Disney-comics digest #607.

[9475609@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk]

      DON and HARRY:
      Sorry I haven't mentioned this before, but I out-and-out FORGOT 
it!  "The Oak Island Treasure" didn't simply get lost in the morass of 
unfinished stories that fell apart with the Disney cutdown.  Its writer, 
frustrated that it had been shelved, convinced Egmont to negotiate with 
Disney, and this ended up with Egmont having someone draw the finished 
script for THEM.  It is apparently going to be in the Uncle Scrooge 
pocketbook at some point, drawn by the Italian guys who Egmont 
subcontracts from.
      Now why didn't I remember this before?
      There were a good handful of dialogued foreign stories that Disney 
commissioned but never printed.  The first three I ever did were among 
them (Gladstone will publish them, soon).  And Gary Gabner rewrote the 
three 44-page time-travel stories -- they even got colored and lettered.  
Gladstone is aware of those and if it ever uses them, those versions 
will be the ones;  but as of last fall, they had no immediate plans for 
the stories.
      One finished Michael T. Gilbert MM story was drawn and shelved by 
Disney.  "Mickey Mouse -- Mobster?" reportedly reused the basic idea 
from 1946's "Gangland" (reprint: WDC 561), but added some strands to the 
plot involving Montmorency Rodent and Pete (not working together -- I 
mean they were both in it).  After the story was completed, a higher-up 
at Disney walked through the comic building one day and banned it, 
because it briefly showed MM in jail.  This, he said, was okay in a 
reprinted old story, but not in a new one.

      Best, David
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>