Disney-comics digest #324.

[Don Rosa]

HARRY:
	I'm rather puzzled by Michael Nadrop being upset that I swiped
his idea for a cover for my Lo$. Why shouldn't I be upset that he swiped
one of my stories as a topic for his cover? For pity's sake, why
shouldn't I be absolutely enraged that they're even using my Lo$ in
Holland without paying me a red cent? If he doesn't like his work
immediately becoming the property of anyone else working on a Disney
comic anywhere in the world, he'd better get another job. Perhaps they
should have credited him with the cover idea on the Gladstone credits
page? Perhaps the Dutch issues that use my work for free could give me a
single line of credit for the hundreds of my pages they use? Perhaps
there's nothing very fair in working on Disney comics, except to Disney.
This is why I was a bit puzzled by Barks' growing hatred of me for doing
sequels to his old tales -- I would never have suspected that anyone
doing Disney comics would think they had any further private claim on
material they freely signed over completely to Disney ownership. It was
simply a reaction I just never expected for a moment.
	Your comment about the coloring in Gladstone's GotLL... I'm not
sure I understand what you said about the scene when they see the cover
of the ancient "Woodchuck Manual" in the glass case. I redrew that
panel just for Gladstone to SHOW the emblem on the cover as I'd always
intended that scene to show. Of course, you realize that's NOT the
Woodchuck emblem, right? That;s why the cover had to be detached -- it's
sitting upside down in the case... that's the Guardian symbol, not the
Woodcheck emblem.
	As for the poor ending. There almost always has to be a final,
closing gag, even if it's dreadfully weak. I worried that I was making a
dreadful mistake in the few of my stories wherein I dared to end the
tale WITHOUT that corny closing gag motif, as in my "Last Sled to
Dawson" and several of the Lo$, particularly #8 & 11. In GotLL, the
ending gag was the last bit I forced myself to come up with. The idea of
the scrolls being overdue at the Library by 2000 years I think is
sufficiently silly to be okay, but you didn't think the nephews should
have been so happy with $crooge? Maybe not... they were just trying to
make him feel better? But you saw that I needed them to be making lots
of NOISE for the FINAL final gag with DD complaining he was missing his
TV show.