Disney-comics digest #363.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM
Wed Jun 22 05:07:35 CEST 1994


MATTIAS:
	Well, you can't fear what Grandey can do to you for some mere
opinion you might express. Recall what I'm going to sue him for is not
his "opinions" offered to a group of peers; it's for outright lies,
even accusations of me committing an actual crime, made with sloppy
secrecy to my employers with the obvious intent to influence their
opinion of me and their future use of my work and person. This is the
definition of libel in the nth degree. I've also found that he's tried
to hire magazine writers to write pans of all my work based on his
ideas (as you might tell from his press releases, Grandey is incapable
of writing something himself).
	Actually, someone encouraged me to post that information about
Grandey's activities, even though I had previously been keeping quiet
about them. I think I might have saved myself the trouble judging by
the lack of reaction it's gotten on here... but perhaps people either
find it hard to believe, or they fear Grandey themselves, or they just
don't know HOW to react to something so outlandishly evil. 
	I know how *I* plan to react. I have been pretty disgusted for
15-20 years by the way the American collectibles rackets have
flourished since the Reagan years of selfishness. But I was helpless to
react to such a huge, nameless mind-set beast. However, NOW I have ONE
chap who represents to me the WORST of the greed and selfishness and
avariciousness and dishonesty... and this damn fool was careless enough
to direct such an incredibly clumsy attack at such an idealist as
myself; I have a target now, and I plan to make him pay for his crime
as much as possible, even if I split the proceeds between the lawyers
and my usual wildlife charities.

	Anyway, as to your critiques -- I welcome them. And while I
won't argue with your ideas, I'll at least prove that, as I always
claim, I considered every angle and had a distinct reason for my
decisions, even if they might have been wrong.
	Your idea on how the philosophy of the JWs in my "GotLL" as
regards the use of their Guidebook seems wrong: I'll agree with you. But
without that attitude, I would have lost my "motivation". At least you
can agree that the Woodchucks shouldn't allow the Guidebook to be used
as $crooge planned, and if he could've just borrowed it from some non-JW
who had a copy for some noble reason, that would also blow my plot. As a
matter of fact, I included the idea that the JW Guidebook was for the
exclusive use of JWs in the early pages of my very FIRST story ("The Son
of the Sun")... and I did receive a letter at that long-ago time that it
was a wrong-headed attitude for a JW type group.
	Another mild complaint I just heard from another person (who
also said they loved the GotLL story) was that the story was a JW story,
and should have ended on the gag of the JW finding they were founded by
a girl (ecch!). But when I wrote the story, I WAS confused on the issue
of WHO was the story's main character. Was it a DD story or an U$
story? It must have been a DD story since it opened with DD; but U$ was
the obvious star and therefore needed to be the subject of the close. I
finally had the idea of sneaking in a last throw-away gag back with DD.
But I never realized that Europe would make it a HD&L story -- I didn't
know that was an option.

LOS #12: I'm anxious to hear opinions on where this story can be
extended because I'm positive that that's what I'll do when Gladstone's
use of it rolls around. I'll add several pages into the chase
sequence... and, yes, I'd LIKE to add a page or two into the rekindling
of the McDuck Spirit, but that is psycho-drama that might require more
knack than I have. I knew for 2 1/2 years that #12 would require some
fancy character motivation, and I always figured that I'd neither have
the pages or the ability to pull it off with complete success; as it
stands, the last part of that story seems to me to be a good OUTLINE for
an excellent story. Maybe I'll have some better ideas in 1 1/2 years
when I add pages to it.
	As for me mistreating DD yet again in that #12, I plead
purposefully guilty. DD couldn't be expressing many good qualities in
that story since it was intended that his LACK of those qualities was
what would inspire (or incense) U$ to return to life. But I'll keep that
in mind when I add pages.
	Right... I figured DD had never seen U$ since he kicked his
fanny in 1930, 17 years earlier. But $crooge was still the most famous
Duckburger and surely DD and everyone else had often heard or read such
quotes of his as regards his bragging of his past and greatness (though
they never knew the details). And that particular quote would be just
the one which would irritate the world-owes-me-a-living DD.
	Another aspect I plan to change was the idea of U$ having been
retired for TEN years. My original script had him retired for 5 or less
years... fairly recently in other words. I forget why Byron preferred
the full 10 -- but that seems like such a long time for the Bin to sit
untouched and U$ to be totally idle.

EXISTANCE OF A BARKS STORYBOARD SCRIPT FOR HIS NEW STORY:
	As I understand how this story was written, such a thing could
not exist, at least not one that matched the final version. The
storyboard-script that has been referred to having been seen could only
be by Van Horn.




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