Disney-comics digest #141.

[David A Gerstein]

	Hi, gang!

	Two comments today:

	Torsten dared to ask
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	"Aside from the recent U$ vs. the mouse cover that Don Rosa
did, are there any stories dealing with rats, mice, or exterminators?
Did Donald ever work in pest control?"

	In WDC 52 Donald tries to protect his home from first one rat,
then many rats, all of which keep swiping things and leaving other
things in return.  In DD 57 (I mean "The Lost Peg Leg Mine," maybe I'm
a few issues off), U$ and the ducks battle trade rats again, now
called by their more authentic name of pack rats.  (Isn't "trade rat"
slang for someone who runs a trading post?)  In "A Christmas for
Shacktown" Donald lets a rat loose in the money bin so that he can get
money from Scrooge by catching it again (Scrooge doesn't know *Donald's*
the one who let it loose... at least not at first).  In that last
story, the rat's face is faintly like Mickey's...  and another rat is
actually shown being killed by a trap in US #1 (Four Color #386).

	As for extermination in general, I think right off of Bill Van
Horn's story "It's Bats, Man!" in Disney Comics' DDA #6.  One of my
favorites of his stories... its use of a parodic rock band, "Oso Loud
and the Tonal Drones", brings back fond memories of Tweedy Teentwirp
and Shoeless Pashly.

	And Donald pits his wits against a phony exterminator next
month in my first published dialog, Ben Verhagen's "Bugged by Humbug"
in WDC&S 589.


	Don Rosa on April, May and June
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	"[In] a Barks DAISY DUCK'S DIARY story, 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?"

	The appearance you mention in WDC&S #149 sounds like you
looked at the *second* panel of the story that they appear in... the
one of Donald, Daisy, the nephews and AMJ walking along the sidewalk
on their outing, as seen from the rear.  I believe it's the panel
right before that in which Daisy reveals her nieces to Donald:  "My
three little *nieces* are going with us!"  Seen from a front-on view,
the nieces run out from a hallway or something, and their bills are
*exactly* like HDL's.

	Barks drew the nieces that one time in 1952 and then not again
until 1958 or so.  In all his later stories with them, they had the
more angular bills.  It's a mystery to me... although I liked them
better the early way.  A greater mystery is why in WDC&S #149 the
nephews are glad to go on a triple date with AMJ... in "Hobblin'
Goblins" right about the same time, they flee the opposite sex in
horror.

	Good night, all!

	David Gerstein

	"I'd better be packed and outta here by the time they get
*back!*  There was *mayhem* in that duck's eyes, if I ever saw it!"
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>