Disney-comics digest #595.

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      PER:  I can call up our WWW page on the Mac or IBM, but only on 
the Mac does the page correctly access our FTP archive.  On the IBM, 
it announces an error when I try to use the FTP function -- and it 
always has, too.
      Can someone send me, via private mail, the code to our WWW 
page?  I keep forgetting it.
      Also, don't you think we should have rec.arts.disney put our 
http code in their FAQ -- and convince others with Disney WWW pages 
to put our http code in them, too?
      I also think we should have a sort of facsimile coupon for 
Gladstone subscriptions printoutable from our WWW page.  We may as 
well help them along, and help circulate our favorites in the 
uninformed reaches of my country.

      DON:  First, I haven't seen DD 290 yet, but there's an ad in it 
for DM 29.  A few months ago I discussed its cover, which since it 
was advertised to be by you, I suspected to be the one that you'd 
originally done for WDCiC 8.  But it's a different one, done by you, 
that pairs DD and MM.  Mark Semich has asked if you really did that 
whole cover.  I don't know myself.  Can you answer us?

      DON AGAIN:
> ... American kids aren't bright enough to recognize blatant 
> market manipulation and crowd control ...
      Geez, Don.  It's not that we're not bright enough.  It's merely 
that Hollywood and Madison Avenue quite blatantly base their 
advertising techniques, as used in the States, on psychological 
studies of how American kids are brought up, what their feelings 
about things are, what their beliefs and such are (generally) like 
-- and then, with audacity unparalleled in other countries, it 
uses these studies and findings to just crush kids to their will.  
Kids in every country are presumably just as susceptible, but when we 
have three times the TV commercials of every country, and much more 
covert advertising schemes and things going on, kids just become 
pawns no matter how smart they are.  When you're young, you can be 
smart and still not realize how you're being taken advantage of.
      Our education system is also much poorer than that of most 
developing countries, and getting poorer with each piece of 
Republican legislation.  I didn't learn anything about big business 
and how consumers are manipulated until 12th grade.  Er -- that is, I 
didn't get TAUGHT anything about it in school.  Your story "Nobody's 
Business" inspired me to read a book about advertising techniques 
much earlier on (in 1987).  But that's another story...  ;-)
      American kids are not dumb.  They're just living in a state in 
which the status quo encourages moneyed interests to take advantage 
of their susceptibility....

      DON AGAIN AND AGAIN:
> WIZARD on the other hand NEVER mentions Disney/Ducks....
      I've said it before... every month in their monthly picks 
section, they DO list two of the three Gladstones with brief 
descriptions, and illustrations sometimes, too.  Sadly, they put a 
symbol next to the listings that means "encouraged for younger 
readers."  Anyone worth his/her salt knows that kids want more than 
anything to read grown-up things, or think that they're reading them. 
Kids don't want to read things that they are told are for kids, at 
least not in my memory.
> But sadly, even when HERO mentions Duck comics, their American kid-readers read
> past it like "huh? whatzis -- a gag right?"
       While I suspect some may think this way, when have you 
actually seen evidence of this?

      ANDERS:
      Many readers don't like Strobl's work... that's why I think 
that many of his Barks-written stories are being redrawn.  The Dutch 
will not print Strobl stories, for example, or at least don't do it 
anymore.  But the last few pages to "King Scrooge the First" were 
also largely rewritten and butchered by Whitman when Strobl drew 
them, so remaking the story is also a way to restore Barks' 
conclusion (which was obviously done in Schroder's aborted version, 
as per the four surviving panels).

      ARN:
      I'm with you.  I've winced when WIZARD had the gall to 
criticize "C. C. Beck's silly and disrespectful treatment of Captain 
Marvel."  For anyone who doesn't know, this is a superhero from the 
1940s who was CREATED by the man mentioned above (who also wrote and 
drew the stories).  These are some of the BEST superhero stories ever 
done, partly because while they do involve suspense, they have some 
real humor and characters who are thoughtful and rounded without 
being angst-ridden.  Captain Marvel had his share of lemony stories, 
I'm sure, but since Beck was involved with almost all of them, you 
can't pan the author as being disrespectful to the character.  His 
view WAS the character!  Gee, wizard.

      DAVE RAWSON:
      I haven't got your mailing address yet to mail you my British 
edition of "Toot Suite."  On the other hand, PREVIEWS (which I 
mentioned in the previous Digest) summary of May's LOONEY TUNES issue 
makes it very clear -- although not naming the story outright -- that 
"Toot Suite" is going to appear there, too.  Do you just want to 
wait?  It'd be a shame when I have the British comic right here.

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
      "If you can help me, then put a lit candle in your window at 
midnight.  I will see it -- and KNOW."