Digest #25

[David A Gerstein]

	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)