper. MM does get invloved. I think that Mickey as portrayed there could do well in comics. About point Four... sniff :( Well, I still think he's the best. Somebody you could count on! And I'll still be around here cause I think that people that love Disney are nice people to know! :) Point Five...Oh sick! :) The post Fantasia Mickey is a much better Mickey cause he can have better facial expressions. The "Steamboat Willie" (aka The Rubber Hose ) Mickey didn't have much to work with. Personally, I really like the Modern Mickey Mouse. >Torsten Adair torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu Omaha, NE, USA >(Please don't ruin my credit rating.) |) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Well.... OK. Actually, we make Image Systems here in this division. Ever see an American Express Credit Card statement? We did it! Chris Mickey's #1 Fan!! :) From clawton at tfs.COM Wed May 12 19:59:09 1993 From: clawton at tfs.COM (Chris Lawton) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 10:59:09 -0700 Subject: Questions... Message-ID: <9305121759.AA09935@mailsrv.tfs.com> Hi folks, A couple questions about this mailing list: (I'm new to mailing-lists and to comic book collecting) Is there some sort of FAQ for this group? What's a DIGEST? Thanks! Chris Mickey's #1 Fan! :) From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Wed May 12 20:59:25 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 20:59:25 +0200 Subject: General stuff about the list In-Reply-To: Gilbert Milburn's message of Wed, 12 May 93 13:17:08 EDT <9305121717.AA11247@unix.campbellsvil.edu> Message-ID: <9305121859.AA22374@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> (Sorry, nothing on Disney comics per se in this message.) Gilbert> Per (& Don!) I think I have an idea -- as to what happen here... No, I know what the problem was and it's fixed. I didn't forget to send that message to Don btw. I sent it to him separately from the other digest subscribers, as I had a small note to Don that I prepended to it. I do it that way instead of sending him an extra message, as he has to pay Compu$erve for every message he receives from the Internet. Chris> Is there some sort of FAQ for this group? The ftp archive at pub/comics/disney at ftp.lysator.liu.se is where I store informational files like comic book indexes and other stuff. There is no specific FAQ file there though. (FAQ is short for Frequently Asked Question, for those who don't know, or, by extension, a file containing such questions with answers.) That archive is mentioned in the welcome message to the list, but maybe I should say more about it there, maybe even list what files are there? Only I can put files there, but of course I'm open to suggestion as to what should go there. Sometimes I've been very inconsistent as it depends much on how much time I have to put on the list myself just when something that maybe should be archived is posted. Please tell me if you miss something there. I think my ideal is that the files there after a while will form a coherent collection of information, be it frequently or not so frequently asked for. Then if I'd like to know who is who of Huey, Dewey and Louie (as an example) I'd look for a file huey-dewey-louie in the characters subdirectory, if I'd like to know more about the Life of Scrooge series I'd look at a file don-rosa in a directory creators or something like that. Or maybe we should instead (also?) have a normal big FAQ file which answers (as well as we can) such questions? What FAQ's are there anyway? Chris> What's a DIGEST? It's possible to subscribe to this list in digest form instead. It's digest in the sense "collection of writings arranged under headings" (Webster), and is simply all the messages from a day collected together in one message. I number those digests, but those numbers are of course never seen by you "normal" subscribers who get the individual messages. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com Wed May 12 12:23:00 1993 From: rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com (rich.bellacera@amail.amdahl.com) Date: Wednesday, 12 May 1993 12:23 PT Subject: General stuff about the list In-Reply-To: The letter of Wednesday, 12 May 1993 12:10 PT Message-ID: Per: > What FAQ's are there anyway? Some I can think of, off-hand, concern the color arangements of HD&L, Grandma Duck's name and relationship to other characters (actually this probably fits many characters). Are Donald & Daisy related? Are Mickey & Minnie *really* married? Where is Duckburg (in the real world) and what city does it represent? Do Mickey & Donald exist in the same universe? Are "Ducktale" storys cannonical? Why is Donald & Uncle $crooge popular and Mickey is not? What relationship or business agreements did/do Disney, Gladstone, Western, Dell, and Gold Key have? What titles are/were published? What is the difference between the different comicbook markets around the world which carry Disney titles? Who is Carl Barks, Don Rosa, Floyd Gottfriedson, etc.? Hmmmm. I know there's more, but this would be a good start as some of these questions have indeed been asked and someone could make a list in some way tha would be helpful. Are there any more? I hope this isn't presumptous of me to ask these questions? THanks Rich From clawton at tfs.COM Wed May 12 21:37:45 1993 From: clawton at tfs.COM (Chris Lawton) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:37:45 -0700 Subject: General stuff about the list Message-ID: <9305121937.AA12053@mailsrv.tfs.com> Great questions!! I, for one, would love to see them answered. Maybe some of the controversial ones like "Why is Mickey less popular than ..." could be in the form of other questions to get people thinking. Chris Mickey's #1 Fan!! :) From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 22:26:25 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 16:26:25 -0400 Subject: "Lostralia" Message-ID: <9305122026.AA27191@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> The story about Mickey in Lostralia makes me think of the old "Mary Jane and Sniffles" stories in _Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies_, not Mickey. I know nothing about the story, but it certainly wasn't Gottfredson. Given the plot, which sounds humorous but like the kind of thing Gottfredson's Mickey would NEVER be caught in, it's probably by a 1970s Whitman author. I believe it's overexposure to this type of non-Gottfredson, non-realistic story that has so many Barks fans unwilling to give FG a chance now. (I'm sorry to knock the "Lostralia" story, but it just doesn't seem right somehow.) Also: The Ducks are not surrounded by other birds, it's just that their own "gang" is made up of them: Scrooge, Donald, the boys, Daisy, her nieces, Gladstone, Gyro, Grandma, Gus and Clara (who, by the way, is in a lot of MM cartoons c. 1935 which it seems that hardly any modern Disney colorist has seen, since reprints of the Barks stories containing her seldom color her consistently or correctly). Aside from these characters, ducks, chickens and geese are a minority beside dogs and pigs in Duckburg, of whom there are far more. Especially dogs. There are occasional rodents and apes, but they're VERY rare. Cats aren't so rare, but are more of a minority. The cross-species layout of Gottfredson's "gang" is due to how at the beginning of the strip, the characters all lived and worked on Minnie's father's farm, and were an ASSORTMENT of barnyard animals, not just one specific type. This is also due to how the Duck characters (except chickens) tend to be related, while Mickey and his companions are not. The Gottfredson universe seems to use basically similar ratios of species (dogs being the majority) to Duckburg. The only real difference is that anthropomorphic goats occasionally appear. (Horace and Clarabelle seem to be the ONLY horse and cow in Mickey's town... and besides, Barks used them in his Daisy stories.) (The very early Gottfredson stories show GIRAFFES as one of the standard type of humanized animals roaming the city. Even as a die-hard FG buff, I'm glad this was dropped.) As for whether Mickey exists in Donald's world: he most certainly does. The most telling reference is the Barks story in WDC 85 ("Sales Resistance") in which Donald plugs up his door buzzer so that salesmen can't bother him while he sleeps. Yet he unplugs it guiltily later, worried that "Daisy or _Mickey_ or somebody I know" could come by and not reach him. Of course, before Donald got his own daily strip, he frequently appeared in the Gottfredson strip. What's more, the earlier Taliaferro strips often used Goofy, Mickey's nephews or Pluto as foils for Donald. Barks never portrayed Mickey in person in a Duck story because he thought he wasn't supposed to. It looks like Don Rosa will never do a MM story... but how about William van Horn? He could start off by inking a story from Barks' elaborate storyboard pencils for his self-done, unproduced Mickey _cartoon_, "MM of the Northwest Mounted". He obviously draws a pretty good Mickey. [Of course, Don, if you like this idea, I'm all for you!] Well, I've gotta go. Again, I'm saddened to see so many Barks buffs who have seen Murry's Mouse, think they know what Mickey's really like, and dismiss Gottfredson's stories after not giving them much attention, feeling all Mice are equal, that for some reason mouse fans like Gottfredson more, but that they'll never know why. I love Barks' work tremendously, but also Gottfredson's. Your friend, David Gerstein From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 22:42:24 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 16:42:24 -0400 Subject: My Egmont stories Message-ID: <9305122042.AA27762@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Folks: My first Egmont story, "Two in One" (which pits Uncle Scrooge against Magica de Spell), has not been drawn yet, so is not officially "finished". (I won't be doing the artwork; I am a cartoonist but not very experienced with the Ducks as yet.) It won't be published for near a year after that. So I think we'll see it probably sometime in the summer or fall of 1994. I'll be doing a whole lot of stories for them over this summer, so there may be a break between publication of "Two in One" and the succeeding stories, but when those start they ought to be more frequent. I sold three dialogs for Daniel Branca and Fred Milton stories to Disney last year, but they were not printed before the shutdown. Gladstone's John Clark plans to print them, and I'll tell you about a schedule when one is made known to me. To another recent discussion: Please, fellow Barks fans, Paul Murry's Mickey may be boring to you, but he isn't the same as Gottfredson's version. Take a look at "Sky Island" in WDC&S 582-583, and you'll see just what I mean. Do you think that (to quote a recent example) this Mickey would stand by while Pete raped Minnie? (That is such an unpleasant thought that I really don't even like to write about it. Villain that Pete was, he didn't champion the one night stand; in fact, he wanted to marry Minnie and retire from his life of crime amid "twitterin' boidies" in 1934's _Captive Castaways_.) Please send your opinions of Mickey to Gladstone, folks. Be constructive: say just what you've said here about what you think is wrong with Mickey, and I'm sure they'll take it to heart. I don't think they realize just what a lot of you think of the more prominent "comic-book" Mouse (that's a good term for the Moores/Murry Mickey, don't you think? Gottfredson's wasn't originally for comic books). That will also influence their choices of MM material. (Please don't just say that all Mickey stories are bad, folks! >From what you write, it sounds like you haven't given Gottfredson enough of a chance.) Your friend, David Gerstein. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 23:11:15 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 17:11:15 -0400 Subject: Barks' "Have Gun, Will Dance" Message-ID: <9305122111.AA28881@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Just so we know that Barks isn't perfect, I'll bring up "Have Gun, Will Dance," which was published recently in DiDDA 38. If the Brutopian spy at the "Quintagon" had mailed his fellow spies the plans to the laser gun, why did they need to steal more of the guns for their revolution? Wasn't the goal to get the plans so they could make the guns themselves? If the ray gun offered by Oatie Floaties was just a model, then why was it shooting a ray at all? If the gun was made by the official plans and they ACCIDENTALLY installed the ray device at the cereal company, then why wasn't the ray's effect like that of the ray in the real gun? And how did the spies, just in from Brutopia, suddenly acquire an Oatie Floatie gun themselves? Wouldn't that take THEM eons of cereal-eating, too? And what about the time it would take to mail the things? Compared to Van Horn's "A Small Matter," THIS story was bursting with flaws. I have never seen another Barks story with mistakes in it like this one had. Your friend, David Gerstein "This thing's as heavy as an old maid's heart = I can't budge it!" -- Gottfredson, "Mickey Mouse, Circus Roustabout" From rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com Wed May 12 14:25:00 1993 From: rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com (rich.bellacera@amail.amdahl.com) Date: Wednesday, 12 May 1993 14:25 PT Subject: General stuff about the list In-Reply-To: The letter of Wednesday, 12 May 1993 12:46 PT Message-ID: Actually some other questions that could be answered in a general FAQ, some of which were covered previously in the Mailing List. Such as What is the origin of Disney's Marsupilami cartoon character? What other comics does Disney produce (i.e. reprints of ASTERIX, etc.)? What is the purpose of Disney's new Hollywood Comics line (which recently published the "Dinosaurs" softback comics based on the animatronics TV series of the same name from Disney/Touchstone)? How do the old '30s thru '60s Disney cartoons and the Disney Afternoon (as well as other DTA {Disney Television Animation}) relate to the current and past comics? Why do all of the character s have only "nephews" and "nieces" as oppose to "sons" and "daughters" (with the possible exception of Goofy & Pete's sons Goofy Jr. and Pete Jr.)? I'm sure there are other good questions based on postings since this list began. Thanx. -Rich From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Wed May 12 23:46:33 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 17:46:33 -0400 Subject: General stuff about the list In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 12 May 93 14:25:00 +0700 Message-ID: <9305122146.AA29528@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Rich, As for Goofy and Pete having sons, it has been made very clear that the "Goop Troop" situation is a ROLE played by 'Goofy the actor.' How else could they make it work? I refer you to _Goofy Adventures_ #17, which describes the -- then upcoming -- series from 'Goofy's own words' (actually, I think Cody Weiss stood in for him!). The DuckTales plotline allegedly takes place AFTER the classic Barks stories, although something's wrong because they rework (only occasionally very well) many Barks stories in the series. The story "Coffee, Louie or Me" (US 257) inaugurates the 'post-DuckTales' era by featuring Donald in his normal role referring to his stint in the Navy as being over. (That story, however, shouldn't really be accepted as canon as it is AWFUL.) DuckTales didn't really do a very good job of covering up the fact that what they really needed was Donald. Launchpad wasn't really as much of a substitute for Donald as a lot of people paint him to be (no temper, obvious daredevil attitude vs. Donald's cowardice, etc.), so he couldn't completely fill Donald's role, though he provided some fine pieces of comedy. Unfortunately, Fenton Crackshell in the second-season episodes was all too obviously an attempt to mimic Donald, and his grating voice and _superhero secret identity_ (!) didn't succeed in covering that up (although they certainly made him more unpleasant). Also, although unlike some people I can accept Launchpad as an addition to the Barks universe when handled right, I cannot accept Bubba Duck or Gizmo Duck as being part of Barks' semi-realistic Duckburg. I also don't like the ruby dome on top of Scrooge's bin topped with a gold $ sign: do you really think Scrooge would pay for such "consarned _extravagance_"? Howlin' crashwagons, do you think he's made of money? Your friend, David Gerstein "I ought to know.. I'm the guy that _makes_ them rare!" -- Scrooge via Barks, WDC&S 130 (I believe) From rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com Wed May 12 15:36:00 1993 From: rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com (rich.bellacera@amail.amdahl.com) Date: Wednesday, 12 May 1993 15:36 PT Subject: General Stuff about the list Message-ID: > From: david.a.gerstein at juts > As for Goofy and Pete having sons, it has been made very clear > that the "Goop Troop" situation is a ROLE played by 'Goofy the actor.' > How else could they make it work? I refer you to _Goofy Adventures_ > #17, which describes the -- then upcoming -- series from 'Goofy's own > words' (actually, I think Cody Weiss stood in for him!). Actually, I was really referring to the old Disney Cartoons which featured Goofy & Pete's respective sons, as well as the DA "Goof Troop" series, of course in the DA series Pete has a daughter too (Pistol). The cartoon shorts which featured Pete Jr. were pre-Disney Afternoon and were called something like "Canvas Back Duck" (featuring Donald vs. Pete in a boxing match while HD&L were harassed by P.J. in the stands), and he other was called something like "Bellhop Donald"(?) (featuring Donald as a bellhop trying to carry Pete's bags while being harrassed by Pete's son). The ones which featured Goofy Jr. were when Goofy starred as "dad" and his son had a red nose and hair, which has subsequently been changed to black/black in Max for GOOF TROOP. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Thu May 13 03:31:38 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 21:31:38 -0400 Subject: General Stuff about the list In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 12 May 93 15:36:00 +0700 Message-ID: <9305130131.AA06025@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Rich (and other readers), I know full well about "Bellhop Donald" and the Goofy sit-com shorts of the 1950s-60s. Pete's "son" in "Canvas Back Duck" (1954) was in fact his boxing trainer, wearing a little kid _mask_; underneath, he was a cigar-chewing dog who only ACTED like a little prig to lure Donald into the ring with his 'uncle'. (Uncle, not father; but in reality, neither...!) However, Pete's son did appear in "Bellhop Donald," you're right. However, he seems no relation to PJ as he's an obnoxious little devil who you'd love to see spanked (and who gets that done, by Donald, at the short's conclusion!). As for the Goofy sit-com cartoons, Goofy played a 'role' in them: Mr. George G. Geef, as was indicated many times. By that time, most of Goofy's cartoons were situations in which he played roles and acted only marginally like himself (the most obvious example of the latter being 1950's "Motor Mania," in which neither aspect of his split personality (Mr. Walker/Mr. Wheeler) talked or acted like the real Goof). Goofy also looked different in those later cartoons. His two big teeth first became rabbit-like buck teeth, then disappeared. His eyes got smaller from the huge, white expanse they have basically remained in the comics, too (I find the classic version infinitely more appealing). His jowls also got much smaller. All of those changes except the teeth have been used in DA's "Goof Troop," this being their first use in a long time. By the way, not only is Goofy Jr.'s hair changed from brown to black but his nose is black, his ears are longer and (perhaps most unattractively) he's been given Goofy's teeth, as well. I think the idea was to make him slightly older here. But does it work? Pete's also changed in GT; he looks, in fact, like he did in the mid-1950s cartoons (almost more canine than catlike due to the reduced amount of black hair on the upper face), as well. The idea seems to have been to pick up where those '50s cartoons left off, but I wouldn't have done THAT. Oh, well... Do you notice that no one knows what color to ink in the characters in GT? In some scenes the characters' necks, arms and legs are black; in others, Caucasian-flesh-color (which I find ugly). Several times Max, Goofy and Pete have been seen without shirts; sometimes they're Caucasian, other times with the more usual black skin. In the comics they do of this series in the unfortunate _Disney Adventures_ magazine, the skin is inconsistently colored as well, often within the same story. Having done dialogs for Disney, I visited the studio twice. Guess what? Their GT model sheets vary, too! Well, I gotta go. I have to write a paper, and can't really Goof off any longer (get it? Hyuck!) Your friend, David Gerstein From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Thu May 13 04:04:25 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Wed, 12 May 93 22:04:25 -0400 Subject: General stuff about the list In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 12 May 93 14:25:00 +0700 Message-ID: <9305130204.AA06842@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> P. S. Where does Disney publish reprints of Asterix? P. P. S. Marsupilami is a European comic strip character who has become a cult favorite across the ocean. I don't know much about him: since he's a funny character who doesn't indulge in bloody, brutal fights no one's thought to introduce him to the U. S. market in the past. He DOES make a cameo appearance in one Asterix, since his author apparently knew Goscinny and Uderzo: in "Asterix and the Cauldron," at the bazaar-sale scene, someone is selling "Comix" (sic) printed on slabs of stone which feature Marsupilami (who is shown on a billboard). P. P. P. S. Marsu gets his own Sat. AM show next fall. I don't know what's going to happen to "Raw Toonage." He'll also appear in _Disney Adventures_ soon allegedly, although I don't follow that, so I can't be overtly clear. However, the story of him being printed there is not European, but done by Larry Mayer! #@%?!