Disney-comics digest #472.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

      Karl-Eric mentioned that "maybe it would be possible to show 
scanned images of important panels from Disney comics on the WWW."  I 
think that's a fine idea.  Our WWW page has links to other people's 
Disney pages, and all of those have huge numbers of scanned Disney 
images on them.  I think that our page will be a great tool to get 
people INTERESTED in Disney comics if we have pictures from the 
stories there.  For example, at the very top of the page I imagine we 
might have a scene from WDC&S 141:  a gloomy Donald saying to 
himself, "Oh, that the name of Duck should ever sink so low!"  A nice 
ironic way to begin.  Just don't ask ME to do the scanning -- I don't 
have a scanner, or many Disney comics with me in England.

      JORGEN:  The Marvel-Gladstones do look different from 
Gladstone-Gladstones.  Instead of the Gladstone symbol they have a 
square logo that says "Disney Comics, Distributed by Marvel."  The 
interesting thing is that "Disney Comics" is done as the same symbol 
that Disney Comics, Inc. used from 1990-1993.  There is also a UPC 
symbol on the lower left-hand corner of each issue.
      The only places in Europe where you can get Gladstones is at 
comic shops (as far as I can tell), and since they get them from 
direct comic distribution companies, these have the Gladstone logo on 
them, and no UPC symbol either.

      Br'er Rabbit does indeed come from "Brother."  That's because 
the character as we know him comes from U. S. black folklore.  But he was 
even with blacks when they first came to America from Africa.  The 
tales originated there, and there he is called Zomo.  (I wonder if they 
call him that in the local Disney comics?)
      Yeah, I notice that they draw Br'er Rabbit differently now.  He 
has a huge crest of hair on top of his head like Woody Woodpecker, or 
like the European comic character Spirou.  Eccch.  I hope that I can 
convince Egmont to have the artist leave it off in my story. If they 
don't, I'll see about having it changed when it's published in the 
States -- and I may have to, because Disney-U. S. would (in this 
case, rightfully) claim it was severely off-model.
      Jorgen:  "The dialect will be lost in Norway, I'm afraid."  
Yeah, and probably here in the States, too.  There's a difference 
between real country dialect and stereotypical minstrel-show dialect. 
I find that the very first Disney BR stories use the latter, but it 
is softened to the former around 1950.  I'll use the former, but 
don't bet on it appearing in the final U. S. version.
      There is a letter in WDC&S 594 by someone who claims he'd heard 
that Gladstone is banned from printing Br'er Rabbit stories.  John 
Clark has told me differently -- it's the dialect, he says, that they 
want changed.  However, on the two occasions when Disney Comics 
reprinted old BR stories (HP 2 and WDC&S 576, that second one the 
finest BR I have ever read), they left the dialect intact.

      Well, I'll be off just now.  I'll clock in again tomorrow, 
folks, and may have comments about DD 288 then (which is supposed to 
arrive at my local comic shop today).

       Best,

       David Gerstein
       "It don't take th' New World long t' start gittin' OLD!"
       <9475609 at arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk>