Disney-comics digest #479.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

Trouble getting E-Mail to Edinburgh?
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      First up:  If some of you -- like Dwight --  can't seem to send 
a letter to my E-Mail address here without it being intercepted and 
sent back to you -- I mean, address <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> -- 
then you can send it to my Williams College E-Mail address, that 
being <96dag at williams.edu>.  It's much more difficult for me to 
access my Williams account, but I do it a few times each week anyway. 
 Of course, if you've been writing to me at Edinburgh until now and 
it's worked, just GO ON doing that!  And so much the better.

Fonts vs. Scalabroni
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Harry on a Scrooge two-pager about fast-growing plants:
> I credited this story to Jose Colomer Fonts (the one Gladstone called
> "Colomer" in their credits for "Danger Island"). Why do you think it is
> Scalabroni?
Notice that the art in "Fast-Growing Plants" is looser than that of 
"Danger Island" -- also more "European" in a way.  Compare it with 
Scalabroni's "Miner Complaint" in US 265, or "The Waves Above, The 
Gold Below" in US 260 (both Scalabroni stories, even though at least 
one of them is miscredited in the letter column -- the credits were 
later corrected), and then compare it to "Danger Island."  I 
think you'll notice that the characters' pupils are smaller, their 
takes are more exaggerated, and there are other differences, too.
I have noticed that this artist who I identify as Scalabroni seems to 
do stories for both Egmont and (as with this one) GP.  But I think 
that Fonts only works for Egmont.
      Of course, all of this may be so much jousting at windmills if 
I remembered wrong and the US 260 and 264 stories DON'T look so much 
like the "Fast-Growing Plants" tale.

Scrooge's accent
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      Dwight: "From reading Barks, I get the idea Scrooge did not 
speak with an obvious Scottish accent in the present day. Maybe 
some trace of it was left in his pronunciation, but Barks never spelled 
it out."  Or did he?  Try Barks' "Swamp of No Return" (1965), in 
which Donald recognizes amnesia-victim Scrooge, who now thinks he's from 
Spain, from his accent:  "For a *Senor Pato*, that old duck sure had 
a *SCOTCH BURR* like Uncle Scrooge's!"  This has always been the 
definitive moment for me regarding Scrooge's accent...

Br'er Rabbit:  Grammar School Graduate
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Dwight on Egmont's "generic" English:  "Imagine Brer Rabbit stories 
where all the characters are speaking quite proper English..."  I 
don't have to imagine them.  When Disney Comics (1990-1993) published 
new Br'er Rabbit stories from Egmont, NO ONE had ANY accent.  In 
fact, they went out of their way to make everyone talk as Oxford-like 
as possible, even Br'er Bear!  On the other hand, when Disney would 
reprint an old Br'er Rabbit story, the dialect was not altered.

While we're on the subject of dialect...
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Disney should talk.  In their own MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES, Chief O' 
Hara spoke with thicker Irish dialect than I have ever heard given to 
any character in fiction.  It was almost hard to believe.  I liked 
it, but I never thought of him as speaking with such thick dialect 
before.

And Madam Mim... again!
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ANDREAS:  I like the Ludwig/Mim story, too.  I considered that a 
typical Egmont Mim story.  Now I'm thinking it's probably very 
atypical.  Is it even Egmont?  Do I remember it from a recent British 
weekly, or from an older comic?????

      Well, folks, that's all for today.  I'll be back soon, though.

      David Gerstein
      "Oh, that the name of Duck should ever sink so low!"
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>