DCML digest, Vol 1 #19 - 9 msgs

[Don Rosa]

> From: "Anders Christian Sivebaek"
> Subject: question for Don about Kalevala-cover, plead to finnish friends
> Don, could you tell us what the story is about that cover for the
> Kalevala book?
> The cover shows the ducks with other weapons that on the half-page of
> page 20 of the story. Also the folks from kaelvala are sitting in the
> top right corner of the drawing, where Magica is in the page 20. Was
> this page done on another time, or is it on purpouse so the buyers will
> know that these charecters apeear in the book?
> And what does it say on the Kantele on Gyro's stick? Don Rosa after
> Galleian Kalleia 1999? What would the last part mean? any ideas?

Any ideas? Me? Well, yeah, I mean, I wasn't on drugs or something when I
drew it. You've made some incorrect assumptions in your efforts to figure
out what's going on. But I see I was quite right when I suggested to the
Germans (who needed a Kalevala cover to go with this story when they use it
as the special feature of their #1-2000 issue) that they not use that book
cover inasmuch as it was designed to only be understood by Finns and art
historians. (Note: for those who care, that means that the German MICKY
MAUS #1-2000 will have a different Kalevala cover that I drew just for that
issue... I guess it won't appear anywhere else. Well... maybe it might be
used when the Finns reprint the Kalevala story in their AKU ANKKA weekly
next year... and, another note -- at that time I will *add pages* to the 33
page story to flesh out the parts that I unavoidably had to truncate to fit
into that page-count. I estimate it will end up at just below 40 pages.)
But back to the Kalevala book cover. No, I'm not sure what you mean by the
characters in the upper right being the Kalevala characters who appear in
the book -- that's not the idea. That is a Duck-version of the most famous
Kalevala painting of "Defense of the Sampo" by the most famous Finnish
painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Everything there is traced directly from an
image (they would not lend me the original!) of that painting except that
the Kalevala heroes are replaced by Ducks, fighting the original Louhi and
her warriors. Louhi makes a reference to this battle in my story, and it's
that battle which Magica recreates using Louhi's old wing-and-talon-costume
conjured from the ruins of her longship. That half-page panel in my story
is another recreation of that painting, a panel which will have no special
meaning whatsoever when seen outside of Finland, but which hopefully will
not seem odd.
(There was another Gallen-Kallela painting-recreation in my story as the
Ducks are watching the Sampo reform inside Gyro's forge.)
As to "the Kantele on Gyro's stick"... that's a kantele, okay, but it's in
the sea beyond the "stick". (If it looks like it's on Gyro's spear, I'll
blame Akseli, that's how he painted it!) But that's how Gallen-Kallela
signed his painting, on Vainemoinen's pike-jaw kantele that had just been
lost into the sea. He had written "Gallen-Kallela 1896" on his painted
kantele, so when I copied it, it seemed appropriate that I sign "Don Rosa
after Gallen-Kallela 1999" in the same spot.
By the way, I publicly apologize for sticking a Beagle Boy in with the
crowd of Louhi's warriors. I did not intend for them to color him so
*brightly* as compared to the warriors -- he was supposed to be hidden in
the crowd, not stand out like a sore prune.
(Also, apologies to all of you that do not have this book, to whom all the
above seems like gibberish.)( But then, no one apologizes to *me* when I'm
in Finland and *everything* is gibberish!!!)