Disney-comics digest #852.

[Don Rosa]

DANIEL:
     Yes, nutmeg is a drug. Mormons won't eat it on their chocolate mousse.

AUGIE:
      Gladstone certainly caters to comic fans/collectors, but DISNEY
fans/collectors... not super-hero collectors. Some Disney comics fans are
super-hero fans/collectors also (like me)... but not all. Perhaps not even
many. The Disney guy was a long-time comics collector who still had no idea
what the first issue of SUPERMAN looked like. That would have been just too
essoteric a gag for a cover, and done too much ONLY for super-hero fans,
even for my tastes (though the cover was my idea). But we had our cake and
ate it, too -- the cover was used, only on the inside.

JYRKI:
    Yes, that was the Super-Snooper cover in the art show in Helsinki.

MIKE:
    I won't take you seriously on all your questions -- I was looking for a
way to write a shorter report, not a longer one! But no, I've never been in
a sauna -- I hate being hot!
    If the new reprint volume still printed the dialogue to my "Super
Snooper Strikes Again" story with all the references to the original story
removed, I'm glad I discussed how my stories might be being rewritten by
foreign editors in my text piece accompanying that story, where I told of
how those references were being removed in foreign editions. I assume the
didn't cut those remarks out of the text!?!?!
    But the new American reprinting of that story in the WD GIANT wasn't
accurate either -- it matched the DISNEY Disney printing, and I should have
sent them corrections knowing that's what they'd do. They again removed the
references HD&L make to their missing parents (which is okay, I guess), but
they open the story with one nephew saying "This is awesome!" GAH! I would
never put such words in their mouths!!! I'll just assume they were using the
word in its 1955 context, in which case "awesome" might be very appropriate
for HD&L. Yeah.
    But they still left the back cover of that comic blank, where the kid is
sitting at a drawing table working on a huge dollar bill, and it's SUPPOSED
to be an ad saying "Hey' kids! Make BIG MONEY!"

TODD:
   I'll put your name on this again, so they can blame YOU for this further
reporting...
   Lucca. This is the biggest Italian comics convention, though funding cuts
from the city seem to have greatly limited the number of professional guests
they can bring in. But all else is as before, I assume. The entire town
sponsors the convention, with posters in every storefront and free meals
with coupons at certain superb restaurants, and exhibits all over the old
city. Lucca is the world's only completely intact walled medieval town, and
for that sorta info you're better off getting a travel book, but it's pretty
darn neat, especially for an American like me who is used to an "old"
building being something 50 years old.
    The convention was in a sports center gymnasium and 5 or 6 other large
circus-type tents. There were three tents for comics dealers, one for
gaming, and one for a sortuva "kiddie" expo with toys and stuff. There may
well have been close to as many dealers as one might see in San Diego, but
the floor area was smaller only because there were only a handful of
publishers -- American conventions like SD nowadays are made up about half
or more by all those macro and micro-publisher booths, as well as
super-spectacular booths by the larger publishers here in a nation where
they concentrate all such hoopla in such collector-shows since that's where
almost all their buyers are. Anyway, there were lots of dealers in Lucca,
and all with the widest array of types and shapes and sizes of comics I've
ever seen! It becomes quickly frustrating for an American to see how hoomin
beans are SUPPOSED to have a wide variety of choices in comic material. In
Italy (and Europe) you see a huge selection of every sort of comics genre --
in America we have a huge selection of the same stuff, over and over. Stores
full of the same stuff. A nation full of the same tastes.
    It seems that the difference between American comics and Italian comics
is that comic books became popular there even before thye did in America,
but there has always been a WIDE variety of types of comics and styles of
presentation -- digests, pocket-books, albums, hardbacks (but very few
American-shaped comics). Disney comics rule, as everywhere in Europe, but
ESPECIALLY in Italy. How bizarre to my eyes to see that Disney items take up
about 1/3-1/2 of every booth, with some booths ALL Disney material!Whereas
in Scandanavia, where Disney comics have a generally juvenile look to them,
it Italy they have had, ever since the 30s, Disney comics in all shapes and
styles, for kiddies, teens, adults, collectors, everybody! And of course
with a comic output of about 15,000 pages per year, three or four times the
next largest! And it's been like that for 50-60 years, except perhaps during
WWII.
    But there's also all sorts of other comics -- especially WESTERNS! One
of the very largest comic companies publishes almost nothing but westerns!
And in America we have hardly seen a western comic since the early 60s! Some
of the only super-hero comics come from a Marvel-Italy company which I
assume is a recent event there.
    Oh, that's enough for today! I knew I shouldn't get into this -- there's
so much to say and I never know when to quit. I'll stop for now. (Blame Todd.)