Guns, Fotobogo, and season's greetings

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

      ALL:  Some of you may have misinterpreted Disney's gun policy 
slightly.  Guns CAN be pointed at a character -- just NOT jammed 
hard right into someone's face (as in LO$ 3).  And in reprints of old 
stories, they're willing to even show the latter (i. e. the reprint 
of WDC&S 78 "safe" story in an album last year).  BTW, Scrooge isn't 
jamming his pistol right into the Beagles' mugs in the end of that 
Strobl story.  He's just holding them off with it from several 
metres away.  Same as the prime ministers aiming a machine gun at the 
crowd in this month's "Medioka" chapter.  Disney's policy seems more 
or less consistent, if (IMHO) entirely unwarranted.
     In my own "Return to Morgan's Island" script (to be drawn for 
Gladstone next year), the villain -- who is wearing a pirate outfit -- 
holds a gun at some points, but when he jams a weapon into 
someone's face, it's his cutlass.  Disney agreed to that.
     Disney's "studio stories" allowed only blunderbusses?  Whatever 
rules were in operation for those stories are long gone.
      Now that all this is settled... where did Scrooge GET that 
pistol in the last frame of "Bye-Bye Money Bin"?  Are we supposed to 
believe he carried it with him on that whole vacation earlier on?  

      Re: MURRY:  The problem with reprinting this stuff has nothing 
to do with guns or even weapons.  It's just that the best ones have 
mostly been reprinted, and the other good ones are mostly around 24 
pages in length, making them impossible to fit in anywhere.  Okay, 
they could be broken into halves (as opposed to the original thirds) 
and used in DM, but both Disney themselves and Bruce Hamilton favor 
the Diaz Goofys to any other non-Gottfredson old American stories.

      JORGEN:  No, I'm not going to solve all of Fotobogo's problems. 
But I need to imply that some kind of resolution is possible.  
Fotobogo seems to be not a country, but only one large and isolated 
city.  So why do Victoria and Rosa want to get out?  Not just to 
escape, but to spread word to the country's central government is, 
that the police in that one city are abusing their power.  And that's 
just why Police Chief Pomposito DOESN'T want to see Victorio and 
Rosa leave.  Doesn't this make sense?
      By the way, the people of Fotobogo seem for the most part 
happy under the CURRENT rule.  And why not?  The police have 
effectively caused them to believe that Victorio's band are bandits 
and thieves, so they don't really know about the corruption (or that, 
for example, their taxes and such are actually being embezzled, and 
other such dirty dealings).

      That's all for now, folks.  I may or may not be back tomorrow.  
If not, I hope the next few weeks go well for all of you -- I'm off 
on holiday, and I'll have a bunch of digests waiting on my return.  I 
may also have a big box from Geir then (and I'll notify you 
immediately Geir -- and send the int'l money order then, too.  
Remember to send it to my SCOTTISH address, which I've given several 
times).  Before that, I'll be actually meeting Fabio and Harry!  Ah, 
how great it is to have this Digest.

      Best holiday wishes,
      David Gerstein
     <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
      "Christmas is humbug and ought to be washed off the calendar!" 
                                                                 -- Carl Barks