Lots of news and comments

Larry Gerstein gerstein at math.ucsb.edu
Tue Jun 27 23:58:37 CEST 1995


        Well, I'm back!  Although the header may actually say that I'm
Larry Gerstein, that's just because I'm using my family account now (which
is under my dad's name).  It's me, David Gerstein.  I had a fine visit to
Germany where I had some great visits with my one-time exchange partners,
enjoyed some philosophical discussions and lots of magnificent food.  Yep,
a great holiday.  And among other things,

        JANET AND MICHAEL
        have German copies of both that Birthday story (printed without a
code in Germany) and "Hail the Conquering Duck" (which took some doing to
find, but I found it!) waiting for them!  What's your address, guys? 
You'll have 'em in the blink of an eye!

        DANIEL:
> I would also like to know if there's Barks-material in CBLinC that is not in 
> the conventional CBL. Is there? 
        Yes.  There are some storyboards for never-produced cartoons in the
CBLiC albums which are not in the hardback CBL, namely "Lost Prospectors"
and "Night Watchman Donald."  (There are much smaller fragments of these in
the hardbacks, but that doesn't really count.)
        "Scrooge McDuck and Money" is frequently shown on the Disney
Channel these days.  There's a must-see episode of their "Quack Attack"
half-hour show that pairs it, complete, with "Donald in Mathmagic Land".

        JAKOB:
> I have searched for the answer to that question (who is HDL's
> father) since I was a duckling. And my theory is that he is
> Ludwig von Drake. In the cartoon "Donald's Diary" he is looking
> up from below a chair when Donald enters Daisy's (or whoever it
> is) house. And he looks just the same as Ludwig von Drake, but he
> is introduced as the father of HDL.
        Careful!  This is one of those weird cartoons with everyone playing
roles!  This same cartoon shows HDL as being _DAISY'S BROTHERS_ -- the Von
Drake-like character is Daisy's father!  So I don't think this is
canonical.
        This is the first time Von Drake ever appeared anywhere, by the
way.  He doesn't actually have a name or any dialogue in the cartoon and
didn't reappear until a 1961 TV appearance (for which he was slightly
cleaned-up in appearance and given his classic voice and mannerisms).

        DANIEL AGAIN:
> Maybe you notice, that this subject ("lost art") really frustrates 
> me sometimes. If I remember well, David has been in the Archives. But 
> I can't recall exactly what he said about it...
        All I know is that Disney has some proofs to comic stories in the
Disney Archives which don't exist (as proofs, I mean) anywhere else. 
Disney Comics Inc. had access to them, but they didn't really know what was
in there because the indexing system wasn't very methodical at the time. 
(The Archives have a proof to WDC 42's cover, but when Bob Foster wanted to
reprint it in 1992, he had to have it reinked because he wasn't told about
the proof.  On the other hand, he was able to print "The Hard Loser" from
original 1943 proof pages in 1990, which is the only time it was reprinted
in its original quality.)  
        When it comes to unpublished stories, I know that it was the Disney
Archives which managed to save the Milkman story in English, but I'm
reasonably sure that they don't have any other lost stories.

        HARRY:
> I know David is working on an English script for one of [the great Dutch Wolf
>> stories]: the "egg" story.
        Part II of all this is that I sent it to Gladstone prior to
departing for Scotland a few months ago.  This morning I talked to them to
find that MY PACKAGE WAS LOST IN THE MAIL and so they have never seen the
story!  So it won't be appearing in WDC&S 601 as we had once planned; 
maybe (I'm only guessing now) a few issues later.  I'll see if John would
like to use it in the back of the GIANT series (formerly COLLECTORY).
        I researched 1950, one of the finest years for Gil Turner's wolf
stories, and created a dictionary of Zeke Wolf dialect which came in handy
for this story, which I titled "Musical Eggs."  Whenever we end up seeing
it, I think it should go over very well.

        FREDRIK:
> ["Donald's Special Capabilities"] sounds very much like the one published in 
> Swedish Kalle Ankas Pocket 4. Does it include Donald and the nephews going to
>> sea with the Beagle Boys and Scrooge respectively?
        I've read this story in German, too.  It's by Romano Scarpa. 
Actually, I thought it was one of the worst "classic-era" Scarpa stories
I'd ever read, but each person has their own favorites.