@ Gladstone could presumably take advantage of Disney's Marsupilami license to give us the REAL character in a trial publication or something. Who else supports this? (He could also presumably show up in WDC&S, but he isn't one of the classic Disney characters... then again, neither is Pooh, no matter how much some people try to make him into one.) From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Thu May 13 18:36:58 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 13 May 1993 18:36:58 +0200 Subject: Comments on Rosa's Re: Digest #16 Message-ID: <199305131636.AA27357@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa: > COMMENTS ON DIGEST # whateveritwas: > > Gladstone's comics are not bimonthly to "test the waters". They will > remain bimonthly. So we don't get back to the time when Gladstone published *six* to *eight* comics a month? Pity... > Per, I did not FORGET that the air molecules would have been frozen > in my "On Stolen Time" story; I chose to IGNORE the fact in order > to tell the tale. I later decided that saying something else other than > time-freezing was going on would have solved that problem ( > and not been so silly an idea). But I thought it was an excellent idea! I have phantasized about the possibility myself for a while, and it was nice to see that someone else had thought about that too. Only I would have stated that the "frozen" things are not hard as stone: they still fall over if you push them when time is frozen. That would have solved the air-freezing problem, but then again, the Beagle Boyes wouldn't have been able to walk on birds, or get trapped the way they did... > And I imagine those Dan Jippes/Carl Barks JW remakes will be used by > Gladstone. Why not? Every Disney comic book story ever done > anywhere on the planet is available to them for their use at the same > price... free. What I heard is that they have to pay a (low) price for administration, paper, etc. --x-- Don, you also said you liked Ludwig Von Drake. I already expected that since you drew him in the "Pied Piper of Duckburg" story, for no particular reason. I don't see Von Drake as part of the Barks universe, though, and I'm glad Barks and others put their veto on you using him... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Thu May 13 18:46:03 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 13 May 1993 18:46:03 +0200 Subject: Strobl et al. stories Message-ID: <199305131646.AA27428@athena.research.ptt.nl> Wilmer Rivers wrote, about Strobl, Moores, DeLara, Bradbury, Murry: > I'll throw this one out to the group: what are your favorite stories by > those authors? My favourite Strobl story: the "Whammy" story, where Donald joins a scottish contest with his very strong nephew. My favourite Murry story: hm... I have to think about that... (I *do* like many Murry stories. I think Murry's best work is better than a lot of Gottfredson's.) I don't have a favourite for the other artists... their work is not worth reading twice. I'm surprised that Don Rosa likes the artwork of Jack Bradbury. Personally, I don't like all those black noses... Jack Bradbury penciled a lot of stories for the "Foreign market" - not printed at all in the USA. Those stories were awful most of the time, so maybe that's why I dislike Bradbury's art... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Thu May 13 20:05:43 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Thu, 13 May 93 14:05:43 -0400 Subject: Strobl; Murry vs. Gottfredson In-Reply-To: Your message of 13 May 93 18:46:03 +0100 Message-ID: <9305131805.AA25027@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Harry Fluks (who started this topic) & Co. Although I generally loathe the stories of Strobl, Bradbury, etc. I will admit that the Scottish caber toss and "Wee Angus" made for perhaps the only Strobl story I ever liked. Before I discovered European Duck material with the Gladstone Renaissance, that was my favorite non-Barks Duck story. Over all these years, I'd forgotten it. Okay, it's still not a total loss, although I can only imagine what it would look like with Daniel Branca's artwork. In fact, Egmont had Branca redraw a few Strobls in the 1970s, two of which Gladstone printed. Gladstone didn't know, however, that they were redrawn Strobls, so had them dialogued like any other new story. One being "The Mountless Mountie" in DDA 13, the other being "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (orig. "Backwards Woodsman") in some DD issue. One reason I prefer the "Barks School" (Rosa, Scarpa, Rota, Milton, Jippes, Branca, Van Horn and Vicar) to Strobl and Bradbury is the seriousness with which the characters are treated. Even in Van Horn's wildest stories, the characters' impulses strike me as being essentially true to Barks' Ducks. But with Strobl you have stories like "Santa's Unexpected Visit," in which Scrooge not only believes in Santa but spends time trying to butter him up, like a seven-year-old. ("Letter to Santa" may present Santa as existing in Barks' world, but this story is completely off in depicting Scrooge's personality.) You have thousands of stories set in foreign countries that are completely nonsensical and unrealistic, such as nations of live TOYS ("The Robot who Wasn't There," a story I remember by title only because it was SO bad!). Strobl also gives every female character half-open eyes, which is supposed to suggest flirtatiousness maybe, but just gives Daisy (and Minnie, in these artists' usually poor Mouse stories) a 'dopey' expression befitting Gus Goose. As for Murry as opposed to Gottfredson... no matter how much you may enjoy or remember some of Fallberg's plots, don't you agree that Mickey had no outstanding personality in them? Okay, he was honorable, smart and often kind of panicked, but really had no real outstanding features. In fact, he acts essentially just like the comic-book versions of Andy Panda and Porky Pig. Gottfredson's Mickey is far more unique, with real enthusiasm and also a fair share of character flaws (in "Circus Roustabout," he has as much trouble with his job as Donald, and is demoted from one to another! His heroism in the climax of that story exists in a vacuum!) Of course, Gottfredson had his share of clinkers now and then. But the Western MM stories tend to blur together in my mind, with Fallberg's slightly better than the others but still marred by an unexciting version of Mickey. The Gottfredson stories, aside from having an outright villain more often than Barks, are anything but formulaic. Murry's stories, in fact, show their formulas by having the phrase "Mystery of..." or "Case of..." in many titles, just like Hardy Boys mysteries. No wonder Mickey gets so DULL in them. It is this cypherish characterization of Mickey that causes so many Duck fans around here to feel ALL mice are equally dull. Strangely, no comic has ever combined Ducks from Barks or the "Barks School" with classic 1930s Gottfredson adventures as a regular format. There have been plenty of books (WDC&S, Mickey and Donald) that have paired Barks with post-Gottfredson Mickey, but almost never has Mickey in his prime been paired with the best Ducks. Is is any wonder that, with that being all "Duck-Only" buyers purchase, they have never had much experience in getting to know Gottfredson? Occasional issues (M&D 18, WDC&S 585) have made the essential combination, but most do not. In fact, with _Mickey and Donald_ Gladstone seemed to be trying to sell the poorer Mickey material on the strength of Barks in most cases (Bill Walsh's Mouse being somewhat better than the others, but used very infrequently). Although this may have sold it, it also gave Duck-Only fans the feeling that they weren't missing much in MM. And there is the root of the problem. Your friend, David Gerstein "Head or no head, this body beautiful is takin' the count!" -- HDL via Barks, "The Old Castle's Secret" From krieg at ct.med.ge.com Thu May 13 20:34:02 1993 From: krieg at ct.med.ge.com (Andrew Krieg 5-5379) Date: Thu, 13 May 93 13:34:02 CDT Subject: Looking for a Barks tale Message-ID: <9305131834.AA26659@ct.med.ge.com> I have patiently been awaiting the reprinting of Barks' WDC&S short "Ice Taxi". I have it in a Gold Key digest I bought when I was around 8 years old, and it is a sentimental favorite of mine (first Barks I ever read). Does anyone know which issue of WDC&S it was originally in, so I'll have an idea when the CBLoWDC&S will be reprinting it? Thanks. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Fri May 14 00:02:55 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Thu, 13 May 93 18:02:55 -0400 Subject: Looking for a Barks tale In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 13 May 93 13:34:02 CDT Message-ID: <9305132202.AA03391@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Andrew, The Barks tale of Donald and the kids and their ice taxis was in WDC&S 186 (1955, I think). Unfortunately, it has not yet been reprinted by either Gladstone or Disney. However, maybe this winter will see it reprinted. Gladstone's just starting up again and, I'm sure, grasping for readers' ideas; why not write in and request it? I wrote in to request "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" back in 1991, and look what happened! Same with "Sky Island" (my letter was printed for that one!) and "MM and the 'lectro Box" when it comes to Floyd Gottfredson's stuff. Hope that helps you. I don't have access just now to any list that will tell me where the ice taxi story last appeared, I'm sorry (but I WILL be able to tell you soon, if someone else doesn't first). Your friend, David Gerstein "This voodoo hoodoo is driving me coo-coo, and Uncle Scrooge has got to do something about it!" -- DDOS 238, Carl Barks From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri May 14 00:58:45 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 00:58:45 +0200 Subject: The answers to the quote quiz Message-ID: <9305132258.AA23228@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Here are the answers to my latest Barks quote quiz. The contestants were: Anders Engwall, Anders Wass, Ola Torstensson, David Gerstein, Harry Fluks, and Johan Blixt. > 1. "Hmm! A *square* fire, a *round* fire, and a *hollow* fire! Very > interesting! I'll report this to headquarters!" This is "Benzine" Banzoony in "The Firebug" from DDOS 108. All the six contestants got it, so they get 1/6 point each. > 2. "Here's a book on `Removing Musty Smells From Dried Dodo > Feathers'! Read it and improve your minds!" This was supposed to be harder, and evidently it was. Harry thought that it might be the Super Snooper story (WDC 107), where Donald has strong opinions on what his nephews read. Ola guessed at "the one where the nephews dress up as giant bugs" (WDC 77), which was a pretty good guess as it is from another story at about the same time (WDC 80) also set in Donald's garden. Only David got this one, so he gets one full point for it. > 3. "Ahem, gentlemen! That window is *opaque* glass!" Here on the other hand everyone except David got it. This is the waiter's comment when Scrooge and a disguised Donald agrees that it's a wonderful view through the window. "Yes! I could look at it for *hours!*" WDC 148. > 4. "Times are tough, huh, bud?" Everyone got this one, which is from the story about the talking dog (WDC 152) and it's the talking dog himself who says it. Donald's answer: "You're not kidding!" > 5. "*Americans!* Stoke th' fiahs! Head th'skillets! We ain't had > Americans fo' dinnah since 1868!" This was supposed to be easy, and everyone got it. Well, I've always had a quote from Lost in the Andes in these quizzes before, so... > 6. "Neighee wheenie whee neighee! Yonk! Yonk!" Harry guessed at the echo story (WDC 105) where there are many strange sounds and David though it was the drugged horse in "The Hard Loser" (DDOS 29), but he sounds more like "wheeee", "whick", and "gleek pleep!" and in fact this was police horse that got turned into a "keen orator" by the teaching cylinder in "The Swamp of No Return" (US 57). Noone got this. > 7. "My little Bob caught chills!" Everyone except Ola got this one. It's one mother complaining to another about Donald's swimming pool in WDC 129. > 8. "Make it *four* tickets! My nephews are kangaroos too!" Another one which everyone got. Maybe it was too easy? But maybe all you who didn't enter didn't think so? This is Donald on his way to Australia in Adventure Down Under (DDOS 159). > 9. "Allakazalla zillika zuck! I think I see a *lucky* duck!" This is Gladstone Gander. That is, it is not about Gladstone, but it is Gladstone speaking (about Donald!) Gladstone is wearing a swami outfit, just as he is in Trail of the Unicorn. David must have associated the quote with the swami outfit, because he knew it was one of those stories, but unfortunately he chose the wrong one. Anders E, Anders W, and Harry got it right (WDC 163). > 10. "Ramjckwckwizc hits a single over Socrapossi's head! The crowd > goes wild!" Anders E, Anders W and Ola got this one right. It is a radio commentator from a very exciting ball game which Donald is listening to on a houseboat in Lake Erie in WDC 142. > 11. "I *want* that bauble! I'll pay you all the rice I can grow for > ten years!" Uncle Scrooge in Tralla La (US 6). They got it all. > 12. "Baby kills mother, shoots pa" This was supposed to be really hard, but Johan and David both got it. Half a point each then. It's a small headline in the newspaper that Donald imagines himself on the front page of in the old WDC 32 (headline about Donald: "Heroic duck subdues gorilla"). Normal people don't read that fine print! :-) > 13. "Yes, it's plenty safe, boys! There won't bee another fire *here* > for a long, *long* time!" A bee there that shouldn't *be* there flew into the quote, but most of you (Anders E, Anders W, David, Johan, Harry) got it anyway. It's after the fire in Vacation Parade #1. The both Anderses had the most number of correct answers (10) and they got exactly the same questions (!), but because of my scoring system they didn't win anyway, and that did instead (ta-da!) David Gerstein (getting the only full point on a question helped). Congratulations! The total score table this time is: 41/15 = 2.73 David 21/10 = 2.1 Anders E and Anders W 29/15 = 1.93 Johan 53/30 = 1.77 Harry 41/30 = 1.37 Ola Summing this up with my last quiz before this one yields a total top five Hall of Fame like this: 89/15 = 5.93 Harry Fluks 143/30 = 4.77 Anders Wass 23/6 = 3.83 Anders Berglund 41/15 = 2.73 David Gerstein 21/10 = 2.1 Anders Engwall -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Ta ta, boys! I'll see you in the funny papers!" (That one is from WDC 45 by the way.) From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Fri May 14 05:42:37 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 13 May 93 23:42:37 EDT Subject: Digest #19 Message-ID: <930514034236_72260.2635_EHK21-1@CompuServe.COM> Per: I don't have many replies or comments on the latest digest. I might mention that, yes, Disney comics licensees do pay a minimal fee when they wish to reprint a story, the fee to cover the cost of the photostats shipped to them by the story's producer or archiver, 99% of the time which is Egmont. Not even Disney ever bothered to keep copies of the old comic stories since they had so little concern for something as lowly as funnybooks; Dell and Egmont/Gutenberghus were the archivers. Anyway, you'll have to admit that full permission to reprint somebody's work and profit from same and not have to pay anything but xerox costs is a pretty sweet deal! That's the basis for the founding of Gladstone Comics! What other writers or artists on this planet are exploited the way Disney freelancers are? Why are writers or creative folks in every other field of endeavor allowed their small percentage of profit from their works, but not Disney freelancers? I'd like someone to tell me the answer to that someday. As for my "Frozen Time" story, if I froze time (!) I needed to freeze it solid, not semi-solid... otherwise it would have been WAY too close to John D. MacDonald's short-story "The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything" (which was made into two TV movies some years back). I had my idea before I learned of that novelette, but read it to see how close my idea was to MacDonald's tale. In his story, objects could be moved slowly, and the moving through air was like moving through water (in real time) to the guy with the magic watch. In other news, after trying for about a week, I finally got through to COMPUSERVE's busy customer service department, and I found that there is another membership option that I'd never needed to consider which (supposedly) will GREATLY reduce the amounts of $$$ that these INTERNET messages are costing me. But... now that I finally found a way to afford to spend time on here, people have stopped asking me questions. It figgers. From BS111 at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk Fri May 14 15:49:41 1993 From: BS111 at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk (SHANU ) Date: 14 May 93 15:49:41 GMT0BST Subject: comics Message-ID: Shanu Varma Esq. aka the GRIPPER BMR (Paris), Rage (Heaven), Paradox, Raindance 061 - 445 5513 (phone) 061 - 445 5513 (fax) From BS111 at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk Fri May 14 15:49:41 1993 From: BS111 at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk (SHANU ) Date: 14 May 93 15:49:41 GMT0BST Subject: comics Message-ID: incidentally the other day a friend gave me a comic book titled 'ARCHIE ANDREWS & JUGHEAD' I thought it was hilarious does anyone out there have a recent order form as the one in the book was 2 years out of date From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri May 14 22:18:38 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 22:18:38 +0200 Subject: Huey, Dewey, and Louie: the faqs. Message-ID: <9305142018.AA15327@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> me> What FAQ's are there anyway? Rich> Some I can think of, off-hand, concern the color arangements of Rich> HD&L, [the rest of a long list deleted] OK, I'll start with that one and other questions about HD&L, so here's a first draft of a small faq file on HD&L. It's mostly compiled from what I've already written to the list with additional facts from the postings of other. Any comments? (Like corrections to the facts or to my English; additional info where I have comments enclosed in [...]; other questions on HD&L that should be answered, ...) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + * Origin Huey, Dewey, and Louie appeared for the first time in the Donald Duck newspaper Sunday page October 17, 1937, written by Ted Osborne and drawn by Al Taliaferro. At the time the Studio was working on a cartoon called _Donald's Nephews_ (directed by Jack King) with the same theme, but due to the longer production time it didn't premiere until 1938. In the daily strip the boys stayed with Donald only for a while, but later they returned for good. * Relationship How are the boys related to Donald? In their premiere Sunday page Donald gets a letter with the following text: Dear Donald: I am sending your angel nephews Louie, Huey and Dewey, to stay with you while their father is in the hospital. A giant firecracker exploded under his chair. The little darlings are *so* playful. I hope you enjoy them. Your cousin, Della. Supposedly this cousin Della is the boys' mother, but it's not made explicit. In the cartoon the letter (addressed to mr. Donald Duck, Hollywood, Calif) instead said: Dear Brother --- I am sending your angel nephews to visit you --- Sister Dumbella Supposedly this *sister* *Dumbella* is the boys' mother, even if it never really says so this time either. In the fifties Carl Barks made a Duck Family Tree for his own reference, and there he calls HD&L's mother "Thelma Duck" and she is a sister to Donald. This Thelma has never been used in a story though, and in Don Rosa's revised version of the family tree her name is Della instead. The poor father of the boys has never had a name anywhere. * Colours How do you tell them apart? Which one wears which colour (red/blue/green)? In the old cartoons HD&L wore different colours in different cartoons, and sometimes two or all three of them wore the same colour, very often red. In their very first cartoon they wore red, orange and green shirts. [I know they introduce themselves by names so that you get to know which is which, but I don't remember the order, probably Huey is the green one.] So this red-blue-green thing was invented in the comics, where their shirts are black but their caps have different colours. The colourists have not been consistent about it though, so not only do they wear different colours in different stories, but also they seem to switch caps between panels! [Hm, I skipped over the Sunday pages. What about the colouring of them?] [What about the current colourists at Gladstone and Disney. Do they try to be consistent? I haven't checked.] In the modern TV animation, i.e., in DuckTales, they were consistent about the colouring though: Huey red, Dewey blue, and Louie green, so this is probably the "official" Disney word on the matter. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri May 14 22:52:30 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 22:52:30 +0200 Subject: Don Rosa In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 13 May 93 23:42:37 EDT <930514034236_72260.2635_EHK21-1@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9305142052.AA15851@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Don Rosa: > [...] and I found that there is another membership option that I'd > never needed to consider which (supposedly) will GREATLY reduce the > amounts of $$$ that these INTERNET messages are costing me. That's great, even though I still suspect that it would be cheaper to get some other account. > But... now that I finally found a way to afford to spend time on > here, people have stopped asking me questions. It figgers. Well, did you ever read through that long digest you stopped in the middle of because of weird weather conditions? Among those last four messages David asked about your story that I've described as a "long story books for Norway, which also exists in an American version with 1 panel different, to be published 1994" in the index at the ftp archive. I'm also curious about this one. Apropos different European and American versions: I've heard that you're re-working one or two of the Life of Scrooge chapters to remove some continuity errors before the American publication. Is it only textual changes, or will there be some new artwork too? And if you want questions, here is another one. You have written a couple of episodes of TailSpin for TV. Which ones? I think the answer is "It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck" and "I Only Have Ice for You" --- correct? -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Fri May 14 23:17:55 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 17:17:55 -0400 Subject: Huey, Dewey and Louie Message-ID: <9305142117.AA13222@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks (Per et all), Just so you know, Disney and Gladstone have almost entirely accepted the DuckTales cap coloring for the nephews wherever possible. Since 1990 the stories have had the caps correctly colored whenever the kids have been identified by name. _Always._ The colors are arranged this way: Huey has the brightest 'hue,' or red. Dewey's cap is the color of dew, or blue. That *leaves* Louie, and the color of leaves is green. See how easy that is? All the Disney Comics Disney comics have used this coloring. So have the Gladstone Barks Library Albums, and presumably the comics will as well. There was only one exception. In the bill-collecting story "Donald Duck and the Boys," a different colorist than usual (who I can't recall the name of, now, since I don't have the issue on hand) colored it for Gladstone's album. This guy must not have been 'in the know,' because the caps were randomly colored and -- most frustratingly of all -- switched ridiculously during the Bassofoglio trapeze scene, so that which kid was on the trapeze varied from scene to scene. The same colorist makes the mistake of giving a nephew who's asking another nephew some question a certain color for his cap, then repeating the same color reliably in the next panel for the nephew who's *replying.