Disney-comics digest #454.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

      I have even more to say today, and there's gonna be more after 
my Dad forwards to me all the Disney Digests that were sent his way 
after I left for Scotland!

      First, thanks, Don, for explaining those "Donnas" on DDA 29.  I 
sure wondered about them.  I always wondered if one day you would put 
someone else's name on there.  Back when I drew my own comic I 
sometimes stuck my own name on the cover -- in Hebrew!  Also -- what 
is the cover you drew for the Scarpa "lentil" story?  Did you go with 
that idea I told you of?  I was lazy, and didn't end up sending 
you a drawing of my idea, so I have no idea if you chose to use my 
idea, or not.

      Just before I left Santa Barbara I spoke with John Clark.  He 
told me he would order the Fethry/Moe hog-calling story from Disney, 
but he had no proof that they would send it to him -- their archive 
of S and X-coded stories is apparently quite disorganized.  
Also I'm excited to announce that three of my foreign dialogues are 
coming up.  The Lentil story I mentioned (in USA 30-32) has my 
English appended to it;  then I also did the English for Ben 
Verhagen's "Car-Gone Conclusion" (DDA 31) and Vicar's "Case of Too 
Much Money" (US 291, I think).  I pretty much like my work on the 
first two, looking back at them -- the third is no classic, but at 
least all right.  And I hope you'll think the second two stories, 
regardless of my work on them, have good plots;  unlike the folks at 
Gladstone, I can read a foreign language and thus am able to CHOOSE 
which foreign stories I'm going to work on -- I don't merely get 
things sent to me by Gladstone.  Although that sometimes causes 
problems;  after someone mentioned a "good Mau Heymans story about 
luck" last spring, I rooted out that story -- something about a 
mountain shaped like an hourglass -- and submitted my own version, 
entitled "By Hourglass Piqued" only to find out that someone had done 
it BEFORE me.  Was that you, Dwight?  What did you call the story?  
I'll sure be interested to see your version, if you indeed did that 
one.  Knowing you it ought to be good ;-)

      In an old issue of the Egmont monthly from 1979, I found a Rota 
I-coded story with Andold Wild Duck which, I believe, was done long 
before any of the others we have known up to now.  I believe it must 
be the first one ever made.  Donald slams his head on a fallen board 
and HALLUCINATES about being his earlier ancestor;  the story tells 
how Andold (here without the little duck on top of the helmet which 
mimics him) met his sidekick Bo and went off in search of adventure.  
When Donald wakes up in the end, he meets Bo's modern day equivalent, 
his new postman (who I'll call Ob, although his name's different in 
German), and is completely dumbstruck to discover that the first bit 
of mail he's getting from him is an invitation to a Viking exhibition 
at Duckburg's museum.
    The German versions of Andold stories raise some VERY interesting 
questions.  This one appeared first, and Andold was called 
"McDonald."  The later ones apparently appeared in digests in 
Germany, and a letterwriter to Gladstone mentioned that there Andold 
was "Sir Donnerbold von Duckenburgh."  In modern German comics, Andold 
is Sir Donald McDuck (remember, McDuck is not a common last name 
there, where Scrooge's last name is also Duck).  It's that second 
name, though, that's most interesting.  You see, in the German 
version of "The Old Castle's Secret" SIR QUACKLY is Donnerbold von 
Duckenburgh!  So:
      FABIO, in Italian, are Andold and Sir Quackly one and the same? 
If so, it adds a lot more meaning to why Marco Rota decided to 
create this entire scenario.

      Also, speaking of Italian stories, I found Sergio Asteriti's 
"Mickey Mouse, Court Troubador" (a new pie-eyed Mickey story, which 
we talked about here a while back) in German.  It is GREAT and I will 
try to get John Clark to run it.

      DDA 29 was the first Gladstone I have gotten in Europe.  "Tour 
de Jour" was pretty good, I thought, and the dialogue had a very 
original flavor to it.  I do wish that people would stop doing 
stories about Donald entering raffles.  Either he loses again in the 
end, or wins something that isn't worth having.  It's just a little 
predictable.  Then, meanwhile, I found "Stampede and Deliver" to be 
absolutely the best Van Horn story since 1991, and I have a hunch 
that this is because John Lustig had a hand in it.  This is also the 
first story since 1990 to involve Neighbor Jones in a major role, I 
believe.  Don -- do you plan to use him again?  Haven't seen him for 
a long, long time in your stories.

      Well, I must be off, folks.  But I'll be back!

      David Gerstein
      "I'm the Fuller Brush Man!  I'm givin' g'way free semple!"
      <9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk>