Quest for Kalevala

[Don Rosa]

Hi.
I very seldom do anything here but follow the discussions and only speak up
when I am asked a direct question.
I am pleased by how much people are saying they liked my Kalevala story! It
was the longest story that I've worked on so far. I'm afraid that I don't
think it's one of my best stories, as some kindly readers have opined, but
it had some nice touches.
So far, the response to the story has been beyond overwhelming. I knew it
would be popular in Finland, but I didn't expect to be the single most
famous person in the whole country when I visited two weeks ago! Huge press
conferences, jammed bookstores and shopping malls.... they sold out the
first printing *instantly*. Does that ever happen? It was the best-selling
book in Finnish history. I will reportedly actually get thousands of votes
in next month's presidential elections. No kiddin'! Remember that 70's
show, "Fantasy Island", where people would pay $10,000 to live out a
particular fantasy? I get to do that, and I don't even have to pay the
dwarf's boss the ten grand! (And yes, if I got any royalties, I'd be
dictating this and somebody would be typing this for me while I sipped a
fine port!)
But I'm approaching my point obliquely. Even before the story was
published, my gratification was great! I was *voluntarilly* contacted by
the translators and editors in Finland (of course, from the start), but
later also by their worthy counterparts in Sweden (ML member Stefan Dios!),
Norway (ML member Nils Lid Hjort!), and Germany... and I worked with all
these nice folks to help them do a good job and follow all the story's
intentions and plans. This particularly relates to the Kalevalian texts
which were shown in the script as being planned as being written in the
proper rune-o-meter, and lettered in a special font. And it looks like that
in all these countries the translators went to *great* effort, did extra
research, and probably even *improved* on what they had to work with.
Everything was done perfectly! I am So proud!!!
But now I am getting first reports from readers in Denmark who are
confused. Now, I CANNOT READ DANISH... so I only know what I'm being told.
But what I'm told is that the Danish editions have made no effort to write
the Kalevalian rune-o-meter or research the proper wordings, and the
dialogue was not even printed in a special font, as simple as computers now
make that. And if you've seen the story, this would mean that the point of
the final panel will be lost! If the rune-o-meter and font are not used on
the dialogue in that final balloon, how would readers know who the old man
really is who is speaking? All that extra dialogue work, creating poetry,
counting syllables, timing phrases.... lost completely. (sob)
Anyway, if this is all true, my point is to apologize to any Danish readers
here on the ML, and assure them that what they are seeing is not what my
intention was. These are the sorts of things, as I always say, that I have
no control over. Once the story leaves my hands, I lose all ownership and
control (after all, that's the reason I'm typing this myself rather than
sipping that port).
So, I can't do anything in a case like this but THANK the folks in places
like Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany (and certainly, I fully expect, later
on also my publisher-friends in France and Greece and Italy) who *do* offer
me the opportunity to help them in their extra efforts to make a story be
everything it was meant to be for the readers.
THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!