* No matter what color the kids' caps are going to be, *this* is particularly irritating. (Not only did the odd colorist for "DD and the Boys" do this, but even the otherwise impeccable Sue Daigle does it from time to time.) "Well, so long... I'll be seein' ya... I hope!" David Gerstein From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Fri May 14 23:44:47 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 17:44:47 -0400 Subject: The Gottfredson Quote Quiz Message-ID: <9305142144.AA14378@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, You've seen the Barks quote quiz, now let's see how much of "Mouse Master" Floyd Gottfredson's work sticks in your head. This quiz has 13 questions like Per's last Barks quote quiz. What you have to do is stupefyingly simple (I'll explain in case someone who gets this has joined the net after the conclusion of that Barks quiz last week). Just do your best to identify which story each quote comes from. I guess I'll be lenient, but it's also impressive to see if you know what character said it or which situation it appeared in. I'm under the impression that a lot of people here may like FG's stuff, but have not tried to be completists or as ravenous as for Barks, so I'm starting out with a collection of quotes that are ONLY from stories that Gladstone, Disney, and (in one case) Abbeville, in the last 10 years have printed. I've also only used quotes from long adventures, the shorter stories and Sunday pages being less well-known. Also, another hint and a bit of a spike to the punch: one of the quotes is actually from a well-known MM strip done BEFORE Gottfredson worked on MM. And a note: I went from memory on a few of the quotes, so one or two of them may be a word or two off. They should be completely identifiable, however. I'll add up the number of correct IDs given for each quote. If only one person gets the question, they get a full point. If three get it, each gets a third of a point, and so forth. In the end, I'll add up the number of partial points for each question. Whoever gets the most points, or parts of points, will be the winner of the contest. And the quotes are: 1. "Boy! A box! Another minute and that cannibal tom cat would be picking me out of his teeth!" 2. "Alas, pore Nell, I knowed her well-ll...." 3. "At last a faint light begins to flicker through the cracks in my dome!" 4. "Wait till Lindy sees this airship! HeUll be so jealous -- he'll *resign* from the army!" 5. "It tells der whole story in a shelled nut!" 6. "What a peculiar language these natives speak!" 7. "Too many dynamitoruses... and not enuff rabbits!" 8. "I'll turn on this gas and end it once and for all! ...Goodbye, Minnie! Goodbye, cruel world!" 9. "I t'ink zat we shall throw zem for a loop, eh?" 10. "Tell 'im de rest, Shyster! He won't live t' tell nobody!" 11. "Crazy inventors! Machines that won't work! I can feel a headache starting already!" 12. "Excuse my glove!" 13. "Just because I'm a *girl*, that's no sign I'm a *coward!*" Folks, the deadline to enter is a week from now, Friday, May 21st. I'm sorry that I can't give you longer, but I'm going to be going home from college for the summer and will have a new e-mail address at that time. Things will get chaotic. Thus, I have to get this over with before I leave Williams. Send your responses to: ---> David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu Your friend, David Gerstein From rivers at beno.CSS.GOV Fri May 14 23:53:07 1993 From: rivers at beno.CSS.GOV (Wilmer Rivers) Date: Fri, 14 May 93 17:53:07 EDT Subject: INFREQUENTLY asked questions about HD&L Message-ID: <9305142153.AA00376@beno.CSS.GOV> Are "Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck" the real names of Donald's nephews? Since they are the children of Donald's sister, presumably their original surname was whatever Thelma/Della's **married** name was, rather than her maiden name of "Duck". Or did she marry someone also named "Duck"? Surely the boys aren't illegitimate! Maybe they changed their last name when Donald "adopted" them? Also, are their first names really nicknames? "Huey" is a perfectly O.K. name in English, but "Dewey" is usually a familiar form of "Duane", and "Louie" is usually short for "Louis". Were their original names then Huey, Duane, and Louis Something-other-than-duck? Also, how old do you think they are in the stories? What grade are they in at school? And what are their exact ranks in the Junior Woodchucks? Important questions, all! Wilmer Rivers rivers at seismo.css.gov From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Sat May 15 01:51:42 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 15 May 1993 01:51:42 +0200 Subject: Don Rosa questions Message-ID: <199305142351.AA03335@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa: > But... now that I finally found a way to afford to spend time on > here, people have stopped asking me questions. It figgers. " Per Starback: > And if you want questions, here is another one. (...) And I have an unanswered question too: about the Barks script "Gyro Gearloose, the pied piper of Duckburg" that you finished. Daan Jippes seems to have worked on finishing that story. Have you ever seen what he made (if he did do any artwork)? Have you used (some of) it? (I guess the answer will be "no", since the story looks "all Rosa" to me.) Next question: you made some covers for Gladstone's "WDC in color", the 3-in-one comic albums Gladstone sold at the end of their first period. Could you tell how much covers you did? The "WDC in color" should have been 6 or 7 issues, but there may have been some more issues with varying contents. The back cover of issue #1 is not clear about which issues have a Rosa cover. BTW: I hope you enjoy the mailing list, even when there are *no* questions to you for a while... --Harry. (you know, the Dutch one 8-) From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Sat May 15 06:15:04 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 15 May 93 00:15:04 EDT Subject: Digest #20 Message-ID: <930515041503_72260.2635_EHK39-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #20: Why was someone in there asking about Archie comics??? Where did that come from??? No, I never tried to reread that long message that I had trouble with during the thunderstorm. It was reeealy tricky to try to keep it on screen with all the line noise -- I had to keep my finger on the "backspace" button to prevent the lightning from commanding the system to throw me off the E-mail string. And being such a loooong message, I gave up trying to recall it and fight my way all the way to the end again to see what I missed. In the meanwhile, I guess I erased the message. Anyway, you seem to have found the parts I missed... Yes, there IS a long adventure story that I did especially for Norway's "Year of the Book" which WILL have some alternate panels when/if used by Gladstone. But... how did anyone KNOW about all that??? Did I pop off about it somewhere? I don't recall... And yes, I will ask Gladstone to make some small changes in the "Life and Times of $crooge McDuck" when they use it; probably just dialogue changes. The biggest one involves part 3 where I had $crooge meeting the "Professor from Birmingham" in 1882. I'm embarrassed to say that the panel where the vicuna hunter in "Lost in the Andes" tells of the professor's death had slipped my mind -- or perhaps I'd always thoughtlessly figured he was referring to some OTHER visitor to Plain Awful (though I see it's clear he isn't). Anyway, I'll need to rewrite the dialogue to make the old man to be the museum agent who bought the eggs from the padre in Cuzco. This, however, doesn't explain why the museum forgot what the eggs were, and it sorta knocks the stuffing out of the whole reason for the scene. Well, I got careless for an instant, and that's what happened. I hope readers will point out other goofs so I can correct them, too, in future printings. As for HD&L's history, Per has it all down. I hate to see him refer to my upcoming Family Tree as a "revision"! I tried VERY hard not to do any recreating of past Barks facts... but sometimes we had to examine the various past versions and choose the most reasonable or appropriate combination of them. I sought the advice of Duck fans around the world while constructing that Tree over several years because I knew I was dealing with characters that belong to ALL of us, not just whoever was doing the Tree (which happened to be me). TALESPIN: Yes, those were the titles of the two episodes I wrote. They were also the first two episodes written and the first two produced. The "pilot" or origin episodes were written and produced much later... I've never even seen those. In fact, I've never seen an episode of the series other than the tapes they sent me of my two episodes. I just don't have much interest in TV cartoons, and seeing the behind-the-scenes of their production didn't fill me with fascination. From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat May 15 19:50:54 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 19:50:54 +0200 Subject: Bradbury, Moores, de Lara, Strobl, Murry Message-ID: <9305151750.AA04999@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Wilmer: > I'll throw this one out to the group: what are your favorite stories by > those authors? [i.e., Jack Bradbury, Dick Moores, Phil de Lara, Tony > Strobl, Paul Murry] I don't know about my favourites, but I do like One for the Whammy (DD 65) that Harry already mentioned. Paper Route Panic (DD 66) is another good one --- not very Barksian though! Wilmer continued: > (Of course, my favorite duck story of all time was Barks' Land > Beneath the Ground, and now I am a seismologist. I wonder whether > there's any connection?) A seismologist! Aren't you the ones who believe that earthquakes are caused by gas that builds up in fissures as the earth shrinks? You shore ain't been around, podner! :-) David: > One reason I prefer the "Barks School" (Rosa, Scarpa, > Rota, Milton, Jippes, Branca, Van Horn and Vicar) to Strobl and > Bradbury is the seriousness with which the characters are treated. > Even in Van Horn's wildest stories, the characters' impulses strike me > as being essentially true to Barks' Ducks. But with Strobl you have > stories like "Santa's Unexpected Visit," in which Scrooge not only > believes in Santa but spends time trying to butter him up, like a > seven-year-old. (...) Yes, but that's not Strobl's fault, as he didn't write the stories, and the same goes for most of those mentioned. Not many wrote *and* drew, like Barks did. > Strobl also gives every female character half-open eyes, which is > supposed to suggest flirtatiousness maybe, but just gives Daisy (and > Minnie, in these artists' usually poor Mouse stories) a 'dopey' > expression befitting Gus Goose. I never thought about this, but now you've got me looking for it, and perhaps you are right. Take a look at late Barks though (like Daisy's Diary), and you'll see the same thing! (If Barks does it it must be right, right? :-) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "These spider feetprints have a catchy rhythm, don't you think?" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat May 15 20:05:10 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 20:05:10 +0200 Subject: Lostralia Message-ID: <9305151805.AA05233@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Mark McConnell: > does anyone remember an adventure with Mickey in Lostralia? I read > this story in the early '70s and don't even know what it was called. > > It was probably a reprint, but the story was great. Lostralia is > the place where you lost socks go during washing, where lost change goes... > You get the picture. Probably lost stories go there too ... :-) No, I don't recognize it, but could it possibly be "Land of the Lost" in MM 143 (August 1973). I haven't seen it but the title and date seem right. It's a 12-page story drawn by Jack Manning, certainly not one of the better artists, but it's written by Mark Evanier who has done some whacky, funny scripts (for example with Super Goof), so it wouldn't surprise me if that story was able to make an impact on you, if that's the one. My source is Joe Torcivia's excellent Mickey Mouse Checklist published by The Duckburg Times editor Dana Gabbard. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Sat May 15 20:15:51 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 14:15:51 -0400 Subject: of mice and ducks (again!) Message-ID: <9305151815.AA01925@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Here is a lengthy response to some of our Mickey discussions. It was written a week ago and today I got it back accompanied by the following. Did any of you get it before now? ------- Forwarded Message Received: from sunic.sunet.se by rowe.williams.edu with SMTP id AA27471 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 14 May 1993 21:05:31 -0400 Received: from Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.65c8-/1.28) id AA14545; Sat, 15 May 1993 03:05:28 +0200 Received: by Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Sun-4/630, SunOS 4.1.2) with sendmail 5.61-bind 1.5+ida/ICU/DoCS id AA18390; Sat, 15 May 93 03:05:27 +0200 Date: Sat, 15 May 93 03:05:27 +0200 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days Message-Id: <9305150105.AA18390 at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> To: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Cc: Postmaster at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE ----- Transcript of session follows ----- 421 swap-2.ludat.lth.se (ether)... Deferred: Connection timed out during user open with swap-2.ludat.lth.se ----- Unsent message follows ----- Return-Path: Received: from rowe.williams.edu by Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Sun-4/630, SunOS 4.1.2) with sendmail 5.61-bind 1.5+ida/ICU/DoCS id AA22389; Wed, 12 May 93 02:16:55 +0200 Received: from bigbird.cc.williams.edu by rowe.williams.edu with SMTP id AA15510 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 11 May 1993 20:16:52 -0400 Received: from localhost by bigbird.cc.williams.edu (4.1/client-1.3) id AA27320; Tue, 11 May 93 20:16:51 EDT Message-Id: <9305120016.AA27320 at bigbird.cc.williams.edu> To: disney-comics at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Subject: Re: of mice and ducks Date: Tue, 11 May 93 20:16:50 -0400 From: David A Gerstein Dear Folks, I've been reading your responses to my discussion of Mickey. What's important for me to stress is that in the BEST Gottfredson Mickey stories, the characters DO have more complex personalities. Let's start with Goofy, roundly criticized as "stupid." In "Mickey Mouse, Mighty Whale Hunter" (reprinted in Abbeville's GOOFY book, apparently complete and with about all of the original dialog, although relettered), Mickey is in one of Gottfredson's favorite situations. Having immobilized Peg-Leg Pete's harpoon, escaped Pete for the time being, and preparing to leave Pete's whaling ship (where he was taken after being kidnapped) for his own _Lady Daffodil_, Mickey suddenly realizes that there's no lifeboat to return in... he's stuck! (There's one of MICKEY's flaws right there; in his enthusiasm, he didn't check to see if his entire plan was feasible!) Suddenly, who should show up but GOOFY, who may not exactly know the best way of going about things but who had the guts to steal a lifeboat from the _Daffodil_ himself, escape in it, and find his way to the _Orca_ where Mickey was held captive. So who says Goofy's dumb NOW? Well, a moment later he realizes that he didn't keep track of HOW he found the Orca, and now he can't find his way BACK. There's Goofy at his best: he is always undercut by his mistakes, but when the situation requires it, he can figure out what to do. No matter that, as some animation historian put it, "he thinks longer and harder than most." He also has a deep sense of decency. Look at the last panel of "MM's Thanksgiving Dinner," a Gottfredson short story reprinted a year ago in WDC&S 567. Mickey, trying to kill a Thankgiving turkey, has been overcome by emotion, and when he knuckles under and has something else for dinner (giving the turkey some) Goofy gives him a perfect wry, indescribable _look_ that has some depth to it. It's hard for me to exactly describe what makes the picture different from a more typical one, but it's there. But now, of course, MICKEY. Mickey has real emotions and failings... plenty of them. You just have to know where to look. The story "Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island" (1932) has never been reprinted due to its cannibal caricatures (aside from one English reprint in Italy... see my list that I posted recently), but contains perhaps the most tearful moment of all Gottfredson's strips. Wrecked on an island after leaving Sylvester Shyster's ship via emergency raft, Mickey discovers the wreck of Minnie's ship, the _Potluck_, and assumes she has been killed. He spends an entire STRIP trying to get over it and control his sadness, and right in the middle of his lament he's grabbed from behind and captured! Who says Mickey's perfect? Like Donald, his emotions have rendered him blind to his dangerous situation. The 'deepest' Mickey story of all HAS been reprinted here, "Monarch of Medioka." It was Gladstone's most expensive album at $13.95, and I know few fans who got it. That is an awful loss, as it is unquestionably Gottfredson's finest story, in my opinion more so than "Sky Island" and "The Phantom Blot" (which seem to be the two other general contenders). I recommend that everyone, even Duck fans who haven't gotten Gottfredson comics in the past, try to find a copy of it, as it is undoubtedly one of the best comic strips ever done. (Redrawn version does exist [1950] but the original art is so unbelievably striking that it just doesn't get better than this.) It also contains very deep interpretations of Mickey and Minnie. Mickey, the essential double in appearance of King Michael XIV of Medioka, is taken there to function as a substitute while the king, a spendthrift, is given a paid vacation. The king refused to balance the budget which was long overdue, and the country, still halfway feudal in these modern days, is falling apart. So Mickey goes to work on it, but faces a peasant rebellion in which the serfs are being manipulated by demagogue Duke Varlott (who wants the throne himself). Varlott strides right into Mickey's throne room to tell him his plan: it's either the frying pan or the fire, because if he exposes Varlott, Varlott will expose _him_. And if he doesn't take action, Varlott will kill the real King Michael, who he's holding captive. Sitting sadly and quietly in the throne room, Mickey tries to find flaws in Varlott's plan and cannot. Where's our perfect thinker? He ISN'T one. Minnie, meanwhile, hears secondhand a news article about Michael's vacation (cut short, of course) in the US. In a very typical move for Minnie, she decides to round up Mickey and bring him home to face the music, since she assumes Mickey's spending the money the two of them won for finding a treasure in the previous continuity. Having met Michael just before the latter's kidnapping, she realizes Mickey is in Medioka, and goes with fire in her eye to the palace, where Mickey sits, a bird in a gilded cage. When Minnie enters, Mickey jubilantly falls into her arms. It is an emotional moment if you're involved with the story... and in this one, it's easy to be, even if you aren't usually a Mickey fan. Together, Minnie and Mickey paste together a difficult plan and manage to pull it off, but not before many nervous moments. Both Mickey and Minnie show bravery, but the strength of the story is that neither is in complete control; unlike the later dreary post-1945 stories, Mickey is far from dull and Minnie is not a compound of sit-com female stereotypes. (She DOES nag Mickey and try to 'improve' him at the beginning and end of the story - -- but that, like Scrooge trying to teach Donald the value of being 'smarter than the smarties,' is a running theme in the MM stories.) "Monarch of Medioka," in its original form, is a wonderful experience for any Disney fan, and is proof that Mickey is not perfect and can be a fantastic character when shaped right. That is where Murry, and everyone else after Gottfredson, went wrong. Mickey is NOT perfect. He IS more competent than Donald. If Donald fans ONLY want characters with personalities just like Donald's, though, life would be dull. Unfortunately, with the post-Gottfredson Mickey (EXCEPT for Romano Scarpa's, but those have hardly seen print over here) life IS dull. I'm not disagreeing with that for an instant. But the REAL Mickey is a fine character. I am now working for Egmont (was Gutenberghus) in Denmark, on original stories. For the time being, since beginners are meant to do short stories in general, I'll be doing Duck material (starting with an Uncle Scrooge which I sold two months ago), but when I do Mickeys, they will be bona-fide Mickeys with a character who Barks fans can appreciate. I am going to try to come to a compromise between Gottfredson and Barks for my story style when that happens, as well. I want to get Mickey into more emotionally interesting situations, and I'll do my best to. I'm also going to try to specify that my stories, when I do them, be drawn by artists who normally do the Ducks, and that Mickey be drawn in the 1940s style. According to Bob Foster, the Danes may be doing just that type of story in the not-too-distant future as a regular format. If Barks fans tried to get more of a handle on Gottfredson, they would really like him. I'd say that fewer Gottfredson stories deal with very deep angles than Barks' do, but _they're out there._ I'll give a few titles (some not available in English, but who knows what will happen?): "Mr Slicker and the Egg Robbers", in which a despondent Mickey tries to commit suicide but subconsciously is set against it... this in 1930, no less!; "Blaggard Castle", in which Mickey is a very impulsive character and in which Horace Horsecollar is seen with more depth than usual; "The Captive Castaways," "MM in the Foreign Legion" (Abbeville's may be slightly censored, but is pretty complete), in which Mickey struggles with his conscience and determines Pete's fate when the tables are turned several times, "The Miracle Master," a pessimistic story in the