Disney-comics digest #646.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      JORGEN and HARRY:
      What's Esteban doing now?  More stories, I'd presume.  Mostly 
Ducks -- for example, I think that the recent story about DD's high 
school exam having to be taken again was his.  He did a lot of 
Mickeys until recently, but while the art editors at Egmont love his 
1971 Mouse, the story editors hate it and would rather assign him to 
other characters.
      H 92107 = Junior Woodchucks, "Gold of the '49ers".  This is 
going to be the backup story in American US 293 next month, by the 
way.  I'm anxious to read it.
      D 93280 = "King Tut Tut".  I don't think Disney U. S. would 
actually have a problem with this story, because the black characters 
don't act stereotypical (unless the mere act of showing a bushman as 
black is a stereotype).  They speak very educated English.  But I 
just find the story fairly unexciting.  In Britain, the pygmies have 
an odd mixture of Swahili and ancient-Egyptian names.
      D 93228 = "Relatively Speaking".  I don't like MM+G stories 
that begin with them as detectives assigned to guard something.  Like 
the Zoom Transport stories, this is a bonehead-simple way of getting 
the characters into an adventure that feels very unimaginative.  And 
I'm sorry -- but Aunt Maude really DOES appear to be stealing 
something, herself, before the crook shows up.  It's never 
satisfactorily explained.
     D 93386 = "The Cheesecake Cheat".  I actually enjoyed this 
Grandma Duck story very much.  In English, it was very funny.  I 
wouldn't even mind seeing it in the States one day.
      D 93180 = "Ali Baba".  In English, the Arab millionaire is 
named EXACTLY the same thing as his famous ancestor.  The art here is 
by Ferioli, by the way.  D 93228 looks similar, I agree, but it's not 
his -- it's just a story from the same Jaime Diaz-like studio that 
Ferioli was originally a member of, but has now left.  I'll give you 
more detailed information soon.

      I don't think I've mentioned that I spoke to Daan Jippes just 
before leaving the States two weeks ago.  He told me that "Bottled 
Battlers" was the most recent Junior Woodchuck redraw that he has 
done, because his work for Amblin takes up too much time these days 
for him to make any more.  He'll get back to them, but for now we've 
seen the last of these redraws.

      David Gerstein      
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
      "Gawrsh, Mickey, it was thuh most wonderful moment of muh life!"
      "Ya mean when we found th' treasure?"
      "No!  I mean when thuh cannibals picked ME out FIRST!"