+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #200.

[Don Rosa]

PER:

	re: my Duck Family Tree. Yes, I know it was just used in Sweden
as I received a call from a Swedish newspaper on Thursday about it. I
would have worried a bit about whether my version would correspond to
foreign versions, but I had no idea that when one made a reference in
some/all European languages to an aunt or uncle or grandparent that the
lineage of that relative (maternal or paternal) was contained in the
name. In English we have no such distinction. So I never dreamed that
anyone had any preconceived idea as to whether HDL were related to
Donald by their father or that $crooge was Donald's father's brother,
according to the Euro texts. This would seem to show some sexist
attitudes that it's always the paternal relatives that are more
desireable or important? At any rate, though I would have worried, I
wouldn't have done it differently. I may rag on American tastes and
mores a lot, but when it comes to the Ducks it's ONLY the American
version that is correct -- any variations to that version are all
incorrect if it comes to push and shove. (It never came to push and
shove until I started screwing with it.)
	I don't have Barks' family tree in front of me right now... but
the only change(s) I recall making were in order to avoid the needless
business of Gladstone's parents dying and him being adopted by another
relative; and, in fact, in a brief (and the only half-way amiable)
correspondence I had with Barks, he sent me a NEW version of his idea
of the Family Tree and he had forgotten the adoption/death stuff also.
The problem was that if I dropped the adoption bit, I had to move
Goostave Gander over to marry Daphne, or Gladstone's name would be
Gladstone GOOSE. I'd hafta look back to see what it was that you're
referring to me doing with Gus, but I thought I left the relationships
the same, but simply changed some names, again due to the switching
caused by simplifying Gladstone's history. I know that I left one
distant relative off the tree as being too difficult to include:
Goostave's ancestor (I think the sister of his mother?) Susiebelle Swan,
that Mattias riminded me of. Did you have a specific question about the
tree or have I not correctly answered about something I changed? Just
ask... it was a year or so ago, but it was all CAREFULLY thought out
with all options weighed.

	As for the business of Barks objecting to his name appearing in
foreign editions, please do NOT blame Another Rainbow or Bruce Hamilton
for these complaints being filed. As you'll see now that Barks has
formed his own "studio", there will be far more of this sort of thing
from now on. Carl Barks, as I think Geir stated, is one of the 20th
Century's greatest storytellers and a man whose work I admire so much
that I liquidated my own family's 85 year old company in order to
follow. But apparently he seems to have never had any affection for the
Ducks and seems to be, to either a small or large degree, somewhat
scornful of adult comic fans, his sole interest in them being how to
profit from them. And this perhaps explains why he resents my doing
stories that lean too much on his creations. But whether or not these
are noble emotions, he deserves every penny and ten times more that he
can get from his modern efforts since it can never approach what Disney
owes him for the hundreds of millions (perhaps billions?) of dollars
that Disney and its licensees have made for 50 years off comics based
almost solely on Barks' creations.