German supplements

David A Gerstein David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu
Tue Nov 30 01:53:41 CET 1993


	Dear Folks,

	Don Rosa, discussing Disney comics in Germany, stated that
there, like Finland and Sweden, their weekly comic "also do[es]n't have 
supplement issues."

	Actually, Ehapa *does* put out supplements, but they simply do
it about half as often as other Egmont affiliates (about once every
two months, rather than once a month).

	There have been such specials as:

	"Micky Maus Super-Sommer-Sonderheft" (including the Barks MM
story "Riddle of the Red Hat" and some Danish Ducks);
	"DuckTales" (actually a collection of Barks Scrooge shorts,
despite its title);
	"Bundesliga-Stars 1992" (I kid you not, a full 32 pages of
photographs of soccer stars);
	"Zurueck nach dem Steinzeit" (one of the three 44-page Egmont
time travel stories, by Vicar, published alone... I don't think the
other two have ever seen print there.  This one wasn't printed with
the new Dutch opening and closing, though... just as it was originally
made, even though it felt incomplete);
	and undoubtedly the best:
	"Micky Maus und der Geist der Gorillas" (or: In Search of
Jungle Treasure, a Gottfredson story banned over here, presented
COMPLETE in the issue, in its original strip form (the book reads
oblong), together with a long article about Gottfredson).  Talk about
a special...  and all this for a mere 75 cents more than the regular
edition!)

	So you see, there are special supplements in Germany.  So why
did the Germans not make the Lo$ into the supplement that Egmont
offered them?  Simple... they were planning to wait to print ANY Lo$
until they could launch it as an album series.  It was not originally
to appear in the weekly comic.  But eventually they decided it was
better to run it in the weekly first... why not make *MORE* money,
especially when in Deutschland people will buy ANYTHING with a Duck or
Mouse on it?

	(BTW:  Mickey has equal popularity to Donald in Germany... the
German weekly has battled the problem of too few Egmont MM stories by
re-reprinting many Paul Murry stories, and often the Germans won't
print the cover Egmont offers them in favor of doing their own MM
cover for the weekly... a good idea, but usually terribly drawn!  In
Germany two of the three regular comics have Mickey's name in the
title, and as of this decade have given MM equal exposure on the
cover.)

	Zassall for now...

	Your pal,

	David Gerstein

	"The only way to get ahead of Mickey Mouse is to *run* in
*front* of him!"
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>



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