DCML digest #12, Wes and Rodney

[Ole Reichstein Nielsen]

Wes Andersen:
> My fingers are crossed as well, but I'm actually more prepared
>to learn a new language instead. Anyone have any suggestions?
>I was going to go with the language of my ancestors, Danish, but
>Don's recent disappointments in their translations changed my mind.

The translations are usually not half bad, except in this case
where a special effort was called for. But to get a wide selection
of Disney books, Danish is a very bad choise. Italian and German
would be better, or you could go for 'European', which appears also
to be useful if you ever go to Paris in the spring time. :-)

Stefan Persson to Oliv:
> >Where is Europe ?
> 
> Those are comics produced by Disney Europe, in Paris. Their codes start with 
> 'E' for Europe. Those are mostly made after the animated Disney movies.

The 88 pages referred to as the output one year means that two 44 page
stories were made. That's the usual format for these stories, which if
they appear in the US will go under the name 'graphic novels'.
Aren't there btw still *some* Disney titles left, like the Disney
Afternoon or such, where these movie adaptions may appear?

Any truth to the rumor that Bruce Hamilton and Steve Geppi has signed
an agreement on re-launching Disneys in the US btw? And does that mean
that the Disney Company has also accepted, and we're just waiting for
something to actually happen?


Rodney w bowcock jr.: 
> While I'm typing, someone on the list recently said that they agreed that
> Barks only did 50 or so outstanding stories.   It's been a while since
> we've had new comics here and even then there wasn't a wealth of many of
> the artists spoken of here.  But I would say that there are well over 50
> outstanding stories that Barks has done.  Nearly *every* DDOS story was
> brilliant, as was the US stories for the first 25 issues or so, and the
> WDC&S stories from around 85-200 were all excellent.  Not to mention the
> gems that have been scattered throughout the remaining issues.  

I did agree on that, at least on principle, though your list makes me
think the number is on the low side. But then again, I don't really
think that *all* the One Shot adventures are classics of our time.
The first really outstanding story would be "Sheriff of Bullet Valley",
in my opinion of course. The next, "The Golden Christmas Tree" isn't
often referred to as anything but a curiosity. It'll probably be hard
to reach an agreement on which are solid gold nuggets and which are
'only' 18 carat, as it's also the consistently good story telling
that makes the complete works of Barks so interesting, regardless of
which stories happen to be your favorites. It's basically a question
of taking one story, and deciding that it is perfect, and because
all the others are similar, 'true Barksian', they are so too.

> To say
> that there are only 50 outstanding Barks stories seems like blasphemy to
> me, because I can personally say that without Carl Barks I would never
> have continued to read Disney comics.  Without Barks, and to a large
> degree Gottfredson, I think *none* of us would be reading Disney comics. 
> After all, who would've inspired the current crop of writers and artists
> to write Disney books in the first place?

No disagreement from me there. Well, except perhaps that especially in
Italy there is such a long tradition for Disney stories, that many
current writers and artists are more inspired by their predecessors
than those who inspired *them*. And while everyhere else you can't
talk about classic Disney stories without talking only about Barks,
there are many distinctively different approaches in early Italian
art and storytelling. My point being that you can't simply judge the
merits of a story on a scale from one to ten of 'Barksiness'.
There are other ways to tell stories about Disney characters than Barks'
and usually a writer/artist is best when he/she finds his/her own.

I just got my first set of Another Rainbow's Carl Barks Library today btw!
Gee, am I going to make some quality paper planes out of them. ;-)

oLe
_U