Don Rosa on Mickey

[David A Gerstein]

	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"


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