Barks tradition as Mickey finds that his impulse to enthusiastic helpfulness leads him to desolation and loose ends in a brilliantly curdled tale"... and the list goes on. Well, I have to be off. I have a paper to write, and it's not about Gottfredson. But I again encourage every Duck fan to try one of the Gottfredsons I've discussed, and see what you think. They're strip stories, so they take a while to get going past the gags toward the beginning in most cases, but they're good... honest, Barks fans, they're good! Sincerely, David Gerstein. "Psychology, my dear, and propaganda... today's modern weapons!" -- Minnie Mouse via FG, "MM Super Salesman" (1941) [I DO NOT recommend Dell's 1948 reprint of this, which cuts about 2/3 of the strips out of the story. It makes little sense. Sadly, I haven't seen the original.] ------- End of Forwarded Message From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Sat May 15 20:17:46 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 14:17:46 -0400 Subject: Van Horn's "Magic Box" story Message-ID: <9305151817.AA02013@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, This letter -- regarding the Van Horn story about the whistling flea -- was actually written last week. I got it back with all the gibberish at the top that you're about to see, and the question is: did anyone ever SEE it? Anyway, here it is NOW, a bit delayed. Your friend, David. ------- Forwarded Message Received: from sunic.sunet.se by rowe.williams.edu with SMTP id AA28356 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 14 May 1993 23:05:40 -0400 Received: from Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.65c8-/1.28) id AA19674; Sat, 15 May 1993 05:05:34 +0200 Received: by Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Sun-4/630, SunOS 4.1.2) with sendmail 5.61-bind 1.5+ida/ICU/DoCS id AA19215; Sat, 15 May 93 05:05:30 +0200 Date: Sat, 15 May 93 05:05:30 +0200 From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days Message-Id: <9305150305.AA19215 at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> To: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Cc: Postmaster at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE ----- Transcript of session follows ----- 421 swap-2.ludat.lth.se (ether)... Deferred: Connection timed out during user open with swap-2.ludat.lth.se ----- Unsent message follows ----- Return-Path: Received: from rowe.williams.edu by Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Sun-4/630, SunOS 4.1.2) with sendmail 5.61-bind 1.5+ida/ICU/DoCS id AA23734; Wed, 12 May 93 04:58:11 +0200 Received: from bigbird.cc.williams.edu by rowe.williams.edu with SMTP id AA17091 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 11 May 1993 22:58:08 -0400 Received: from localhost by bigbird.cc.williams.edu (4.1/client-1.3) id AA03407; Tue, 11 May 93 22:58:07 EDT Message-Id: <9305120258.AA03407 at bigbird.cc.williams.edu> To: Fredrik Ekman , disney-comics at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Subject: Re: Continuity In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 11 May 93 15:01:32 BST Date: Tue, 11 May 93 22:58:06 -0400 From: David A Gerstein Dear Folks, One interesting thing about "The Magic Box" (which I have not seen) is that it was originally planned and contracted for Disney. The later Van Horn stories Disney published were quite out of the order they were done in, and "Magica's Missin' Magic" (as it was then called) was to have been the backup in DiDDA #17. However, an earlier-made story, "Kid Stuff," was substituted for it there, and indeed Disney never did get around to buying the former story because of the decree that their number of purchased original stories was to be slashed. It would have been the next one bought (and from the looks of things at the time, might have been put in DDA 22, where presumably "Kid Stuff" was originally meant to appear). Or so Bob Foster told me once. The interesting thing about Baron Itzy Bitzy, the whistling flea, (that's his real name, although it could be "Baron _Von_") is that "The Whistling Ghost" in DT 10 is not his first appearance. Earlier on he appeared in the four-page story, "Lost on a Dog," which was in a Gladstone US issue! It looks like this character is Van Horn's attempt at a continuing character, a pet of the Ducks... and a most bizarre one, since he doesn't have any real characteristics other than singing and biting. The solicitations for the third month of Disneys mention a new Van Horn entitled "Out of Harmony's Way." Is this original for Gladstone, or also European? Your friend, David Gerstein ------- End of Forwarded Message From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat May 15 20:29:35 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 20:29:35 +0200 Subject: Bouncing messages (again), Was: of mice and ducks (again!) In-Reply-To: David A Gerstein's message of Sat, 15 May 93 14:15:51 -0400 <9305151815.AA01925@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Message-ID: <9305151829.AA05526@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> > It was written a week ago and today I got it back accompanied by the > following. Did any of you get it before now? Yes we did. I've warned about this once to the list (before you became a member), but I didn't think of mentioning it in the welcoming message. When you send mail to the list it's more of less like you send it to every recipient of the list, so the message you got only indicated that *one* member of the list didn't get it. In an ideal world, I, as the list administrator, would get all those bounces instead. (I have already removed that particular user for the time being, but there may be more bounces coming, as the bounce message wasn't sent out until after three days!) What to do when to get a bounce: Don't resend it. The best is if you forward the bounce message to me --- otherwise just ignore it. ObDisney: Has Barks started painting again? I've read that there are rumours to that effect. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Sat May 15 21:31:15 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 20:31:15 +0100 Subject: Back to Lostralia Message-ID: <930515203115.000013ed.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> Mark McConnell wrote: > does anyone remember an adventure with Mickey in Lostralia? I read > this story in the early '70s and don't even know what it was called. No, I haven't read it, but I _have_ read two follow-ups of it. Both of these picture Mickey going back and again taking the role of the King. It was a long time since I read any of them, but I may be able to find them again. At least one of them had a very good story and both had good art. One of them was even my favourite MM for a while, when I regarded anything (almost) with MM as trash. The interesting thing is that, unless my memory fails, both these where Italian. Unfortunately, I won't be able to find any of them until the summer vacation, and then I will not be back to tell you about it until the end of the summer. I guess it doesn't matter anyways... /Fredrik Ekman ___________________________ ______| |______ \ | In Donaldismo Veritas | / > |___________________________| < /______\| |/______\ From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sat May 15 23:04:37 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 23:04:37 +0200 Subject: Huey, Dewey, and Louie Message-ID: <9305152104.AA07170@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> David, thanks to your clarifications on the colouring of the boys. I will edit my article on HD&L a bit and then put it in the "characters" directory at the archive, hoping that the rest of you will follow suit and tackle other FAQs. Don: > I hate to see him [me, that is] refer to my upcoming Family Tree as > a "revision"! I tried VERY hard not to do any recreating of past Barks > facts... but sometimes we had to examine the various past versions and > choose the most reasonable or appropriate combination of them. What's wrong about it being a revision? I haven't seen it of course, but what I've understood from what you've written about it it's a revision of Barks's old tree, and I don't see anything derogatory about that. It needed to be revised. Wilmer: > Are "Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck" the real names of Donald's nephews? The surname: Yes, I'm sure the nephews surname really has appeared as Duck several times, even though I can't think of any now. I don't think they changed their last name when adopted, but how would I know? Their mother is only listed with the surname Duck in the family trees though. First names: > "Huey" is a perfectly O.K. name in English, So it's not a strangely spelt nickname for Hugh? I think I've seen Huey's name spelt "Hughy" or something like that in some cartoons. > (...) but "Dewey" is usually a familiar form of "Duane", So that's what it is! I've only seen Dewey used as a last name except for Dewey Duck, so I've wondered about it. I've never seen their "official" names being Duane or Louis or anything like that. > Also, how old do you think they are in the stories? Well, in WDC 42 (March 1944) they are planning on entering kite-flying contest to which only kids under six are eligible. I guess they got a little older later on, but not much. > What grade are they in at school? In WDC 99 (December 1948) one of the nephews refers to having had to stay in after kindergarten because he didn't know how many inches in a foot. (Well, that doesn't *have* to have been just the other day, even if that's the impression you get.) The next month, WDC 100, we see their school, and Donald leads them to a door beside a sign "CLASSROOMS GRADES 2-A, 2-B". What other data points are there? > And what are their exact ranks in the Junior Woodchucks? In WDC 125 they have to pass O.R.St.B. to become Brigadier Generals, and this is said to be the only way to become such. They did more than they had to though, and got promoted to *five star* generals. "Also you get *merit badges*!" Then in WDC 132 they got promoted "way up in rank" to ten star generals. The next step is in WDC 150: "if we can pass the drowning test, we become *exalted hightails*, which is the next rank above ten-star generals!" "When we become exalted hightails we can wear the tails of our caps on *top*, instead of hanging down the back!" Of course they become exalted hightails, and this is still their rank. They also became "chevaliers of the honor guard", "rear adminrals of the arctic snows", and "commandants of the hightails' hall of heroes" by the way. > Important questions, all! Certainly! -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "I was wondering when those confounded Junior Woodchucks are going to run out of *titles*!" From jamal at silver.lcs.mit.edu Sun May 16 00:52:04 1993 From: jamal at silver.lcs.mit.edu (Jamal Hannah) Date: Sat, 15 May 93 18:52:04 EDT Subject: Huey, Dewey, and Louie In-Reply-To: <9305152104.AA07170@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>; from "Per Starback" at May 15, 93 11:04:37 pm Message-ID: <9305152252.AA27708@silver.lcs.mit.edu> > I've never seen their "official" names being Duane or Louis or > anything like that. Lewie was called "Lewis" (or Louis?) by a butler once, but Lewie quickly corrected him. - JH From bevilal at dsi.unimi.it Mon May 17 09:49:50 1993 From: bevilal at dsi.unimi.it (luigi bevilacqua) Date: Mon, 17 May 93 9:49:50 METDST Subject: another BIG question... Message-ID: <9305170749.AA09824@pluto.sm.dsi.unimi.it> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, everyone! Here I am with another BIG question! Why all the ducks, all Disney characters, and many many other comics people have FOUR FINGERS ??????? Nothing else... BYE! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | TH...TH...THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! Luigi < bevilal at ghost.dsi.unimi.it > | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Mon May 17 16:22:12 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 17 May 93 10:22:12 EDT Subject: Rejected Mail Message-ID: <930517142211_72260.2635_EHK36-1@CompuServe.COM> --- Forwarded Message --- Date: 15-May-93 00:24 EDT From: INTERNET:Postmaster at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk Subj: Rejected Mail Sender: MAILER-DAEMON at sna.co.umist.ac.uk Received: from suna.sna.co.umist.ac.uk by ihc.compuserve.com (5.65/5.930129sam) id AA20345; Sat, 15 May 93 00:23:41 -0400 Received: from co.umist.ac.uk (tracey.co.umist.ac.uk) by sna.co.umist.ac.uk with SMTP id AA03834 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for <72260.2635 at compuserve.com>); Sat, 15 May 1993 05:25:41 +0100 Received: From IST2/WORKQUEUE by co.umist.ac.uk via Charon-4.0-VROOM with IPX id 100.930515052544.480; 15 May 93 05:25:56 +000 Message-Id: From: Postmaster at ist2.co.umist.ac.uk To: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Subject: Rejected Mail Date: Sat, 15 May 93 05:25:39 +000 Unable to deliver message because: BS111 at ist2 : Insufficient Disk Space Returned Text follows ------------------- Received: From sna.co.umist.ac.uk by co.umist.ac.uk via Charon-4.0-VROOM with SMTP id 102.930515052531.416; 15 May 93 05:25:27 +000 Received: from sunic.sunet.se by sna.co.umist.ac.uk with SMTP id AA03830 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Sat, 15 May 1993 05:25:11 +0100 Received: from Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE by sunic.sunet.se (5.65c8-/1.28) id AA22907; Sat, 15 May 1993 06:23:02 +0200 Received: from ihc.compuserve.com by Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Sun-4/630, SunOS 4.1.2) with sendmail 5.61-bind 1.5+ida/ICU/DoCS id AA19759; Sat, 15 May 93 06:22:13 +0200 Received: by ihc.compuserve.com (5.65/5.930129sam) id AA20151; Sat, 15 May 93 00:22:10 -0400 Date: 15 May 93 00:15:04 EDT From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at compuserve.com> To: Subject: Re: Digest #20 Message-Id: <930515041503_72260.2635_EHK39-1 at CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #20: Why was someone in there asking about Archie comics??? Where did that come from??? No, I never tried to reread that long message that I had trouble with during the thunderstorm. It was reeealy tricky to try to keep it on screen with all the line noise -- I had to keep my finger on the "backspace" button to prevent the lightning from commanding the system to throw me off the E-mail string. And being such a loooong message, I gave up trying to recall it and fight my way all the way to the end again to see what I missed. In the meanwhile, I guess I erased the message. Anyway, you seem to have found the parts I missed... Yes, there IS a long adventure story that I did especially for Norway's "Year of the Book" which WILL have some alternate panels when/if used by Gladstone. But... how did anyone KNOW about all that??? Did I pop off about it somewhere? I don't recall... And yes, I will ask Gladstone to make some small changes in the "Life and Times of $crooge McDuck" when they use it; probably just dialogue changes. The biggest one involves part 3 where I had $crooge meeting the "Professor from Birmingham" in 1882. I'm embarrassed to say that the panel where the vicuna hunter in "Lost in the Andes" tells of the professor's death had slipped my mind -- or perhaps I'd always thoughtlessly figured he was referring to some OTHER visitor to Plain Awful (though I see it's clear he isn't). Anyway, I'll need to rewrite the dialogue to make the old man to be the museum agent who bought the eggs from the padre in Cuzco. This, however, doesn't explain why the museum forgot what the eggs were, and it sorta knocks the stuffing out of the whole reason for the scene. Well, I got careless for an instant, and that's what happened. I hope readers will point out other goofs so I can correct them, too, in future printings. As for HD&L's history, Per has it all down. I hate to see him refer to my upcoming Family Tree as a "revision"! I tried VERY hard not to do any recreating of past Barks facts... but sometimes we had to examine the various past versions and choose the most reasonable or appropriate combination of them. I sought the advice of Duck fans around the world while constructing that Tree over several years because I knew I was dealing with characters that belong to ALL of us, not just whoever was doing the Tree (which happened to be me). TALESPIN: Yes, those were the titles of the two episodes I wrote. They were also the first two episodes written and the first two produced. The "pilot" or origin episodes were written and produced much later... I've never even seen those. In fact, I've never seen an episode of the series other than the tapes they sent me of my two episodes. I just don't have much interest in TV cartoons, and seeing the behind-the-scenes of their production didn't fill me with fascination. From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Mon May 17 16:50:25 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 17 May 93 10:50:25 EDT Subject: Digest #21 Message-ID: <930517145024_72260.2635_EHK36-3@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #21: First of all, I just re-sent some "returned" mail. But I see it mad it through after all as it was in this digest. I MUST always resend bounced mail since ONE TIME it really didn't make it. So just delete any resent mail that already arrived. Some questions about HD&L -- I'll give MY answers: Those might sound like nicknames, but let's not get so complicated that we try to say they have other names. I know that sounds weird coming from somebody who has gone to immense trouble composing this Family Tree, but I hafta draw the line somewhere, and saying that those aren't actually HD&L's names is a bit much for me. Their LAST name IS "Duck". Nothing odd about two unrelated people having the same last name. But... what was this crack about them being ADOPTED. Who says they're adopted? Their age is a nebulous matter. I see them as about 10 and in the 4th grade (but, of course, as bright as college grads). On my personal Family Tree I even have birth DATES for all the Ducks, and my birth year for HD&L is 1940. Donald and his sister Della (twins) were born in 1920. (Most of my selected birth years are in increments of 5.) And as to how they could all still be so young, remember that my stories all take place in the early-mid 50s. Ranks in the Junior Woodchucks are so ever-changing that I don't think HD&L have the same rank in any two stories. In a recent "Life of $crooge", I showed him meeting the first three Woodchucks and tried drawing their hats with the tails at the bottom -- but I turned the hats into "exalted highttails" since the hats just don't LOOK right to me without the tails on the top. I see ALL JW caps now as being the "hightail" style... checking Barks stories will proove that. My "Pied Piper of Duckburg" story: nobody ever told me that Jippes ever considered finishing the tale. I'd guess his version would be better than mine! I did the covers for WALT DISNEY'S COMICS IN COLOR #1-8. But stop looking... only #1-7 were ever published. The cover for #8 was a dandy. Disney insisted that Donald, $crooge & Mickey could not be interacting so I had to always use them in abstract manners. #8 had HD&L in a museum looking at full-length portraits of the three, each portrait's frame was characteristic of the subject, and each portrait had a signature of either C.B. or F.G. in the artist's handwriting style (if that cover had been or ever will be used, we knew Disney will not allow those signatures to remain). From rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com Mon May 17 09:16:00 1993 From: rich.bellacera at amail.amdahl.com (rich.bellacera@amail.amdahl.com) Date: Monday, 17 May 1993 09:16 PT Subject: Mo' HD&L stuff Message-ID: Hi- Before you call it quits on the HD&L FAQ file I thought I make some additional comments/suggestions for inclusion: 1. I'm certain I have a comic story (which I mention in a previous posting the last time the tykes were at issue on this mailing list) where Grandma Duck made the Nephews 'personalized' sweaters. I distinctly seem to recall that it was a one-pager (which may explain why quickly flipping through my entire collection was a fruitless task). I do, however, clearly recall that the color scheme was "H" on Red, "D" on Blue and "L" on Green. The reason I mention this is because this story, chonologically, came long before the Ducktales storyline. I would guess that there are other stories in which the boys were wearing distinctive shirts when referred by name, but this is one story where the emphasis was on matching a name to a color. This makes it an important precedent story (for the colors only). If anyone can recall where this story is found it would probably help out immensely. I figure it is probably in a Duck Family Album or WDC&S. 2. Perhaps a small comment about the relationship of AM&J (April, May & June, Daisy's Nieces) as HD&L's counterparts. As well as what exact role they play in the pseudo-tortured lives of the Nephews (especially concerning their "boys-will-be-boys" mentality). One good example is found in UNCLE DONALD AND HIS NEPHEWS FAMILY FUN #38 (Dell Giant) where the girls leave love notes and such and chase them The boys try to keep the girls at bay by hiding out in their clubhouse and using campaigns like "No Girls Aloud" and calling themselves mysogynists ("Women Haters"). However, by the end of the story the boys are attacked by the Beagle Brats and subsequently beaten up by the Nieces. The Beagle Boys find out their brats are fighting with girls and are summarily punished. AM&J win the respect of HD&L, but the story is filled with sexism, even to the point that the boys make the girls conform to a masculine physical appearnce in order to enter the clubhous. But I digress... ;-) Definitely NOT one of Disney's shining moments in the realm of political progress, but then much of Disney was based on the general social mores of the time (e.g. FANTASIA's use of Black Stereotypes later editted out of the film's re-releases). 