Pocahontas, Van Horn, Egypt and Architext

[Fredrik Ekman]

Greetings, folks!

After having returned from a three-week vacation in the US, I have 
finally had time to read through all the digests. Not a lot for me 
to comment on, but here are a few remarks anyway:

Mon, 26 June, Colette wrote:
> Perhaps there might be a strip for Pocahontas.

The current issue of Disney Adventures when I was over there 
contained a Pocahontas comic. I dont know how often DA comes out, 
but I suppose there's a risk it has been replaced by now. For those 
who dont know about DA, its not really a comic book, but contains 
some comics along with articles and other stuff. It can usually be 
bought in just about any supermarket (at least in my experience).

I also have a very vague memory of seeing the first issue of a 
Pocahontas comic book from Marvel, but my interest in the Marvel 
Disneys does not go beyond mild curiosity, so I didn't buy it and 
my memory is usually not to be trusted anyway. Does anyone know 
anything about this title, or even if it exists?

I saw Pocahontas, by the way, and thought it pretty good. Without 
the poor script of Lion King and most of the tacky romantic cliches 
of Beauty and the Beast, but unfortunately also lacking most of the 
speed and timing of Aladdin, it still has several scenes that will 
without doubt become classic.

Mon, 3 Jul, Harry wrote, in reply to Paulo:
> > "Bingomania" (D 92172): Donald chases a big-prize lottery ticket.
>
> "Lot of happiness". Written and drawn by William Van Horn. 10 pages.

The title in your database, Harry, is my old re-translation from 
Swedish. Since, I have been informed that the original is called 
The Cluck of the Draw, although I have yet not had time to include 
that (and a lot of other information) in my Van Horn index.

The story, although not one of Van Horn's best, is well worth 
reading.

Fri, 7 Jul, Wilmer wrote:
> Also, there was some interesting discussion on this list a while back
> about a Disney comic book that is PUBLISHED in Egypt, and how strange
> it seems to those of us who are accustomed to the European and American
> stories, but I suppose that's another topic altogether.

Most of that discussion originated from me, I believe. I would just 
like to make it clear that I never said that those comic books (for 
there were several titles) were published in Egypt; only that they 
were sold there. Since it is in Arabian, I suppose it could 
theoretically originate from any of the Arab countries. It is worth 
pointing out, however, that on my only other visit to an Arab 
country (Tunisia) I did not find any Disney comics, and I suppose 
Egypt is the most probable country of origin.

I seem to remember that most of those stories were either D- or S-
coded and horribly poorly re-formatted, re-inked and re-coloured to 
be read right-to-left. Also, as we discussed last time, most hats 
(including Scrooge's) had been removed, probably so that the 
characters should run no risk of looking Jewish.

Disney characters generally seem very popular in Egypt and I 
remember the first thing that met my eye when I got off the plane 
when coming there was a sign with Donald Duck saying the cost of 
renting a baggage cart.

Fri, 14 Jul, Per quoted:
> Subject: Architext would like to archive your mailing list

Other people who have replied to this have done so in the negative. 
However, I would like to advise you to consider both what we may 
gain and lose from this.

There has been talk about risk of increased public exposure. The 
risk that noone will dare saying anything controversial anymore. 
But please remember that our archives already are perfectly public. 
Does anyone think that we should remove the archives? Or make them 
available to list members only? The latter, although theoretically 
possible, would be very difficult and in any event, Per does not 
(and cannot) have any control whatsoever of who joins our group.

On the other hand, we may actually gain something. I dont know how 
this Bullseye search engine will be constructed, but I suppose that 
it will make it easier for us, too, to search for information in 
our own archives. Per mentioned a possibility of searching our 
archives in some distant future. Now we may have it tomorrow. This, 
in my opinion, would be worth some small sacrifice. Add to this the 
fact that Per, as list administrator, will abviously get some 
personal benefits from Architext, something which I, at least, 
would be more than glad to give him after all the work he has put 
into this list.

Thus, in my opinion, we have more to gain than to lose from 
accepting the Architext proposal. But there is yet one thing to 
consider: Why would Architext do this for us?

Keep in mind that they are a commercial corporation. Their goal is 
to make money. So far as I understand, they do this by offering a 
limited service to everyone and an extended service (supposedly the 
profiling mentioned in their message) to those who are willing to 
pay. They will naturally want to have as many mailing lists as 
possible archived in order to make their offer interesting. Now, do 
we want to help them making money (by being able to claim that they 
have n+1 mailing lists archived)? I say no, and for this reason 
alone I vote for not letting them have our list.

  /F