Disney-comics digest #208.

[David A Gerstein]

	Dear Folks,

	Andrew Krieg said:

	"P.S.  Is anyone else hacked off at Gladstone for not
reprinting any new Gottfredson strips?  Oh boy, we get Hoppy the 
Kangaroo again. Yippee!"  :^(

	I wouldn't say "hacked off," as the earlier Gladstone albums
had very poor color and it's nice to see those stories with better
colors this time around.  BUT... I *would* prefer some stories which
hadn't appeared before, first among them 1938's "The Plumber's
Helper", which has become a real classic in Europe.

	I realize that it costs a lot to get new negatives to
Gottfredson strips from Disney -- hence it's easier to just re-reprint
stories.  But if Gladstone can afford to do it for DONALD DUCK, I wish
they could do it for WDC&S too.  No need to refurbish the strips into
upright pages... just run 'em sideways!  Is there an unknown mammoth
cost to this, completely different than with the Donald Sundays, which
I don't know about?

	My only real dissatisfaction with Gladstone's comics lies
with DONALD AND MICKEY, and I've expressed this to John Clark before.
The Mickey material in that title always pales beside the Barks
material.  In this day and age, Mickey-playing-a-role stories from the
Disney Studio and very dated 1950s-era sitcoms by the likes of Jack
Bradbury just aren't enough, particularly compared to the unusually fine
choices of Barks 10-pagers that D&M has had lately.  Recently in D&M 22,
after "Omelet" -- one of the all-time classics down to Donald's
narration -- the Mickey material seemed a particularly large contrast.

	My own feeling is that, at least for the time being, until one
distant day when MM gets more space to move in, the post-Gottfredson
American material (including Disney Studio stories, whether or not
they've seen print here) should get less exposure.  I'd like to see
Scarpa stories in D&M -- even shorter ones, if necessary --
supplemented by some work from Egmont's Ferioli and other foreign
sources.  The foreign Mouse material, particularly in recent years,
tends to be on the inspired -- even Gottfredsonian -- side.  (And
Scarpa never has trouble catching the Gottfredson spark.)

	That's all for now, folks.

	David Gerstein

	"The only way to get ahead of Mickey Mouse is to *run* in
*front* of him!"
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>