3. In an upcoming series for the Disney Afternoon for DTA (Disney Television Animation) the Nephews and Donald will be starring. The show is slated for the Fall of 1995(?) to be the next series after ALADDIN to premeire, called "DUCK DAZE." The show is in pre-product and, at this time, is to be about the irracible Donald trying to raise three teenagers. There will be re-curring appearances by Uncle $crooge and Prof. Von Drake. Also promised cameos by Darkwing and Goof Troop characters. As I understand it U$ will be testing Donald's worthiness to inherit his wealth from time-to-time. I also imagine Prof. von Drake will probably be one of HD&L's High School instructors. ============================================================================= As an aside, for those who care, I have had a letter published in WDC&S #568. Y'all take care. -Rich From rob at cs.itc.hp.com Tue May 18 00:06:44 1993 From: rob at cs.itc.hp.com (Rob Schorzman) Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 16:06:44 -0600 Subject: Disney Message-ID: <9305172206.AA15254@pizza7.cs.itc.hp.com> I'm interested in learning more about Disney comics and buying more!! By the way Torsten sent me. Regards, Rob Schorzman (590-2768) (rob at .cs.itc.hp.com) From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Tue May 18 06:08:14 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 18 May 93 00:08:14 EDT Subject: Digest #22 Message-ID: <930518040814_72260.2635_EHK37-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #22: If there ever was a one-page gag which involved HD&L having colored hats or sweaters which corresponded to the DUCKTALES color schemes, it was pure coincidence. Prior to DUCKTALES, there was NO designation of what color what nephew wore. And no one associated with DUCKTALES had ever read Uncle $crooge stories beforehand EXCEPT for Jymn Magon... and it's unlikely he would have remembered that obscure gag -- and there's no way he could have looked it up to check on it since Disney does not have ANY records of the contents of the old Dell or Gold Key comics. All the DUCKTALES writers had to go on was a set of Another Rainbow's Barks Library. Furthermore, after Magon let the head writers read through the library, they returned it with the comment "there's not much here to use". As for DUCK DAZE, it will be tolerable only in the same fashion as DUCKTALES is tolerable -- by considering it as "pure fiction". It'll be another TV show that the children in Duckburg watch on TV. From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Tue May 18 09:12:35 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 18 May 93 08:12:35 +0100 Subject: Time in Don's comics Message-ID: <930518081235.00002ab2.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> Don Rosa wrote: >... my stories all take place in the early-mid 50s. Yes, I've read about that before. And that has also made me wondering: What about those stories (like "When the Duck fell to Earth" (trans- lation of the Swedish title) and "The Island at the Edge of Time") where modern equipment (satellites in those two examples) play an important role? The first satellite wasn't sent up until 1957, and satellites equipped for searching for minerals probably didn't arrive until several years after that. Of course, I realize that this could just be an example of "artistic freedom". Or is there some other explanation? I also wonder if there is any "internal continuity" in your stories. Like: "Son of the Sun" comes before "Mythological Menagerie" which comes before "Return to Plain Awful". I realize, of course, that the stories can be read in any order, but do they take place in any particular order (say, chronologically)? /Fredrik Ekman ___________________________ ______| |______ \ | In Donaldismo Veritas | / > |___________________________| < /______\| |/______\ From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Tue May 18 14:28:35 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 18 May 1993 14:28:35 +0200 Subject: Time in Don's comics Message-ID: <199305181228.AA17975@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa: >... my stories all take place in the early-mid 50s. Fredrik Ekman: > Yes, I've read about that before. And that has also made me wondering: > What about those stories (like "When the Duck fell to Earth" (trans- > lation of the Swedish title) and "The Island at the Edge of Time") > where modern equipment (satellites in those two examples) play an > important role? The first satellite wasn't sent up until 1957, and > satellites equipped for searching for minerals probably didn't arrive > until several years after that. Wasn't there a Barks story that stated that "Duckburg is well ahead of time compared to other cities in the world"? 8-) Fredrik: > I also wonder if there is any "internal continuity" in your stories. > Like: "Son of the Sun" comes before "Mythological Menagerie" which > comes before "Return to Plain Awful". I realize, of course, that the > stories can be read in any order, but do they take place in any > particular order (say, chronologically)? There are a few things that determine the order of at least some stories. In "Return to Plain Awful", Scrooge is going to the Andes, and his clerk says "AGAIN, sir?". He clearly refers to "Son of the Sun", so that story must have taken place before that. I'm sure Rosa has references like that in other stories as well (he likes to make them and I like to read them...). I can't remember more at the moment, though. --Harry. From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Wed May 19 16:30:38 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 19 May 93 10:30:38 EDT Subject: Digest #23 Message-ID: <930519143038_72260.2635_EHK52-1@CompuServe.COM> Well, that digest #22 was all for me. How nize. TIME in my stories. I maintain (as more a private bit of knowledge than anything else) that my stories take place in the early-mid... sometimes late 50's. However, I am well aware of times that certain things in the background might violate that SLIGHTLY -- and so far it has been in the form of satellites in two different stories; the ones in "The Duck Who Fell to Earth" and a Brutopian "Sputnik" in "The Curse of Nostrildamus". I always draw them as 1957 style Rooski Sputniks (and in fact called that one same), so I think a satellite here and there doesn't violate my time frame. However, OTHER things do, such as there being LOTS of satellites in orbit "Duck...Fell...", a weather satellite with a camera being used by a TV weatherman in that same story (the gag wasn't worth it, so I shoulda lost that'n), and some reference to a giany hamburger chain a la McDonald's in the second tale I ever did (which I can't recall the title of!). And someone suspected the truth: I do not see my stories taking place in chronological order unless they are stated as such in internal references. We've been reading reprints for decades -- and that's sorta my whole idea of setting my tales in the 50's... I like to imagine them as reprints from the very years when I was reading those comics. Harry is right -- there is a tremendous amount of lil' hidden tidbits in the stories; one detail that pinpointed the year a story was taking place was a ledger on page one of "Last Sled to Dawson" which read "1954"... and I think I did the same thing with some ledger books in "Cash Flow". As I've said, anyone who gets out his history books and follows "The Life of $crooge" chapters closely will be able to tell exactly which year, 1877-1947, that each story is taking place. Also, another detail that shows that my stories are out of chronological order (not those "Life of" stories, of course - they're IN order) was in my very first comic "The Son of the Sun" where one exhibit in the McDuck show was for the treasure of Croesus -- a treasure that $crooge once dreamed of, but never was shown to find. That treasure is perhaps one of the MOST famous in history, and I have planned to do the search for it since 1987, but I've yet to get to it. Also, I'd originally imagined that "Return to Plain Awful" took place in 1950, shortly after the original (they were returning those chickens)... but I guess I screwed up because (as someone said) I made references to "Son of the Sun" which had to have taken place much later, considering all those museum exhibits. Ahhhh, sue me. By the way, the early existance of satellites in my tales cannot be explained (in MY eyes) by that story which stated that Duckburg was far advanced than the rest of the world -- that tale showed Duckburg as apparantly a city with 23rd century architecture, its own space stations, citizens zooming about in mini-rockets -- That's all utter nonsense! That's one of Barks' tales that I regard as a dream Donald had after eating pickle-flavored ice-cream, or perhaps it was an episode of that DUCKTALES show that the kids in Duckburg watch on TV. Duckburg is a very ordinary, large but not HUGE city in Calisota. (And as for its PRECISE location, you'll need to get out your atlas' and compare the coastline of Calisota that I show on a map in part 10.) From d24 at aarhues.dk Wed May 19 16:30:00 1993 From: d24 at aarhues.dk (Jan Lund Thomsen) Date: Wed, 19 May 93 16:30:00 +0200 Subject: War of the Wendigo? Message-ID: <9305191430.AA11342@dec5102.aarhues.dk> Disney have been hyping this since US$273, anyone out there who knows when it is _actually_ going to be published?!? I heard a rumour somewhere, saying that Disney wouldn't publish it because it was about indians. Any truth in this? /Jan From d24 at aarhues.dk Wed May 19 16:23:54 1993 From: d24 at aarhues.dk (Jan Lund Thomsen) Date: Wed, 19 May 93 16:23:54 +0200 Subject: Missing Rosa stories! Message-ID: <9305191423.AA11335@dec5102.aarhues.dk> Finally time to write something, this education is killing me slowly :) I, like everyone else, would like to complete my collection of Don Rosa's stories for Disney/Gladstone/Egmont, etc. At this time I have a copy of all his work, except: "Give unto Others" & "On a Silver Platter", which (as far as I'm informed) were printed in M&D #17 & U$ADV #20. I would _ really _ like to get my hands on these two, even xeroxed copies would be appreciated... (I don't know if I'm violating any incredibly complex copyright laws by saying this)... So if _ you _ would like to help a fellow disneyfreak, e-mail me at the adress below, and we'll discuss it on a private e-mail basis. /Jan P.S.: Excuse my bad english, but I've had a _ very _ hard day designing databases. _____________________________________ | "I think that fish is nice but | Jan Lund Thomsen then again, I think that rain | d24 at dec5102.aarhues.dk is wet so who am I to judge?" | | College of Information Technology, - Douglas Adams | Aarhus, Denmark |_____________________________________ From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Wed May 19 17:53:15 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 19 May 1993 17:53:15 +0200 Subject: Rosa's Re: Digest #23 (or 22?) Message-ID: <199305191553.AA27150@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa: > Well, that digest #22 was all for me. How nize. > > By the way, the early existance of satellites in my tales cannot be > explained (in MY eyes) by that story which stated that Duckburg > was far advanced than the rest of the world -- that tale showed Duckburg as > apparantly a city with 23rd century architecture, its own > space stations, citizens zooming about in mini-rockets -- That's all utter > nonsense! That's one of Barks' tales that I regard as a > dream Donald had after eating pickle-flavored ice-cream, or perhaps it was > an episode of that DUCKTALES show that the kids in Duckburg > watch on TV. I have an other silly explanation. Barks once did a Gyro Gearloose story ("Super-Duckburg" or so) where Gyro transformed Duckburg into a new futuristic city, with all the "23th century architecture" and stuff. The inhabitants did not like this after a while, so they forced Gyro to put everything back to normal. The "Island in the Sky" story (Barks' story where Duckburg is 23th century) could have taken place _during_ this Gyro story... I know this makes no sense, but it was just a thought... It must be hard for Don to write his stories, while keeping _every_ Barks fan happy... --Harry. From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Wed May 19 18:00:35 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 19 May 1993 18:00:35 +0200 Subject: War of the Wendigo Message-ID: <199305191600.AA27318@athena.research.ptt.nl> Jan Lund Thomsen wrote: > Disney have been hyping this since US$273, anyone out there who knows when > it is _actually_ going to be published?!? > > I heard a rumour somewhere, saying that Disney wouldn't publish it because > it was about indians. Any truth in this? I once stated that on this list, quoting Don Rosa in an interview. He said the Disney editors did not even care whether the Indians were good guys or bad guys, just the fact that there _are_ Indians in the story is enough to reject it. (Well, Don: correct me if I'm wrong 8-) --Harry. BTW: The story "On a silver platter" is to be published by Egmont, the only question is: when. The Dutch publisher gave the story to Egmont, so that Egmont could colour it and then return it to Holland... This means that this "Dutch" story will *first* be published in Scandinavia, and *then* in Holland. From AREID at MARY.FORDHAM.EDU Wed May 19 20:22:06 1993 From: AREID at MARY.FORDHAM.EDU (Darin Reid) Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 14:22:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Gladstone, Duckbufg & the future Message-ID: <737835726.50000.AREID@MARY.FORDHAM.EDU> Just for everyone's information. I picked up Gladstone's "first" new comic. It came out around monday or tuesday, I don't know which since my bro picked it up for me. _Donald Duck Adventures_ #21 contains "Secret of Hondorica" (Barks), and a Grandma Duck story, "Modern Conveniences". This Comic looks almost exactly like one of the original Gladstones, even the letters column has the same title ("Adventure Log"). The only difference is the paper quality. About Duckburg and time: Don't forget that in Barks' story the ducks used rockets, and new-fangled equipment (shrinking rays), more than once. Sat.'s would not seem that unusual... - Darin -- Bitnet : Areid at Fordmulc __ _ __ Unix/AIX: Reid at Dsm.Fordham.Edu / ) ' ) ) / Vax/VMS : Areid at Mary.Fordham.Edu / / __. __ o ____ /--' _ o __/ DECnet : MARY::AREID /__/_(_/|_/ (_<_/ / <_ / \_ >> Just for everyone's information. I picked up Gladstone's "first" new >>comic. It came out around monday or tuesday, I don't know which since my bro >>picked it up for me. _Donald Duck Adventures_ #21 contains "Secret of >>Hondorica" (Barks), and a Grandma Duck story, "Modern Conveniences". This >>Comic looks almost exactly like one of the original Gladstones, even the >>letters column has the same title ("Adventure Log"). The only difference is >>the paper quality. Does that mean the letters page and issue credits are back to being on the inside front cover of the comics? Do they have a comic strip on the back cover? Also, how many pages were devoted to ads? From AREID at MARY.FORDHAM.EDU Wed May 19 21:51:17 1993 From: AREID at MARY.FORDHAM.EDU (Darin Reid) Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 15:51:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Gladstone, Duckbufg & the future In-Reply-To: <9305191824.AA04059@ct.med.ge.com> Message-ID: <737841077.920000.AREID@MARY.FORDHAM.EDU> :)Does that mean the letters page and issue credits are back to being on :)the inside front cover of the comics? Do they have a comic strip on the :)back cover? Also, how many pages were devoted to ads? The letters page and issue credits are on the last page (not inside back cover), I remember them being there for some time in the "earlier" Gladstones. I should go check, but all of my Gladstones are bagged, and in a comic box, under another box, kind of a pain to get to. The inside front cover, and inside back cover contain ads (general). Also in the center is a two page ad for subscription and ordering the "CBL of WDC&S in Color". Then, near the back (before the second story), there is an "upcoming comics ad, and a back issue order page. One interesting note: The Gladstones will be distributed on newsstands by Marvel Comics! - Darin -- Bitnet : Areid at Fordmulc __ _ __ Unix/AIX: Reid at Dsm.Fordham.Edu / ) ' ) ) / Vax/VMS : Areid at Mary.Fordham.Edu / / __. __ o ____ /--' _ o __/ DECnet : MARY::AREID /__/_(_/|_/ (_<_/ / <_ / \_ Don Rosa: > Yes, there IS a long adventure story that I did especially for > Norway's "Year of the Book" which WILL have some alternate panels > when/if used by Gladstone. But... how did anyone KNOW about all > that??? Did I pop off about it somewhere? I don't recall... We have ways of knowing things like that... Well, actually I heard about it from Stefan. If he had heard it from you or seen it at work I don't know. Does it have a title? > And yes, I will ask Gladstone to make some small changes in the > "Life and Times of $crooge McDuck" when they use it; probably just > dialogue changes. The biggest one involves part 3 where (...) Yeah, I know what the continuity errors were, I just didn't want to say too much of the stories for the majority who haven't read them. > I hope readers will point out other goofs so I can correct them, > too, in future printings. Warning! Warning! You'd better beware of doing that! Don is reported to have written the following about a young Swedish Donaldist who reported on some continuity error in a Rosa comic: "That XXX is too sharp for his own good. We may have to kill him." :-) > (...) yes, Disney comics licensees do pay a minimal fee when they > wish to reprint a story, the fee to cover the cost of the photostats > shipped to them by the story's producer or archiver, 99% of the time > which is Egmont. Not even Disney ever bothered to keep copies of the > old comic stories since they had so little concern for something as > lowly as funnybooks; Dell and Egmont/Gutenberghus were the > archivers. I guess it must be part of the deal for licensees to have to archive all their stories, as some other licensee might want it, but what happens when they lose their license agreement with Disney? When the Scandinavians reprinted Gladstone's (AR) stories, did they get them from Gladstone, and was Gladstone really obliged to still archive them and send them? And what about the comics produced at the Disney Studios for the foreign market? Would it be possible for Gladstone to get those from Disney if they'd like some of them and knew the codes? (I'm thinking about recommending some of those stories never printed in the USA for Gladstone, if they'd be interested.) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Thu May 20 00:32:31 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Thu, 20 May 93 00:32:31 +0200 Subject: Addresses Message-ID: <9305192232.AA00833@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> I referred to Joe Torcivia's Mickey Mouse Checklist and Mark A. McConnell asked: > Where can a person get this or any other checklists. These would be good > to add into the FAQ eventually. Fanzines and Checklists are often > brought up when people realize they exist. I don't know if that Checklist is still available, but it was sold from The Duckburg Times, and its address is the same as Dana Gabbard's: 3010 Wilshire Blvd. #362, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA. The other American Disney comics fanzine I know of is The Barks Collector, published by Bear Mountain Enterprises, Box 616, Victoria VA 23974, USA. If noone else does it first I will eventually put together a file of all organizations and fanzines I know of with a Disney comics theme. But as usual, don't hold your breath... -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Thu May 20 00:53:37 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Thu, 20 May 93 00:53:37 +0200 Subject: Huey, Dewey, and Louie: colours and ranks Message-ID: <9305192253.AA01138@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Colours ~~~~~~~ Don Rosa: > If there ever was a one-page gag which involved HD&L having colored > hats or sweaters which corresponded to the DUCKTALES color schemes, > it was pure coincidence. Prior to DUCKTALES, there was NO designation > of what color what nephew wore. Well, if you make notes of what colours they have whenever they are named, you will find that the Dell comics weren't coloured in a consistent way. That much is obvious. But I wouldn't want to dismiss the idea that the colourists, or at least some of them, despite that had some views on this topic. Of course there were some things that were known to all colourists, like for instance the fact that HD&L had different cap colours and that those colours were red, blue, and green. I don't know if knowledge like that was ever written down somewhere or just something you learnt from looking at others' colouring work, but I don't see anything stopping those colourists from having such notions, and if they did, it would probably show in an instance such as the one Rich mentioned (sweaters with the boys' initials on them) as that is a case where the colourists quickly can see who is who without having to actually read the stories, something that they evidently not had the time to do in their work. To get any further on this question I guess one would have to either speak to some of the actual old-time colourists or count instances of the nephews having different colours and see if one can find any tendencies in that data. BTW: even though confronted with contradictory data my views when I was little was that they actually were coloured in just that way: Huey red, Dewey blue, Louie green. Divine inspiration? :-) Ranks ~~~~~ Don Rosa: > Ranks in the Junior Woodchucks are so ever-changing that I don't > think HD&L have the same rank in any two stories. But they do! In WDC 125 they become five-star generals. In WDC 132 they call each other generals and get promoted to ten-star generals. In WDC 137 they still are ten-star generals. In WDC 150 they become hightails, which then is their rank for the rest of the stories, something which often is referred to. All those other titles, like "rear admirals of the arctic snows" are no ranks but just titles that you can have or not, whatever your rank is. At least I think that is pretty clear. -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Thu May 20 08:19:45 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 20 May 93 02:19:45 EDT Subject: Digest #24 Message-ID: <930520061945_72260.2635_EHK23-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON DIGEST #whatsit: Yes, that's right, "War of the Wendigo", my long Peeweegah sequel, will NEVER be used in America simply because it involves Indians. The comment was made that it must be difficult to keep EVERY Barks fan happy. You bet! I try hard to do stories in the same SPIRIT as the stories I read in my youth, but while I read Barks I was also reading Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Mort Weisinger's SUPERMAN... so there's lots more than Barks in my brain. I think Barks fans have been magnanimously kind to me over the past few years... and the only ones I can't seem to keep happy are people like my friend Geof Blum (Gladstone's text writer) who grew up on STRICTLY Barks; his objections are that my stories are not EXACTLY Barks stories in every possible detail and nuance, and all I can say to him is "Hey! I'm not Barks. I'm ME! Whaddiya want?" Harry: I think I have the Dutch comic that used "On a Silver Platter", but I'd better check since you should know such stuff better than me. But why would they NOT use that story, particularly since I did it for THEM? They've used some that were far worse, including those that they had written FOR me (which were REAL stinkers). That "On a Silver Platter" was (in my opinion) my very best 10-page gag story! Someone commented that Barks showed the Ducks using rocket ships, so that Duckburg might be "far advanced" as in that one weird story. But