Cuts in USA D-stories

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

      It's common knowledge that Gladstone sometimes trims an Egmont 
story slightly when using it in the States.  It's often done to 
remove a very redundant splash panel in a story that was originally 
two parts, in which case a few other panels are taken out to 
facilitate removal of an entire page.  Sometimes a story simply works 
better when trimmed (for example, on dialoguing one Vicar story, I 
myself chose to eliminate a page since I felt it slowed the story 
down and was completely unnecessary).  But looking through our 
Database, I noticed a few stories that were much more severely 
chopped.  I had noticed a few telltale signs (i. e. two panels the 
width of the page clustered together in the middle, whereas one 
originally finished off a page and another started it).  But I never 
knew so much was cut.

      The first such tale is "Golden Oldies" in USA 23, a personal 
favorite of mine.  As published by Gladstone it was about 15 pages, 
but the original was over twenty!  So what was taken out?  I was 
particularly shocked to see that so much was cut.  It didn't feel 
cut, aside from one page that had a weird layout as a result.

      "The Treasure of Rattler River" (DDA 25) lost four pages, I 
believe.  I suspected it had probably lost *one*, but -- four?  Just 
what was taken out?  This was a very brief, ineffectual tale as 
published.  Was it once any meatier?

      Last, "Danger Island", just last month in USA 29.  It lost 
three pages, I think.  It seems to me that perhaps two were cut from 
the beginning (the story started very abruptly), then two half-pages 
cut later on?  Was anything removed due to violent content?  With 
that story, it sure seemed like a possibility.

      That's all for now, folks.  Sure wonder about these.

      Best,
      David Gerstein