Rosa's Re: Digest #28

Harry Fluks H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl
Tue May 25 18:14:23 CEST 1993


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!"




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