Barks really had no feel for science fiction -- it was one genre he was completely unfamiliar with -- and you'll see that any time the Ducks used a rocket ship it was treated as something somewhat experimental or unusual, not commonplace... sorta Jules Vernesian? My adventure done for Norway's "Year of the Book" is titled "Guardians of the Lost Library". Stefan Dios knows of it because I let him read my xerox copies last time I was in Stockholm. He said it was "the best ever" at the time... and Byron Erickson (Gladstone's old editor and my current Egmont editor) claims it's the best story I've ever done. This puzzles me since I thought it was just "okay". But one thing I've learned in just doing comics for 6 years: every story I write & draw will be one person's LEAST favorite and one other person's TOP favorite. There's no explaining how or why a certain story, good or bad, will strike an individual. More about Disney's nonexistant archives: As I said, Disney never kept copies of the comic stories since they were not responsible for their production and, if anything, had contempt for "Disney" material that THEY did not produce. Western publishing keeps the comic archives -- that's who Gladstone contacts when they need a story. Over the decades Egmont has built up its own archives based on Western's -- but this is NOT something they are required to do by Disney. It's something they MUST do due to Disney's typical cavalier treatment of their licensees whom they give very little worthwhile help to... they just collect their money and take ownership of the stories that they (Egmont, Oberon, etc.) produce with no help from Disney. As for Gladstone using some of the stories that Disney has produced for the foreign market, Gladstone has long told me that those stories aren't any good and it was a puzzle why Disney kept producing them for years when none of the foreign markets liked them and no one wanted them when they could be using the excellent Oberon and Egmont stuff. Lastly, the Junior Woodchucks ranks. I maintain that the ranks are ever changing and part of the humor should be that the same rank is never heard of twice. As for the ranks that Barks may have mentioned: if "Hightails" is the highest possible rank, and it is denoted by the caps with the high tails, then how is it explained that ALL Woodchucks wear hightail caps? All Woodchucks are of the highest rank? No, it's funnier not to try to make sense of it. From mas at cs.bu.edu Thu May 20 15:29:33 1993 From: mas at cs.bu.edu (Mark Semich) Date: Thu, 20 May 93 09:29:33 -0400 Subject: Digest #24 In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 20 May 93 02:19:45 EDT <930520061945_72260.2635_EHK23-2@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: <9305201329.AA11190@csa.bu.edu> Don Rosa writes: >COMMENTS ON DIGEST #whatsit: > > Yes, that's right, "War of the Wendigo", my long Peeweegah >sequel, will NEVER be used in America simply because it involves >Indians. So how does the Disney "no-indians" policy work? The latest Donald Duck Adventures (21) contains Barks' "Secret of Hondorica" which, although I liked, I thought contained some rather negative indian stereotypes. Is this one grandfather claused or something? - mark semich, mas at csa.bu.edu From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Thu May 20 20:46:58 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Thu, 20 May 93 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: Disney's Comic Proof Vault Message-ID: <9305201846.AA24672@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Yes, Disney DOES have a comic archive and I know because -- as a certain nutshell-dweller near Foola Zoola's village once said -- "I'VE BEEN THERE!" Bob Foster invited me to the Disney Comics studio two years ago. When I was there, we went over to an enormous trailer on the regular Studio lot. Inside were huge filing cabinets loaded with proofs to hundreds of old comics. Their WDC&S archive began with #31 and, although it was missing a few around #63, essentially went on from there. Some issues they don't have the stats for all the STORIES to; others only the COVERS! (such as MM OS 16). A lot of the material is cheap Western debris such as their 1970s Daisy and Donald title, and other such schlock. They also have Dell's ORIGINAL proofs to at least some stories. "The Hard Loser" in WDC&S 551 was reprinted directly from badly yellowed 1943 proofs much larger than the original published size. I saw 'em. They were not in great condition. As to whether they have the long-lost proofs to MOC 20 and 41, I don't know, and quite frankly I don't know who to even ask now, since Disney Comics no longer exists. Disney used the reinked versions from the CBL for their comics simply because those had already been altered to meet their censors' demands. Actually NOTHING seems to have been done to "South Seas." (Catch me if I'm wrong...) Maybe they have ORIGINAL PROOFS (!!!) to that story in their vault. Wouldn't surprise me, because they reprinted the cover to that book on WDC 562 and it was a very clean version, NOT the seemingly retouched Xerox that appeared in the CBL. ("Nephew bathing in piano," I mean) I heard that Gladstone was planning to do the MOC stories all in one album at some point in the near future. Perhaps it would pay for them to visit Disney's 'nonexistent' archive... Your friend, David Gerstein From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Fri May 21 14:56:42 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 21 May 93 08:56:42 EDT Subject: Digest #25 Message-ID: <930521125642_72260.2635_EHK5-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON #25: Not much new here... As for the possibility of Disney allowing my Peeweegah story, "The War of the Wendigo", to be used in light of the current use of "Secret of Hondorica" -- surely we all see the vast difference in the level of "political correctness" involving a tale about Amazonian natives and AMERICAN INDIANS. What Disney weasels fear is that SINGLE letter from some hothead who probably wouldn't have even read the Peeweegah story. It's far less likely that any natives in the Upper Amazon region would ever see a copy of "Hondorica" , much less write Disney a crank letter. They don't want to make waves with anything as "stupid and useless and unprofitable" as comic books. If Disney NOW has a growing file of comic story photostats, it must only be because they have been building it during the past 6 years by demanding copies of everything Another Rainbow has used, and by getting the recently liquidated Dell stuff. Prior to that, they couldn't have cared less. Now, not having ever seen what they might have, I can only DOUBT that Disney has unretouched proofs of those MOC stories "Darkest Africa" or "Race to the South Seas". As far as I know, those just don't exist anymore. Any fool who looks at the recent uses of "Darkest Africa" can see that it's all poorly done tracings off of old comic pages (or off heavilly damaged proofs?) -- whatever the case, it's quite clearly NOT Barks art! As for "South Seas", that bit of forgery is so well done that I don't think even Another Rainbow ever bothered to admit it -- but anytime you've seen "South Seas" reprinted, it's Dan Jippes art you're looking at, not Barks. I don't see how Disney could have anything that Another Rainbow or Egmont or Oberon doesn't, since THOSE are the sources for what it DOES have. The fact that it's housed in a lousy TRAILER tends to suggest how recent an acquisition it is and how much respect they have for it. Egmont keeps its files in an underground VAULT. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Fri May 21 20:55:28 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Fri, 21 May 93 14:55:28 -0400 Subject: Digest #25 In-Reply-To: Don Rosa's message of 21 May 93 08:56:42 EDT Message-ID: <9305211855.AA03802@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Mr. Rosa (and everyone), Just a few things about Disney's archive... It's like this. It's called a "trailer" because the building is shaped a little like one, but in fact it's shaped about as much like Scrooge's money bin as it is like a trailer. It doesn't have wheels, it's a large, solid building in which the stats (and sample copies of many foreign album series, housed on huge metal bookshelves) are kept. The stats aren't randomly strewn around either: each drawer is filled with manila envelopes, in order that read like this: "WDC 31" -- "WDC 32" -- "WDC 33" -- and so on. Each one has stats to at least most of the inside material to each issue. I'm not saying we're talking COMPLETE: for some mid-'40s issues only the Donald material by Barks and Taliaferro is there. Strange, huh? But just a few are like this. Many of the wartime issues don't have cover stats. To some, cover stats are all that they have (like MM OS 16). Nonetheless, for the postwar WDC&S material they're pretty close to complete, I think. As for whether this material was Dell's once, I don't know. Mr. Rosa mentioned the "recently-liquidated Dell" material. Did Dell have an archive like Western's, and is that stuff being destroyed (!!!) now? Are you talking about Western's stock of Dell Comics proofs -- are those being destroyed? I don't think so, since whenever Disney lacked some material in its vault (such as the fifth chapter of "MM and the 'Lectro Box" as reformatted for WDC 55), they would just order it from Western. So Western's archive is still standing, and the material Disney has is far beyond only what Gladstone printed and sent them copies of. As for Disney having the original proofs to MOC 41 and/or 20: they still COULD. The reason that the redone (CBL) versions of those stories were used Disney's recent reprints (DDA 26 and 29) is that those versions were modified so as to be approved for the CBL. I don't think Bob knew that they were REINKED until it actually came time to do the editing work on the already-solicited issues. Anyway, as I've said, Disney DOES have one thing Gladstone doesn't: a neat, clean stat to the cover of MOC 41, which they reprinted on WDC 562. This was an authentic proof, and far superior to the version that Gladstone used in CBL VI (which I suspect was a retouched Xerox from an actual printed copy). Where that cover proof is, methinks there must be a STORY proof as well. Of course, I could be wrong: like with OS 16, Disney's vault may only have the cover to MOC 41, as well. But who knows? Gladstone's planned an album of all the MOC stories (as mentioned in some CBG issue) for this winter, I think. With some investigation they could have original stats to work with. The same may be true of MOC 20, although I don't know about this and Gladstone will probably be required to make the same changes that were made in the CBL all over again, anyway. Nonetheless, that's better than throwing out a third printing of the very poorly reinked version of that story. Well, gotta go. Your friend, David Gerstein (To be at Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.edu as of next Monday) From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Sun May 23 01:42:06 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Sat, 22 May 93 19:42:06 -0400 Subject: The Gottfredson Quote Quiz Message-ID: <9305222342.AA27895@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Well, Friday's come and went and I only ever got TWO people to enter my Gottfredson quote quiz: Harry Fluks and Per Starback. But since I officially gave Friday as the deadline, I assume no others plan to enter. Was it the short deadline? I'm SURE it was. I should never have offered a quiz when I was about to leave for another E-Mail address and become unable to efficiently end it unless I did it almost immediately. So when I next give a quiz (watch for it... it'll be coming from my dad's E-Mail address, Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.edu, because I'll be at home for the summer) in a few weeks, I'll give at least two weeks, not one, for answers to come in. But let's see who won this one, shall we: 1. "Boy! A box! Another minute and that cannibal tom cat would be picking me out of his teeth!" Only Harry tried this one, wondering if it was the early '30s story "MM, Boxing Champion." Unfortunately, it isn't, the quote being from "MM, Circus Roustabout" (only a few months later, though). Mickey is diving into a packing crate to get away from a tiger he's accidentally set free. Note: "MM, Boxing Champion" hasn't been reprinted in this country. I mentioned that the stories I was using had all been printed in this country since 1986 (with the exception of one, from Abbeville). This one was in WDC&S 585, just last month. I assumed it would be fresh in people's minds. I didn't think of INTERNATIONAL MAIL slowing down Harry's and Per's receipt of the issue, however. 2. "Alas, pore Nell, I knowed her well-ll...." No one tried this. It's Goofy, attempting to lure Pete out of his desert hideout with a love song which he thinks will melt the hearts of villains. It's from "MM at the Bar-None Ranch," which Gladstone printed in MM Giant Album #3. 3. "At last a faint light begins to flicker through the cracks in my dome!" This is Mickey getting an edge on a candid camera scheme in "MM Outwits the Phantom Blot." That was printed both in Gladstone's MM in Color book, and Disney's Album #4 (which was a censored version, but that scene was left intact). Again, no one tried this. 4. "Wait till Lindy sees this airship! HeUll be so jealous -- he'll *resign* from the army!" This one both of you got! I guess most hardcore Disney fans bought Gladstone's MM 244, the sixtieth anniversary edition, in which the first week of the MM strip was reprinted. This is 1/14/30, as Mickey builds himself an airplane that's soon to be grounded. A half point for each of you. 5. "It tells der whole story in a shelled nut!" Good going, Harry. You recognized this one as being Dr. Einmug from "Island in the Sky," and you're right! A point in your general direction. Sorry, Per, but you didn't try this one. The story was reprinted right at the beginning of this year in WDC&S 582-83. This was the first completely uncut reprint of the story, by the way. It was COMPLETELY banned to Gladstone, but the ban was eventually lifted with no changes required in the story. 6. "What a peculiar language these natives speak!" Harry suspected it was one of the African stories, but didn't make a guess. You're right about the type of story: it's "MM in the Foreign Legion" which IS set in Africa. This is also the only pre-Gladstone quote in the quiz, since between Abbeville's publication and Gladstone's planned/bumped publication (would have been MM 240, I believe), the story was banned by Disney. Despite this, however, the quote is not regarding Africans, but MICKEY, who's disguised himself with a stubble 'beard' of black paint and races across the streets shouting "Whoopee! Hotcha! Hot Diggetty Dog! Yeowie!" Sorry, though, Harry, I couldn't count your guess as being right, since it wasn't specific. 7. "Too many dynamitoruses... and not enuff rabbits!" You missed this one, too, Harry, but Per got it. It's Goofy, commenting on the local wildlife in "The Land of Long Ago" (which Gladstone had in MM 247-49), from 1941. A point for you, Per. Each of you has 1-1/2 points now. 8. "I'll turn on this gas and end it once and for all! ...Goodbye, Minnie! Goodbye, cruel world!" Both of you got this one, the story quoted being "MM vs. Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers" (1930). This story has never been reprinted in full in America, but Gladstone printed a sample strip in MM in Color, which seems to be where both of you saw it. Good going! (And who says Mickey has no emotions? Mickey's trying to commit suicide when he thinks Minnie has left him... Donald never did that!) A point for each of you, and the score's tied at 2-1/2. 9. "I t'ink zat we shall throw zem for a loop, eh?" Harry, you guessed "MM in the Foreign Legion" here, but you vere thrown for a loop yourzelf. In fact, it was "Monarch of Medioka" (1937), as Mickey heads for King Michael's palace and prepares to assume power as a substitute king. This is my personal favorite MM story and I'll recommend it to EVERYONE, and you can find it in Gladstone's MM Giant Album #7. You didn't try, Per. 10. "Tell 'im de rest, Shyster! He won't live t' tell nobody!" Harry, you also tried this one, and here you got it. It's Pete relishing an apparent capture, in "MM the Mail Pilot" (1933), which was in MM in Color from Gladstone. Another one of the really superb stories, and one where Mickey boldly goes out and gets involved in the adventure completely through his own personality. (I'm just letting you Duck fans know...) Per: 2-1/2. Harry: 3-1/2. 11. "Crazy inventors! Machines that won't work! I can feel a headache starting already!" Harry, you guessed "Blaggard Castle" on this one, but in fact it's "MM and the 'Lectro Box" which Disney printed in WDC&S 568-72. (This strip was in #569, by the way). Upon refusing a patent to Mickey's invention, a stuffed-shirt official is sent ceilingward -- in his DESK -- by a stray electron beam! The story's from 1943. 12. "Excuse my glove!" I threw in another quote from "Circus Roustabout," assuming you had it freshly in mind. Oh, well. I knew this was an unusual quote for Mickey, but he's actually got ANOTHER glove on -- a baseball glove -- over his REGULAR one, so a strong-man's bravuro handshake won't leave him in tatters. Neither of you tried it. Again, here's a great one that's available NOW, folks, in WDC&S 585. It's from 1931. 13. "Just because I'm a *girl*, that's no sign I'm a *coward!*" Well, Harry, you guessed "In Search of Jungle Treasure," but again, there's one that is banned over here and which hasn't been reprinted since 1941. So it wasn't eligible. However, I've got it in German myself with only the last chapter in English (WDC&S 5), so maybe she DOES say this. I dunno. But Per, you *got* it, the quote being Minnie's firm resolve to fly through a lightning storm regardless of the consequences, in 1934's "The Captive Castaways." So the contest's a tie, with Per and Harry each getting 3-1/2 points. I see I need to give everyone not only time to GET TO my contests, but wait longer so that people can actually look through ALL their issues. Both my entrants were pressed for time, which undoubtedly hurt them. However, if the quotes got you reading Gottfredson again, my dirty plot is revealed. :-) To quote Magica de Spell: "Hee, hee, hee!" But in all due seriousness, folks, I'm going home on Tuesday and will have a new address, my dad's office E-mail. That's: Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.edu Thanks, Harry and Per, for entering my contest! "I'll be back like a bad penny... or a ghost!" Your friend, David Gerstein! (Esq.) "GHOST? Merciful goodness! What have I DONE?" *SLAM!* From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Sun May 23 09:09:09 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Sun, 23 May 93 09:09:09 +0200 Subject: Fingers, Woodchucks, Gottfredson quotes Message-ID: <9305230709.AA02704@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Luigi: > Why all the ducks, all Disney characters, and many many other > comics people have FOUR FINGERS ??????? Don't they have *eight* fingers? :-) Don Rosa: > (...) and tried drawing their hats with the tails at the bottom -- > but I turned the hats into "exalted highttails" since the hats just > don't LOOK right to me without the tails on the top. I see ALL JW > caps now as being the "hightail" style... checking Barks stories > will proove that. It's true that there seems to be many hightails in the Junior Woodchucks, at least in Duckburg, which is strange as exalted hightails "is the next rank above ten-star generals", and HD&L, still addressed as generals, seem to be pretty high up in the hierarchy: * They often command the troops. * I've never seen another kid being general. When their titles are given it's mostly colonel of sergeant. * In WDC 137 (even before HD&L became exalted hightails) a Junior Woodchuck in Avalanche Valley thinks "A strange request! But those boys up there [HD&L] are *ten-star generals*! They must have a good reason!" Even though there are lots of hightails in Barks's stories, certainly not all of them are. The kid I recently quoted isn't and in WDC 253 only HD&L are hightails, to name a few examples. BUT..., there is something strange about all this, because in WDC 125, where Junior Woodchuckism debuts, HD&L wear hightail caps, and they certainly weren't hightails by then. Somehow I get the impression that Barks thought it natural to draw the caps like that, and only added the hightail thing later to have an excuse for drawing the caps like that... In WDC 243 where Donald has a similar cap it looks rather hightail-y too (that story has nothing to do with JW though). David: > So the [Gottfredson quote quiz is] a tie, with Per and Harry each > getting 3-1/2 points. Very exciting, even though that should have been 3 points, as we only should get half a point each for question #8. > However, if the quotes got you reading Gottfredson again, my dirty > plot is revealed. :-) To quote Magica de Spell: "Hee, hee, hee!" Oh no, you got me! :-) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Ta ta, boys! I'll see you in the funny papers!" From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Sun May 23 23:42:30 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Sun, 23 May 93 17:42:30 -0400 Subject: David Gerstein's New E-Mail Address Message-ID: <9305232142.AA11458@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, I'll be going home from college for the summer starting Tuesday. For the next month, home means New Hampshire, as my dad wraps up a sabbatical at Dartmouth (where he's teaching mathematics). I'll be going down to his office a lot, so that's where any E-mail you have for me should be sent. Disregarding the address that MacIP will stick on the top of this letter, my E-Mail address from now on is: Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.edu It will remain thus until I tell you otherwise. Sending stuff to Williamstown for me will essentially get nowwhere. Thanks a lot, folks. From David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu Mon May 24 02:14:56 1993 From: David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu (David A Gerstein) Date: Sun, 23 May 93 20:14:56 -0400 Subject: Mickey "hoozoo" Message-ID: <9305240014.AA13463@bigbird.cc.williams.edu> Dear Folks, Just looked over the MM "Hoozoo" again. A few corrections: Aunt Marissa is Minnie's aunt, not Mickey's (Agatha then being Mickey's only aunt, presumably), as is shown by the Walsh/Gottfredson story reprinted in WDC&S 95 (and again in #575). This has been confused because the "Between the Lines" column for the reprint mentioned her as being *Mickey's* aunt. Uncle Mortimer's status is uncertain, since both Minnie and Mickey refer to him as their uncle. Nonetheless, it would seem that he's *really* Minnie's uncle, because in the first story to feature him Minnie was shown as