+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #140.

[Don Rosa]

One of my last sets of unneeded comments before I disappear for about 8
days...

	What's the objection to April, May & June's BEAKS on my Family
Tree? I can't say I see many stories with those three -- they usually
appeared in the Daisy Duck stories which, even when by Barks, never
caught or held my attention much. When I drew those portraits I got out
a Barks DAISY DUCK'S DIARY story, and he drew them with sharp, pointy
beaks. I just checked their first appearance in WDC&S #149, and though
their kissers are pointing away from camera, they do seem to have HD&L
type (round) beaks there. Were they drawn more often with rounded or
pointy beaks?
	I might change their beaks when Gladstone prepares to use that
Tree. But I would FIRST ask them to delete the use of that side-bar to
the Tree altogether. That bar with Daisy and AM&J and Gyro was never my
idea and was added later when some of the affiliate publishers started
whining that Daisy and Gyro weren't shown as being related to Donald!

Mattias (with the 'a' & 'i' in the proper order):
	No, I'm not reneging on the 1920 birthdate for Donald -- I like
it... but it was giving me some trouble. But if my young Donald in part
11 looks and acts like he's 9 or 10, then there's no problem. When I use
HD&L in part 12 (which takes place on Christmas Day, 1947), they should
be 7 years old... but I draw them the same as I always do since to do
otherwise would become very difficult and very confusing to readers
(many of which are already perplexed by this whole series). I also
didn't try to draw HD&L the same way Barks did in the Bear Mountain
story since A) I'm far from the whiz Daan Jippes is at imitating art
styles, and B) Barks' earlier version of HD&L looked OLDER than his
later (cuter) version.
	Also, if you read that the first Kentucky Derby was in 1875 and
figured that the 6th one was in 1881, you made the error of adding 6 to
1875 instead of just 5 (since the first Derby was IN 1875, not a year
later like a birthday); so Part 2 opens in 1880 (and ends in 1882).
	Yes! I DID adjust my birthyear for Grandma Duck and her kids. I
was struggling mightilly to have $crooge be the oldest living Duck...
this meant that his sister would have been only a few years younger than
Grandma whose son she later marries! I tried to make it work, but
finally Byron just said "Hey -- this isn't working! Grandma HAS to be
older!" and I caved in. Now I'm thinking Grandma was born in 1855 and
Quackmore in 1875, which makes him a year older than Hortense. This also
makes Grandma about 100 years old at the time of the Duck Universe
(circa 1955). I don't like that, but that's it.

	And I doubt if anybody bothered to run to their atlas when I was
talking about where Duckburg is in my part 10, but I misspoke. My
Calisota is that portion of California north of the 39th
parallel...that's north of the angle in the coast at Point Arena...north
of that other angle at Lake Tahoe... north of where the Ponderosa was at
Lake Tahoe. I don't know where I got that Santa Rosa stuff -- maybe I
just liked the sound of the name.