        DON:
        Good to have you back!  I too looked for the TEMPO issue, and
didn't manage to find it.  I DID, however, find a comic catalog from Ehapa.
 A catalog that included images of the covers of the Rosa Library.
        Including a cover which appears to never have actually made it onto
any published edition, although the catalog portrays it as a cover for Rosa
Library album #4.
        The cover I'm referring to is one you drew illustrating LO$ 6.  It
shows Scrooge riding a giraffe and twirling a lasso.  It's a beautiful
cover, but it was quite obviously drawn under the supposition that LO$ 6
was to be the cover story of Album 4, while it ended up being the backup in
Album 3.  (For those who haven't seen it, the cover of Album 3 illustrated
LO$ 5, only natural.)
Who incorrectly told you that LO$ 6 was to headline one of the albums?  And
what will happen to this magnificent cover?  If you wouldn't mind sending
me a copy of the art, I'll use it in the brochure for this year's Comic Con
panel.
        I, too, read the COMICS JOURNAL review, when I saw it in the shops
yesterday.  I agree that the review was good.  If you want to refer them,
though, to an example of what the LO$ might have been like had Disney
produced it, I think you ought to refer them to "A Dime in Time" in Disney
Comics DUCKTALES #17-18, which stated that Scrooge's time in the Klondike
had him living in the fictional town of Uppa Creek!  One of the weirdest
traits of the Disney Comics regime under Len Wein was that they seemed to
consciously discourage naming any actual places in their Duck and Mouse
tales.
        It's JAIME Diaz, not HAIME, by the way.
        Was anything changed in Gladstone's printing of LO$ 9?  I noticed
that Scrooge's limerick about the gold miner would have included the word
"home" at the end of two lines, if the final line indeed ended "struck
home" (as I believe you said it did).  Also, there was a blank space below
Goldie's photo on the newspaper in the opening panel.  In the German
edition, the caption "Kidnapped?" appeared there, and I'd imagine that your
original version was supposed to have it there as well.
        How old is Scottie supposed to be in this chapter?  He looks like
he's only about 12.

        PER:
        The title of the Gladstone series WALT DISNEY'S COLLECTORY has
indeed become WALT DISNEY GIANT.  Please change it on our WWW page,
including on the "Disney Comics in the U. S." article, when you can.  Issue
one comes out any time now!

        DONALD DUCK 292
        is in the shops now.  Beautiful cover made from AT art.  There's
the 1958 Barks story "Noble Porpoises" -- quite honestly, it's a pretty
good story but I imagine Gladstone will take some flak for printing a story
about DD hunting dolphins.  The AT strips filling the rest of the issue
include the complete "Don on the Farm" (with Gus Goose) and the conclusion
of "Flubbity Dubbity Duffer", as well as some miscellaneous gags.  Nothing
has been censored or cut.  Also, there's a 2-page feature showing how AT
revised a partially-completed daily strip in mid-1938 for better comic
effect;  the "rough draft" of the strip was discovered this year and it's
very interesting to see it and read about how the changes were made.  This
is what Gladstone does best.
        As usual, there are no NEW stories in this comic, and I'm
disappointed that AT hogs ALL this space, and now the comic is on newsprint
paper again (albeit with good printing), but still, it's definitely worth
buying.  The cover is worth framing!

        THE MOST RECENT GLADSTONE ALBUMS
        (CBLWDC 40-41 and CBLDDA 16) came while I was away, too.  Sadly the
printing in them is muddy and terrible, with misaligned colors rendering
outlines fuzzy and panel-borders hairy.  I may gripe about the problem when
it crops up in an occasional $2 comic, but it's really not a big deal if it
doesn't happen continously.  But the problem is just inexcusable in an
album for which I've paid $9!  Do other people's copies of these recent
albums have the same problem?  Is anyone else actually buying them?
        All this said, "The Village Blacksmith" (WDC 242) is one that I
hadn't actually read before and which struck me as quite a classic,
especially as it came in such a late period.

        David Gerstein
        <gerstein at math.ucsb.edu>
        "Have a chestnut, boys! -- OW!"

gerstein at math.ucsb.edu








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