being in his will, Mickey was not, and he was introduced as "*your* Uncle Mortimer" (Shyster to *Minnie*). As for famous phrases: "heh-heh" being the only one?? In Gottfredson's stories he says, "Oh, fer gosh sakes," "Good gosh!" "Hot diggety dog!" and "Fer th' luvva Mike!" more frequently than his nervous laugh (which was mainly confined to the screen). As for his personality, allow me to submit: Mickey is ruled by his own enthusiasm. Although this has its good points -- giving him compassion, kindness and forthrightness -- it also is his Achilles heel, because Mickey looks before he leaps, gets carried away by his excitement, and ambitiously dives into situations that he's not prepared for. Mickey is an emotional character: overcome by grief or panic, he is likely to make clumsy moves (and, in one case, attempted suicide) when things seem at their worst. Mickey loves nothing more than a good practical joke on Minnie, Goofy, Horace or Clarabelle, but by being too impulsive, Mickey finds himself more often than not to end up with the joke played on him. Mickey is a bit of a chauvinist, believing that Minnie's faults are representative of all women, but always discovers after making generalizations that he has essentially the same faults himself. Mickey's greatest foils are destructive animals -- although others may find them cute, he is bothered by that and regards nuisances as nuisances. Mickey possesses great powers of deduction and thought, but must contain his integral exuberance to make them work properly, which he seldom does. Only when confronted by an aggressive foe is Mickey intimidated and unsettled enough for his logic and decisive thought to come to the fore. --- The above is based on the pre-Bill-Walsh Gottfredson Mickey. It seems to me that the person who wrote the hoozoo was going by the later Paul Murry Mouse: really, there's not much there, which is I guess why I found the description, although well-written, exemplary of why many people find Mickey bland. I hope you guys find this useful. If it gets someone to give Mickey another chance, it's worth every moment it took to write. I'd also like to do Hoozoos for Minnie and Goofy, if you'd let me. Your friend, David Gerstein From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 24 12:31:16 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 24 May 1993 12:31:16 +0200 Subject: Reply on Rosa's Re: Digest #24 Message-ID: <199305241031.AA03332@athena.research.ptt.nl> It was only a matter of time, it had to happen once: I replied a mail to Don Rosa instead of forwarding it to the list. Here it is: ----- Begin message to: 72260.2635 at COMPUSERVE.COM 24-May-93 From: athena.research.ptt.::harry 24-MAY-1993 12:30 To: 72260.2635 at compuserve.com Subj: Reply on Rosa's Re: Digest #24 Don Rosa: > Yes, that's right, "War of the Wendigo", my long Peeweegah sequel, will > NEVER be used in America simply because it involves Indians. But you also said in that interview that you hoped Gladstone would be less narrow-minded. Does this mean you are sure even Gladstone won't print the story? > Harry: I think I have the Dutch comic that used "On a Silver Platter", > but I'd better check since you should know such stuff better > than me. I have never seen a non-American version of the story. According to our Don Rosa Index, it hasn't been printed in Scandinavia, either. > But why would they NOT use that story, particularly since I did it > for THEM? I didn't say they wouldn't use it, only that it will be printed in Scandinavia *first*. It's a matter of cost: Holland lets Egmont do the colouring, and then they buy the story back *with* colours. It's cheaper than colouring the story themselves... (I got this information from Dutch editor Thom Roep) (BTW: the Dutch publisher is not "Oberon" anymore. Oberon was part of the largest Dutch publisher VNU. VNU got rid of their comic publishing parts, and Disney comics got to "De Geillustreerde Pers". Does anyone know why Gutenberghus is now called Egmont?) > They've used some that were far worse, > including those that they had written FOR me (which were REAL stinkers). I don't think they were written specially for you. They just let some people write scripts (like Jan Kruse), and decide later which artist should do the drawings. In your case, one of the scripts is from 1985 (looking at the code), while you drew the story a few years later, I guess. > That "On a Silver Platter" was (in my opinion) my very > best 10-page gag story! It is! No question about that! (the story is "stranger than fiction"... 8-) --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" ----- End forwarded message From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 24 12:48:52 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 24 May 1993 12:48:52 +0200 Subject: Darkest Africa etc. (Rosa's Re: Digest #25) Message-ID: <199305241048.AA04493@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa wrote: > I can only DOUBT that Disney has unretouched proofs of those MOC stories > "Darkest Africa" or "Race to the South Seas". As far as I know, those just > don't exist anymore. Any fool who looks at the recent uses of "Darkest > Africa" can see that it's all poorly done tracings off of old comic pages > (or off heavilly damaged proofs?) -- whatever the case, it's quite clearly > NOT Barks art! As for "South Seas", that bit of forgery is so well done that > I don't think even Another Rainbow ever bothered to admit it -- but anytime > you've seen "South Seas" reprinted, it's Dan Jippes art you're looking at, > not Barks. Both stories are re-inked from *xerox copies of* old comics. "South Seas" entirely by Daan Jippes, "Darkest Africa" by Jippes (pages 1 to 4) and Dick Vlottes (remaining pages). Vlottes finished the work because Jippes emigrated to the USA at that time (1982). He started working for the Disney Studios. I don't know why they let Vlottes do the job: he never did any other Disney comics story. "Any fool who looks at" the pages can see the difference between pages 1-4 and the rest of the story. Daan Jippes had his doubts when they asked him to re-ink Barks stories. He thought it would be forgery, too. But at the time (1974-1982) that was the *only* way to get those rare stories to a great audience. The re-inked versions are a bit different, but "Barks himself would have made different versions even if he would have inked the same story again directly after finishing it." (Jippes, paraphrased, in a 1976 interview.) I think Jippes is about the only person that should be *allowed* to re-ink Barks's stories from the 40s. Jippes also inked some giveaway stories of which better (Barks) versions are now available. Even when I compare some of these stories, it is hard to tell which is Barks and which is Jippes. But Jippes always made his "forgeries" recognizable by putting a page number in a circle at the right bottom of each page. When some of his re-inks were reprinted in the USA, they removed those page numbers... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 24 13:02:06 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 24 May 1993 13:02:06 +0200 Subject: French "Darkest Africa" Message-ID: <199305241102.AA04960@athena.research.ptt.nl> Per: > (I'm sending Harry a copy of this.) Well, since I am a member of the list, I get a copy anyway... 8-) I wrote some months ago, about the Dutch 'complete Barks' books: > They also included a French copy of the page the panel was on, > so the story must have been published in France sometime. David: > Most important is that GLADSTONE will want to know where the > French version appeared. They are apparently (according to some Comic > Buyers' Guide issue) going to put all the MOCS in one album soon, and > I'm sure they'd rather restore the dialog (and, presumably, redo > Disney's required changes) to the original Barks art rather than > Jippes' and Vlottes' version. The books don't say where the French publication was from. But the page was re-formatted (the French always reformat their comics: they have a standard of 5 rows of panels per page in "Le Journal de Mickey") and the copies were very bad. I know Per has photocopies of the story that look much better... Maybe Gladstone can re-edit the story like they did with the "Atom bomb" story (also published in one of the Disney Comics comics): they took Jippes's version and put some original Barks panels back. In that way, they could replace the worst Vlottes panels by Barks ones... (of course it would be better if they published an 'all Barks' version, but I don't think the available copies are all acceptable for a colour reprint). BTW: if a CBGuide is already announcing the album, it may be too late to change the contents of it... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Mon May 24 13:38:03 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 24 May 1993 13:38:03 +0200 Subject: The Gottfredson Quote Quiz Message-ID: <199305241138.AA06600@athena.research.ptt.nl> David: > I mentioned that the stories I was using > had all been printed in this country since 1986 (with the exception of > one, from Abbeville). This one was in WDC&S 585, just last month. I > assumed it would be fresh in people's minds. I didn't think of > INTERNATIONAL MAIL slowing down Harry's and Per's receipt of the > issue, however. It didn't slow down: the USA comics are available in Amsterdam 4 days after they are issued. But since I have almost all Gottfredson stories in a Dutch version, I don't buy the USA versions. That's why I didn't read WDC&S 585. (And, as I told you, it's an extra handicap in answering these quizzes: I have to find a Dutch text that matches the English most...) In fact, I do have some USA versions, because I bought the Gladstone book "Mickey Mouse in Color". > (...) I guess most hardcore Disney fans > bought Gladstone's MM 244, the sixtieth anniversary edition (...) No, I missed that one! I only got to buying Gladstone comics in 1989 or so, so I missed a lot of 'early' Gladstones. I'm still looking for that MM one, and some other comics with Rosa stories in them... > 8. "I'll turn on this gas and end it once and for all! ...Goodbye, > Minnie! Goodbye, cruel world!" > Both of you got this one, the story quoted being "MM vs. Mr. > Slicker and the Egg Robbers" (1930). This story has never been > reprinted in full in America, but Gladstone printed a sample strip in > MM in Color, which seems to be where both of you saw it. Correct (though it's published in Holland, too). > However, if the quotes got you reading Gottfredson again, my > dirty plot is revealed. :-) To quote Magica de Spell: "Hee, hee, > hee!" Well, in fact, I never *stopped* reading Gottfredson in the first place... --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Tue May 25 15:42:42 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 25 May 93 09:42:42 EDT Subject: Digest #28 Message-ID: <930525134241_72260.2635_EHK27-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS ON DIGEST #whatsit: Harry: Now that you posted your private message to me, shouldn't you also post my private answer to your private message? I'm not implying that I think wouldn't want you to, but no one sees my answers to your comments. I'm still confused by your description of how this first-Egmont-then-Oberon story printing system works. Maybe I haven't really seen an Oberon version of "Silver Platter", but there WAS an Oberon version of "Pied Piper of Duckburg", another tale I did FOR Oberon... and there has only recently been an Egmont version. More confusing, when Egmont requested the photostats of "Piper" Roep, he sent the art but not the SCRIPT because he said Oberon had never used the story and he'd mislaid the script (yet they HAD used it). And what's slightly irritating is that when they DID use "Piper", Oberon failed to put even one line of text to explain the unique story behind that tale. Oh, and of course I know those other Oberon stories were not written JUST for ME -- but you know what I meant. And again.... what are we supposed to call Oberon now? UPDATE on this business about what sorta photostat files Disney Studios has of the Disney comics from Dell and Gold Key and around the world. I knew what I was told by Gladstone several years ago, so when Byron Erickson called me from Copenhagen today, I asked him about it again. And I was right (if this is what I'd said and I think it was): until Gladstone was in business, Disney had NO files pertaining to comic books. Whenever some publisher somewhere would order a story through Disney (rather than direct from Western or Egmont), Disney would simply forward the stats and not give a tinker's dam about the stuff. But in 1986 they began a policy of, when they passed along a photostat order, they would KEEP the stat that Western or whoever sent them and send copies of IT to whoever ordered the story. The only photostat stories in Disney's files are there as a result of other publisher's efforts in archiving and preserving. As is one of their company policies, Disney finds a way to exploit the @#$&% daylights out other people's work, after which the world assumes it's DISNEY'S work all along. From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Tue May 25 17:38:46 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 25 May 1993 17:38:46 +0200 Subject: Reply on Rosa's Re: Digest #24 Message-ID: <199305251538.AA01236@athena.research.ptt.nl> I really messed things up yesterday, sending public mail privately, and private mail to the list. I sent a mail to Don privately, then directly after that I found out my mistake and sent it to the list as well. Then I got a private answer from Don to that mail. There were two possibilities: 1. Don sent the message to me, because he didn't mean the list to read it; 2. Don just "replied" to my message, but actually meant it to be for the list. Though possibility 2 seemed most likely, I just waited for Don's next mail to see what he wanted. I could have asked him by private mail, but that would co$t 2 extra mails, and I want to avoid that. So, after all this (boring) explanation, here is Don Rosa's reply. --Harry. ----- Begin message from 72260.2635 at compuserve.com 24-May-93 Date: 24 May 1993 10:19:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Don Rosa <72260.2635 at compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Reply on Rosa's Re: Digest #24 Harry... I used poor wording if I said somewhere that I hoped Gladstone would be less narrow-minded than Disney. I knew Gladstone would never be such. But I was hoping that Disney would allow Gladstone to do something that they were afraid to do themselves. However, no such luck. Gladstone has begged for permission to use my Peeweegah tale, and Disney has flatly refused. Unless they start firing and hiring people inside Disney (which does happen constantly) there is NO chance that the Peeweegah tale will be printed in America. Why did Gutenberghus change its name to Egmont after 125+ years of business? I'm not sure. I think that the founder, Egmont Peterson, was such a humble altuist that he named his company after the inventor of the printing press rather than himself. Gutenberhus ("House of Gutenberg") finally must have gotten tired of that sort of name and decided to honor its illustrious founder. However, (and I'm sure they conducted a long, expensive investigation before deciding this) they determined that "Peterson" was difficult to pronounce in certain languages (this being a global company), but "Egmont" did not present that problem. I would assume that "Egmont" is only a funny sounding name in ENGLISH, which shouldn't bother Egmont a bit, America being such a poor market for reading material. ----- End forwarded message From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Tue May 25 17:47:00 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 25 May 1993 17:47:00 +0200 Subject: Peeweegas, Egmont (Re: Don Rosa) Message-ID: <199305251547.AA01350@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa wrote about Gladstone not publishing the Peeweegah story: > I used poor wording if I said somewhere that I hoped Gladstone would > be less narrow-minded than Disney. I quoted you from my memory, almost certainly you used other words. > Gladstone has begged for permission to use my Peeweegah tale, and Disney has > flatly refused. Unless they start firing and > hiring people inside Disney (which does happen constantly) there is NO > chance that the Peeweegah tale will be printed in America. That's a shame. Is there no way to publish the story in English? What about Canadian or Australian publishers? They're not so close to Disney's censorers... > I would assume that "Egmont" is only a funny sounding name in ENGLISH, which > shouldn't > bother Egmont a bit, America being such a poor market for reading material. Did you know there are other English-speaking countries in the world, too? 8-) (BTW: I hope you know what 8-), :-), BTW etc. mean) --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Tue May 25 18:14:23 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 25 May 1993 18:14:23 +0200 Subject: Rosa's Re: Digest #28 Message-ID: <199305251614.AA02347@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa's COMMENTS ON DIGEST #whatsit: > I'm still confused by your description of how this > first-Egmont-then-Oberon story printing system works. Holland (I'll just call it Holland) has two ways of using stories of other countries: 1. they buy the black-and-white comic art, and colour it themselves. This is what they *always* do in the regular Donald Duck Weekly. 2. they buy the comic art *plus* the colouring. Most colours in other countries are of less quality than their own colouring. They use these coloured stories in the monthly Donald Duck Extra, and in holiday specials. It's cheaper. Almost all your stories are published in DD Extra. They bought the coloured stories from the USA or Egmont. Some other stories are published in black-and-white (!) in a holiday special. Only a few stories, like "The Pied Piper", were coloured in Holland, and published in DD Weekly. For reasons mentioned in earlier mails 8-), Thom Roep decided not to publish Rosa stories anymore in the DD Weekly, but only in DD Extra or specials. But they still had that "Silver Platter" story. So they did the following: - give the story to Egmont (black&white copies). Egmont would have it coloured, for their use in Scandinavian comics. - buy the story back from Egmont, *plus colours*. Just as if it were a regular D-coded Egmont story. This way, Holland can publish the story cheaper, because buying a coloured story is cheaper than colour it yourself. > Maybe I haven't really > seen an Oberon version of "Silver Platter", but there WAS an Oberon version > of "Pied Piper of Duckburg", another tale I did FOR > Oberon... and there has only recently been an Egmont version. This was one of the few stories they did publish in DD Weekly. I guess it's because it's (partly) Barks. > More confusing, when Egmont requested the photostats of "Piper" > Roep, he sent the art but not the SCRIPT because he said Oberon had never > used the story and he'd mislaid the script (yet they > HAD used it). Even in Holland, in 1993, stories are thrown away that are used only once... And even Thom Roep is not as accurate as he should be... > And what's slightly irritating is that when they DID use "Piper", Oberon > failed to put even one line of text to > explain the unique story behind that tale. They *never* give any credits or other story background explanations in the regular DD Weekly. In Holland, they only did that in the Barks Album series, and in the 17-issue "Complete Barks" books. In one of these books, your story and its background *is* mentioned (though the story is not published in that book). Just look at the Dutch DD Weekly as the old Dell comics: all stories are made by Walt Disney. It is only recently that they put a few names in it, like the names of the editors (...Th. Roep). But still no story credits. > And again.... what are we supposed to call Oberon now? "De Geillustreerde Pers" (abbrev: GP). This name is impossible for non-Dutch people. An English translation would be: "The Illustrated Press". --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Tue May 25 12:54:13 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Tue, 25 May 93 11:54:13 +0100 Subject: Egmont's name Message-ID: <930525115413.000017aa.