Disney-comics digest #650.

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

WES:
>I also don't approve of
>censoring an artist's work without the artist's consent...

      Maybe you didn't know it, but this is why we have not seen a 
Complete Gottfredson or Taliaferro Library set.  When Disney bans a 
NEWSPAPER STRIP for even the SLIGHTEST reason -- even something that can 
easily be changed -- they will not allow a change to be made even if it 
means that the strip, and an entire 150-strip serial with nothing 
objectionable except for that one strip, will never be seen again.
      On the other hand, if Disney finds something objectionable in a 
comic book story, it can be altered and the story reprinted.
      MM "In the Foreign Legion," a newspaper strip story, is found 
objectionable by Disney due to a big-lipped black caricature in two 
strips and big noses on a few Arabs in about ten strips.  Gladstone was 
originally given the okay to make these changes and print the story (way 
back in MM 240), but then Disney turned around and said no.
      I consider this largely fantastic story's complete suppression 
much worse than printing a version that's been slightly modified.  Would 
people feel it was more respectful to Barks if "Voodoo Hoodoo" was 
banned, not censored, and the Barks Library thus never published?  I 
don't think Gottfredson would like to see how his stories are treated 
today, supposedly out of respect for him.

      Of course, we can all note exceptions to the above rule, but most 
of them occurred in or prior to 1988 (when the rules began to take 
effect) or when Disney Comics personell SNUCK something by the censors 
(as with "Sky Island" which really is entirely uncensored).

>"But, Mickey!  It's SUICIDE!"
I'll say so, fer gosh sakes!  ;-)

      On a related note, CBLDD 14's printing of "Race to the South Seas" 
does illuminate ONE tiny change that was made in DDAD 29, a change I had 
not known about before.  In the original, a servant calls Scrooge 
"Massa," which was changed to "Boss" in Disney's 1992 reprint.

      David Gerstein
      "Poor little kid!  She was so brave -- she didn't want to see me 
go on this treasure hunt by myself!  And now -- I'll never see her 
again! ... Sob!  Sniff!"
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>