From RoC

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

Danny:

> "Carl Barks & Co. One Shot No.22: Europe Tour 1994" and "Carl Barks`
> Surviving Comic Book Art". Does anyone of you know these books?
> If yes, please tell me if there are worth buying or not.

 CB&Co.#22 is the latest issue of THE Danish duckzine, which after
Freddy Milton left the editor's seat, has become less amateurish,
though that and Milton's love of animation was part of its magic.

 This issue is truly a One Shot, cover to back dedicated to charting
Bark's Tour de Europe, with photos, interviews and congratulatory
art by overseas fans-gone-pros. No 20 page indexes and all in English
this issue has been prepared for a wider audience than the usual
print run of a 1000 allows.

 *Of*course* I recommend it!

 Order from Fantask, Skt.Pedersstraede 18, DK-1453 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
 Price DKr. 38,50 (a Danish Krone is worth about 18 cents.)

Geoffrey Blum (in WDG#1):

> Rosa comes at these characters from the other end of timeline.
> For him young $crooge is a man of the Nineties - the 1990s, that is:
> tough, street smart, and battling alone against a hostile world.'
> [...] 'We have moved into the realm of the modern superhero comic.'
 
 It's funny with this conspiracy to label Don's $crooge as a superhero.
The evidence is more circumstantial, than based on $crooge's exploits
during his career. For one thing the Lo$ is the first true continuity
found in Disney stories, thus eligible for the Eisner award for "Best
Serialized Story" of the year, which gives quite an unfair advantage
to the men-in-tights industry. To those people it may also appear that
Don Rosa is doing exactly to the Disney Universe, what Frank Miller did
to Batman, John Byrne to Superman, and Marvel to whoever they like.
 I assume Americans only know 3 kinds of comics; funny animals, super
mutants and breakfast-TV...
 The Serial Award is like the World Series in baseball, strictly U.S.,
not T.H.E.M. (Total Hegemony of European Monarchies, my new acronym for
the EuroUnion:) European publishers probably see a closer resemblance
to Hugo Pratt's "Corto Maltese". At least I do.


 Daniel:

> Barks left his real last story "King Scrooge the First" unfinished
> as a script. Tony Strobl finished it, Barks script is lost since then.
 How much lost can a script get? I hope Daan Jippes will eventually get
around to 'finishing' that story, as it is sadly overlooked, though it
is (was?) Barks' goodbye to comics. It also touches on that interesting
topic of $crooge's death. Though Don hasn't commented on the famous
gravestone drawing (*1867 +1967) to my knowledge, some thought has gone
into it, as hinted in 'ODaDaD'.
 Yes, I checked with my Herodotus on the Solon/Midas encounter and it
says something like "Don't count a man (or duck:) lucky until he's dead."
An just LOOK at Magica's face! What does she know, witch and all?!


 Don:

>        Where do you think chapter 12 needs fleshing out? Is the Beagle Boy
> chase too short? Is $crooge's inspiration to come out of retirement too
> abrupt or too shallow? Just where should I add pages, and how many?

 As someone previously noted, a longer recap of his exploits could be
nice. This would separate it more from the series proper, as I find it
more of an epilogue than a conclusion. Or in super-slang: a 'tie-in'.
I would also like it to be more 'christmassy' but I find the BB chase
too LONG, so I must be wrong... :)


Ole 'RoC' Reichstein Nielsen   c/o  LRN.DAIMI.AAU.DK