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> Harry Fluks wrote: >Does anyone know why Gutenberghus is now called Egmont?) According to the version I have heard, Gutenberghus was too difficult for a lot of foregners to pronounce, and that was the reason for the change. Egmont was apparently the name of the person who founded Gutenberghus. On a completely different matter: The next version of the international names list is due to appear soon! Would you rather have it appear here on the list, or should I just send it to Per so he can put it on the ftp archieve and then inform you that it's there? I guess Don Rosa, at least, would prefer the latter method. /Fredrik Ekman ___________________________ ______| |______ \ | In Donaldismo Veritas | / > |___________________________| < /______\| |/______\ From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Wed May 26 15:44:30 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 26 May 93 09:44:30 EDT Subject: Digest #29 Message-ID: <930526134430_72260.2635_EHK30-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENT ON #29: Harry: The only possibility for the Peeweegah story to be in English is if they use it at Fleetway in England (which Egmont now owns). Publication/distribution rights for the Disney comics in America also INCLUDES Canada and Australia and the South Pacific. I'm sure about Canada, and I know that Gladstones were/are ligitimately distributed regularly in Australia, New Zealand, etc., so I assume that would never be allowed unless Gladstone held the license for that area. After all, Gladstone comics cannot be newsstand-sold in England, nor Fleetway's in America. It SURE would be nice to see that story in English. If I hadn't already mentioned it, I took great, GREAT pains in writing the Peeweegah's Longfellowian verse KNOWING that all that effort would be 100% wasted UNLESS the story was used somewhere in English. But the chances of that now look nil. Even if Fleetway were to use it (which seems unlikely, as it was a 27 pager), I doubt they'll take much care using my dialogue since Fleetway seems to treat the comics as if they were for 2-year-olds (as I sometimes think the Swedish editors do). As for Oberon's new name.... uh... I think I'll keep calling them Oberon. You'll know who I mean. There was another comment about how I would want to be listed in some list of names or addresses or archives or something. I don't know what that was about, but if someone was assuming that I wouldn't want my name and address posted publicly, they're assuming wrong. I have little fear of being swamped by fan mail... particularly when I'm situated in America where anyone who reads Disney comics is considered a pariah by the average American comic-collector-cretin. Here -- I'll prove it: Don Rosa; 9711 Dawson Hill Rd.; Louisville, KY; 40299 Phone: (502)2313399. So there. From d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se Thu May 27 15:06:25 1993 From: d91fe at ide.ide.hk-r.se (Fredrik Ekman) Date: Thu, 27 May 93 14:06:25 +0100 Subject: Fleetway and some other stuff... Message-ID: <930527140625.00001432.d91fe@ide.ide.hk-r.se> Don Rosa: >The only possibility for the Peeweegah story to be in English is if they >use it at Fleetway in England (which Egmont now owns). ... Even if Fleetway >were to use it (which seems unlikely, as it was a 27 pager), I doubt they'll >take much care using my dialogue since Fleetway seems to treat the comics as if >they were for 2-year-olds (as I sometimes think the Swedish editors do). I actually visited England last weekend, and despite a long and hard search, I only saw one single Disney title; a weekly Mickey Mouse something. And also, you're right about the Swedish editors, at least regarding the weekly Kalle Anka & Co and the monthly Musse Pigg & Co and a few other titles. I have the impression that editors throughout Scandinavia has the same odd idea that Disney comics are for kids. Thus, of course, they produce only Disney comics that actually _are_ for kids. And as Egmont (or companies owned by Egmont) has the exclusive rights to Disney comics in several countries around the world, including England, it's probably a safe guess that they export their views on comics to those countries. Then still; the Peeweegah story _has_ been seen in Scandinavia, and with the above reasoning fresh in mind, there should thus certainly be possible that it is published by Fleetway as well. Especially since, in Scandinavia, it was published as a three-part continuing story. And judging from the looks of it, it was originally written as such(?). As for the dialogue, why would they bother changing it, when that would only mean extra costs? Fleetway, like Gladstone, is after all one of the few Disney publishers that doesn't have to bother about any translations. Is there anyone from England on this list? >There was another comment about how I would want to be listed in some >list of names or addresses or archives or something. I don't know what >that was about ... I don't know if that refers to my question about people wanting me to send my International Names list out to you or just put it on the FTP archive. I simply forgot that you haven't been with us long enough to receive the first version of that list. It is nothing more than a list of translations of a lot of Disney character names, and the reason that I asked is that it is rather long. Remembering that you had previously stated an opinion that you didn't want long messages included in the digests, and since Per won't leave anything out of them, I simply assumed that you wouldn't want it in one of your digests. So it didn't have anything specifically to do with your own name. :) /Fredrik Ekman ___________________________ ______| |______ \ | In Donaldismo Veritas | / > |___________________________| < /______\| |/______\ From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Thu May 27 15:04:26 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 27 May 93 09:04:26 EDT Subject: Digest #30 Message-ID: <930527130426_72260.2635_EHK27-1@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS to digest #XXX: I don't think Egmont has a company policy of compelling their various publishers to treat the readerships in various countries as if they were 2 year olds -- that's the decision of each individual publisher/editor. Actually, I can GUARANTEE that Egmont has no such corporate attitude now that Byron Erickson and Bob Foster are the two top decision makers in the main Disney-Egmont office! It's my attitude that the way to treat the readers is as a mixed group: some features for the younger readers, and some features (like MY overly-complex, eye-burning stories) for the older readers. And that is how the Norwegian editor, Svein-Erik Soland, handles his version of the weekly. Too bad all the Egmont publishers aren't as good as the Norwegian and Finnish ones. The Danish one doesn't seem too bad, but that Swedish one seems to have no regard for the readers (doing such things as printing my "Life of $crooge" series beginning with chapter 3 and not caring that the whole shebang will not make much sense to anyone as a result). Of course, I can't READ any of them, so this is all just based on my impressions of the situation. Oh, and I don't think anyone needs to worry (if they ARE) any longer about what being connected to this Internet is costing me! The length of the mail is not such a problem (though I'd personally still rather not see indexes or long contests included since I just skip those parts). After Internet, my COMPUSERVE bill jumped to $20-$30 per week!!! But when I finally got through to them on their busy 800 number line, I found there was a different standard membership option that I didn't know about -- I switched to that and now my connect-charges are back to what they were in the old days. So I'm all fixed up. From kesidis at cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca Thu May 27 15:50:38 1993 From: kesidis at cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (George Kesidis) Date: Thu, 27 May 93 09:50:38 -0400 Subject: Don's stuff Message-ID: <9305271350.AA27226@cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca> Hello all, Of all the comics that appear on the stands these days, the only stuff I consistently buy are Don's Duck stories and the equally excellent "Bone" by Jeff Smith (Bone is the first comic I've actually subscribed to). While collecting Bone is simple, collecting Don's stories is another matter. I'm constantly groping through the credits section of the recent Disney's looking for a story by Don. So, my question is: is there a list of Don's work that has recently appeared or about to appear in English and a list of Don's (completed) work that has yet to appear in English? With regard to the latter, I get the impression (after lurking here for a couple of months) that there is a possibility that some of Don's recent work will not appear in English anytime soon. -George From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Thu May 27 17:12:21 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 27 May 1993 17:12:21 +0200 Subject: Don's stuff Message-ID: <199305271512.AA12670@athena.research.ptt.nl> George Kesidis wrote: > While collecting Bone is simple, collecting Don's stories is > another matter. I'm constantly groping through the credits > section of the recent Disney's looking for a story by Don. Don't you recognize his drawing style? I can tell a Rosa story from other stories by one quick look... > So, my question is: is there a list of Don's work that has > recently appeared or about to appear in English > and a list of Don's (completed) work that has yet to appear in > English? The Complete Don Rosa Disney comics list is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.lysator.liu.se (file:/pub/comics/disney/don-rosa.) [If you have troubles using ftp, I (or Per) can mail a copy to you.] It's basically the same list I sent you long ago 8-), but this list is constantly updated. All we (list members) know about Rosa's stories and where they are reprinted in the USA, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Holland, is on this list. > With regard to the latter, I get the impression (after > lurking here for a couple of months) that there is a possibility > that some of Don's recent work will not appear in English anytime > soon. We discussed the Peeweegah story here, but what about other stories? Don, do you know if there's a ban on some of your stories, so that they will never be printed or reprinted in the USA? --Harry. From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Thu May 27 17:25:24 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 27 May 1993 17:25:24 +0200 Subject: Comics are for 2 year olds? (Re: Digest #30) Message-ID: <199305271525.AA13071@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa wrote: > I don't think Egmont has a company policy of compelling their various > publishers to treat the readerships in various countries as > if they were 2 year olds -- that's the decision of each individual > publisher/editor. The Dutch have the following policy: It appears that most parents read the DD comic too, and even that *they* mostly buy the comics (for their children, so to say). So the Dutch editor always puts a lead story in the comic that's attractive to the 'older' reader (age 14, 15 and higher). Not only the story should be good, but also the artwork (and that's where Rosa stories don't pass the test...). The rest of the comic is filled with stories and gags for younger children. Hm.. sounds a bit like Norway... > Too bad all the Egmont publishers aren't as good as the Norwegian and > Finnish ones. The Danish > one doesn't seem too bad, but that Swedish one seems to have no regard for > the readers (doing such things as printing my "Life of > $crooge" series beginning with chapter 3 and not caring that the whole > shebang will not make much sense to anyone as a result). Well, Swedish list members: do the Life of Scrooge series make sense to you when you haven't read parts 1 and 2? > Oh, and I don't think anyone needs to worry (if they ARE) any longer > about what being connected to this Internet is costing me! That's good news! --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.EDU Thu May 27 22:12:14 1993 From: Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.EDU (Larry J. Gerstein) Date: 27 May 93 16:12:14 EDT Subject: Gladstone's 1st WDC&S Message-ID: <3170586@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> Dear Folks, First of all, note my new E-mail address... I'm now at home in Hanover, NH and will be here for a while. So I'm using my Dad's E-Mail system. Now that I'm here I've gotten the first look at the new Gladstones. Well, they look generally good. The WDC&S has, in my opinion, a Li'l Bad Wolf with downright poor artwork; after about 1958, Paul Murry's work just doesn't strike me as anything like attractive. Here it is wooden and stiff. (The writing is okay, I guess, but Gladstone didn't know who did it.) However, the Donald's a nice pick, and the Mickey is, too. (Note: This is a different-looking reformatting of this story than was in Gladstone's old Album #4, and it's got far superior colors, although it looks rather stuffed in with 5 rows of panels to a page.) (Again, I think that the Gottfredson stuff should be in Donald and Mickey, not here, because there the Gottfredson can have 13 pages, whereas even with 12 here, he blocks out space that could be used for a longer middle story (LBW is 4 pgs). Whereas the other artists' Mickey stories are all shorter and can be used in 8-page chunks; in fact, many that were in WDC&S are *already* this way.) Okay, fellas and gals, what do you think of the Gladstone color scheme? I know no one who liked the ducks to have blue eyes; they're gone. Disney *also* colored the insides of the ducks' mouths red-brown, like they and Gladstone always have on the covers, and as was also the fashion in the earlier cartoons. I liked having this inside the comics. Now the ducks have the insides of their mouths the same color as the outsides. This wouldn't be bad if the bills' color was orange-yellow, like in the newsprint comics, or light orange, as in the albums; it's now (and the same is true of the recent CBL Albums) almost an orange-BROWN, which I think is flatter and less attractive, particularly when they give the ducks similarly bland pink tongues (as opposed to red, or the odd lavender Disney used). On the pro side, Mickey and Goofy lose their pink faces. On the other hand, I think Li'l Bad Wolf looked better with one. (I'm just bringing all these things up to see what you guys think of 'em, so that maybe if anyone figures they're worth arguing about, a group of letters could be sent to Gladstone about it, and a group may be more likely to get results than just ONE person.) Well, let's see what you think... Your friend, David Gerstein From Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.EDU Thu May 27 22:28:32 1993 From: Larry.J.Gerstein at Dartmouth.EDU (Larry J. Gerstein) Date: 27 May 93 16:28:32 EDT Subject: P. S. Message-ID: <3170873@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> P. S. It's easy to notice how much DARKER the ducks' bills are in the new Gladstones than in the old ones. Gladstone darkened the bills when it essentially reused the coloring that they had for "Hondorica" in their old Giant Album #5. But they didn't darken them on pages 20 and 21 of the story for some reason, and comparing those with pages right afterwards is a revealing experiment. P. P. S. Of course, I'm very pleased with most of Gladstone's doings. I may seem really nitpicky here, but my complaints, though I characteristically spent a long time TALKING about them, aren't too huge, are they? From krieg at ct.med.ge.com Thu May 27 23:09:41 1993 From: krieg at ct.med.ge.com (Andrew Krieg 5-5379) Date: Thu, 27 May 93 16:09:41 CDT Subject: War of the Wendigo Message-ID: <9305272109.AA24110@ct.med.ge.com> OK, it looks like I, a lowly US citizen, may never get to see a copy of "War of the Wendigo". But, perhaps I can improvise. Could one of our overseas readers purchase me a copy of the comic with this story in it? I, of course, would pay for all shipping+handling, etc. Don, do you have the script for this comic on-line? If so, could you post it to our mailing list (or to one person who could put it at the ftp site)? If not, again, could one of our overseas readers translate the story (panel by panel) and post it? It may not be pretty, but it would sure help me round out my collection, and I would be eternally grateful! Thanks much. ========================================================================= = Andrew Krieg | = = krieg at ct.med.ge.com | Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee = = or | = = krieg at point.cs.uwm.edu| - Astoroth = ========================================================================= From krieg at ct.med.ge.com Thu May 27 23:45:01 1993 From: krieg at ct.med.ge.com (Andrew Krieg 5-5379) Date: Thu, 27 May 93 16:45:01 CDT Subject: Bad upload at the archive Message-ID: <9305272145.AA24464@ct.med.ge.com> The file disney.index.z appears to be corrupt at the ftp.lysator.liu.se ftp site. I tried twice to download (in binary) and uncompress it, but both times failed. Could whoever has a good copy of this file please re-upload it. Thanks. From krieg at ct.med.ge.com Thu May 27 23:56:29 1993 From: krieg at ct.med.ge.com (Andrew Krieg 5-5379) Date: Thu, 27 May 93 16:56:29 CDT Subject: Archive woes Message-ID: <9305272156.AA24527@ct.med.ge.com> I seem to be having problems with all the compressed files at the archive, however, I just uncompressed a few of them a couple days ago. Is anyone else having problems, or is it just me? Andy From starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE Fri May 28 05:57:15 1993 From: starback at Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE (Per Starback) Date: Fri, 28 May 93 05:57:15 +0200 Subject: Archive woes In-Reply-To: Andrew Krieg 5-5379's message of Thu, 27 May 93 16:56:29 CDT <9305272156.AA24527@ct.med.ge.com> Message-ID: <9305280357.AA23799@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE> Andy: > The file disney.index.z appears to be corrupt at the ftp.lysator.liu.se > ftp site. I tried twice to download (in binary) and uncompress it, but > both times failed. [and later he says the same about other compressed files there as well.] I didn't do anything, but I guess someone else enforced the new compress policy at ftp.lysator.liu.se on those files, that is to use the GNU compress program gzip on them instead of compress. gzip creates files with names ending in ".z", not ".Z" as the usual compress. The corresponding uncompress program is gunzip. If you don't have gunzip, it's still possible to have the uncompressing done before you transfer the file, so you could have asked for the file "disney.index" even though only "disney.index.z" was listed to get it gunzipped at the remote site. (I'm leaving town for a few days now, so any list management duties won't be done until Tuesday. CU later!) -- " Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden. email: starback at student.docs.uu.se "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Fri May 28 09:52:56 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 28 May 1993 09:52:56 +0200 Subject: Our archives, and a question for Don Rosa Message-ID: <199305280752.AA26508@athena.research.ptt.nl> Mailing list: digests, archives ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Per wrote: > (I'm leaving town for a few days now, so any list management duties > won't be done until Tuesday. CU later!) I've been wondering how the Digests are compiled: do you have a program for that, or do you collect the mails manually? (If the latter, then this mail won't appear in a digest before tuesday...) And about our archives at the ftp-site: there are new versions coming up of the Gladstone list and the Disney Comics list. Next week! (BTW: we could still use volunteers to fill in gaps in the lists. If you want to do some indexing, contact me: I'm coordinating this.) A question for Don Rosa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have been wondering about this for a while: in the first USA reprint of the story "Return to Xanadu", the story is split up into 2 episodes. The first page of the 2nd episode is an extract of the 1st episode. I recognize some of the panels on this page, but some of the panels don't seem to appear anywhere else in the story. Don: did you draw that 'introductory' page especially for Disney Comics? --Harry. Harry Fluks ()_() Dutch Disney comics freak PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL) (_) H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl "Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!" From 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM Fri May 28 15:17:52 1993 From: 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM (Don Rosa) Date: 28 May 93 09:17:52 EDT Subject: Digest #31 Message-ID: <930528131751_72260.2635_EHK33-2@CompuServe.COM> COMMENTS TO #31: I agree with Harry to being puzzled by people who can't recognize my art at 20 paces! I'm often at comic shows doing sketches signing stuff and so forth, and I can always separate the men from the boys (or the true Duck fans from the people who just want to invest in signed comics) by what their comments to me are. When someone says that they just can't tell my artwork apart from Barks' it's just so wunnerful... I know they've never even looked at one of my stories. Banned ROSA stories? "War of the Wendigo" is the only one so far. But when we get to certain chapters of "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck", Disney may not allow Gladstone to use the chapters without deleting pages of very UN-DISNEYlike goins-ons. I've done some stuff in $crooge's life story, especially toward the end when he's getting more mean and ornery with each passing year, that are light-years away from ANYTHING that's ever been in any Disney comic! And right now in part 11 I'm doing a 24-pager whose central plot involves $crooge's original encounters with Bombie the Zombie, and this whole chapter might be nixed by Disney. (Or they'll make Gladstone call him Bombie the Ugly Bad Guy or something). Speaking of Bombie and any ideas that I'm revising ANY Barks Duck-fact, I managed to use everything in "Voodoo Hoodoo" ver batim EXCEPT the stuff about $crooge's African experiences taking place "75 years ago"; that was pretty goofy even for Barks to have said back in the original issue -- $crooge would have had to have been at least 100 years old in "Voodoo Hoodoo". Anyway, I change the time frame to 1906, which would be about 50 years ago in my timescape. Andrew K.: No, I don't have "War of the Wendigo" typed up into a computer file. I never could find a use for computers in my writing as long as they still make spiral notebooks (which are FAR handier to use, no matter what any computer-nerd can claim). But I can always send out copies of the script (which is done up with illustrations like a simulated comic page). However, I'm not keen on people reading the script with that sloppy art without having the FINISHED comic to also look at. If Andrew (or anyone) can get aholt of a foreign edition of "Wendigo", I'll mail them the script. I can't supply those comics because, as I've said, I have a devil of a time getting one copy just for ME. From H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl Fri May 28 15:28:39 1993 From: H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl (Harry Fluks) Date: 28 May 1993 15:28:39 +0200 Subject: Comics are for 2 year olds? Message-ID: <199305281328.AA07842@athena.research.ptt.nl> Don Rosa wrote to me: > Now hold on just a darn minute. I know my artwork is not very polished > or professional... but it's all my extra detail and depth of atmosphere that > makes MY artwork more interesting and entertaining to the older readers than > all that simplistic Disney-esque art from Vicar and the like! I know where > my artistic faults are, but I also know for a fact that it's the older > readers who are my boosters. > If you're reflecting Tom Roep's opinion, I know he's dead wrong on THAT count! What I wrote is what I think is Thom Roep's opinion. Personally, I like your artwork (especially your Egmont stories). I think most people in Holland still don't know who made which story, even when they heard about a guy named Barks. It's no Scandinavia here... Maybe it's time that someone publishes an article about Rosa in a Dutch comic fanzine... But.. I like Vicar's artwork, too. His work has improved the last 2 or 3 years! One time, I caught myself believing a panel was Barks's, while it was in fact a Vicar panel. His "Eurodisney" stories are very good (I'm talking about the *drawings*, not the scripts!) --Harry. From kesidis at cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca Fri May 28 16:11:12 1993 From: kesidis at cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (George Kesidis) Date: Fri, 28 May 93 10:11:12 -0400 Subject: Rosa's art Message-ID: <9305281411.AA08029@cheetah.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca> Actually, Don's stories are the only ones I can identify as his from the art (I can't identify Barks' stuff because of all the copycats). I usually look in the credits to see who did what in the comic because I don't like to thumb through comics I haven't bought (store owners are a little anal about this sort of thing too.) Anyway, I've another question about Don's "Life of $crooge": how will it be published? Please don't say that it will appear as twenty 10 pagers. In the best of all possible worlds, it would appear as one big graphic novel. -George