+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #126.

[Mattias Hallin]

Don says: "PUNS: What they told me when I first went to work for Egmont and
specifically asked them about using puns was that I should write my
stories as if they were going to be seen in English. If I use a pun in
one spot, this compels the translator to create a different pun in his
language, or at least create some other gag; otherwise the translator
just translates -- they aren't paid to be funny when there's nothing
funny in the original script."

Of course I don't know much about what your EDITORS at Egmont said to you back
then, and even less so what they THOUGHT at the time, or think now; but I'm
fairly certain, at least where Sweden is concerned, that much of the
insistence that you should go on "punning" originally came from Stefan Di|s,
who as good donaldist, AND also making sure that his job would remain
interesting, insisted both to you (I know that for a fact - I heard him do it
and backed him up myself, too) and (my inference/or did Stefan tell me this?)
to his/your editors that you should not only be allowed but acctually
encouraged to include puns and the like in your material. 

However, I believe easily that this "artistic license" granted to you is not
encouraged or maybe even allowed in what Egmont may perhaps (my inference,
again, as to THEIR opinion; certainly not my opinion if I even have one on this
subject) think of as "lesser" writers. This tallies, too, I think with the fact
that you and Barks are just about the only artists mentioned by name in (the
Swedish) Egmont publications - oh, and Walt Disney, of course... Yeah! Right!

I don't know how much Egmont policies varies locally, or how much is dictated
from Copenhagen (or wherever their HQs are thes days) but these are some
thoughts on the subject anyway.

All the quackiest!

Mattias