Chip and Dale (never thought I'd stoop to this...)

[David A Gerstein]

	Dear Folks,

	Chip has a black nose and straight hair.  Dale has a red nose,
Goofy teeth, and messy hair.  Chip is an argumentative hothead.  Dale
is a dopey sloven.  And... in their *very earliest* appearances before
they got overcute (I'm talking Paul Murry stories circa 1950) I can
actually live with them.

	Actually, the first CnD story with their names above the title
is a two-page strip in WDC&S 89... far earlier than most people would
expect.  But there it is... BTW, I believe that in that *very first*
story (and no others) the two are actually named in the opposite
order, Chip being the dopey one.

	But one thing sure... they ARE "funny animals" (TM) any way
you cut it.

	* * * * * 

	I hate to say this, but... I hope Carl Barks lives through his
European tour.  The guy is 93 now, right?  It was Donald's 50th
birthday that exhausted Clarence Nash past the breaking point.
Without Nash, we wouldn't have ANY Donald.  Without Barks, we wouldn't
have the far superior comic Donald.  But will we have Barks much
longer?

	As for Barks' relationship to the Grandeys:  Do they have
something to do with this new book of his?  What the heck *is* it?  My
own bet is that it's an autobiography, perhaps ghost-written partly by
one of the Grandeys.

	We know that Barks has stopped doing paintings for Bruce
Hamilton, but did he design all the projected sculptures (eight, I
think) before he stopped working for him?  (Not that I endorse the
kind of speculation those paintings and sculptures embody... I do
think they are beautiful, however.)

	Well, that's all for now.

	Your friend,

	David, who feels that it *really stinks* that Gottfredson
never got this type of royal treatment during his lifetime simply
because Whitman ignored his work after 1951