DCML digest, Vol 1 #23 - 16 msgs

[Don Rosa]

From: "Anders Christian Sivebaek"
>>>>What is the right guess then? or is that guy just referring to a story
you haven't written

(re: the "second biggest frog I have ever seen" comment in the Kalevala
story)... this referred to noting, it was just supposed to be a silly
remark made by a burned-out hippie or such. What frog could be bigger?
Haha. Big gag. But so many people have asked me what that meant that I wish
I had skipped it. It actually was a in-joke to myself (which I often do)
referring to a TV show tag-line of the 60s. I *never* expected anyone to
know that.
But when I was doing the Internet chat in Finland, some "caller" again
asked what the gag meant, and I just said "nothing, it meant nothing". Then
I whispered to someone at the computer-lab that it actually was a injoke
for myself referring to a line frequently heard in the mid-60s on a TV
series called "Get Smart", had they ever heard of it, and they had no idea
what I was talking about. But while I was saying that, the words were
appearing on the monitor, a response from the chat-caller, saying "I
thought maybe it was a Maxwell Smart joke." And that was the single
happiest instant of my whole trip to Finland -- I exploded! To think
someone waaaay over in Finland in 1999 would spot a personal in-joke I made
to my own TV viewing of 35 years earlier!!! THIS is why I'll never stop
putting in obscure in-gags that practically no one will catch. The gags are
not for everyone, just the 1 or 2 people on earth who spot it. That makes
it worthwhile. Even more worthwhile than if everyone caught it. My stories
are for the few, not for everyone -- I like it that way.

> Nowhere do I have V. asking $crooge if he wants to go relive
> the Klondike days with him. Izzat what it sez in Danish???
>>>Scrooge just says "Yukon?" I'm the one going out of that line. a wrong
line that is. A lost love awaits him, so that's why he says Yukon...

No, no, no. You're getting this all confused. Please tell me exactly what
is said in that translation. In my original script, Vainemoinen says that
he and $crooge share a love of a beautiful land of ice and snow, to which
$crooge says "The Yukon?". Then (*afterwards*) Vainy says that a lost love
awaits $crooge in his own Kalevala. $crooge does NOT say "Yukon" in reply
to that. Is that NOT the order in which your translator has my dialogue???
Lawrd, I hope so. I get tired worrying about how key moments of dialogue
and meaning are being screwed up here!

From: Abdulmonem Abbas
>>>>And I would like to ask Don this Q, if I want to be a comics artist,
what have I to study? And have I to be gifted or I can just learn by
practicing.

No one is "gifted" with a "talent". Everything comes from inspiration and
long, long, long practice. Assuming you think I do good comics, the reasons
I do so are because I watched a LOT of movies and TV and read a LOT of
comics when I was a kid, and I spent most of my spare time drawing comic
book stories for my own amusement. If I had ever taken the stuff seriously,
considered doing it for a living, I would have drawn even *more* and
studied it seriously as a profession, then I would certainly draw much
better than I do (I think my art is often "inspired" and effective, but not
technically very good).
Not infrequently people say to me "Gosh I wish I could draw!" And I ask why
they can't. And they say, "Oh, I don't have any talent! I tried drawing
when I was a kid, but it looked awful, so I quit." And I'll say, "I tried
drawing when I was a kid, and it looked awful, too. But I *didn't* quit. I
didn't care how it looked, it was still fun." And there's the difference. I
had, for whatever unknowable reasons, more interest and inspiration than
this other person did, so I just kept drawing until I slowly got better
after many, many years of piddling. And if I'd stuck with it even harder
and more seriously, I would have gotten lots better yet. And that's the way
it is with anything you do, draw, write, compose music, etc., etc.
I think when someone claims that people draw well because they are born
with "talent" is both an insult to the artist and the claimant -- it
suggests that the artist did not have to work a lifetime to become as
skilled as he is, and it suggests that the speaker was incapable of doing
just as good if he had really tried long enough.
So, if you think you'd like to be an artist, just practice. And if you want
to be a something more than a mere artist... a "cartoonist" (someone who
tells stories with drawings), watch lotsa old movies and read lotsa old
comics. (I say "old" because I don't think you can become a good
storyteller based on a background strictly of modern American movies, with
their utter disconcern with logic or pacing, or from modern American comics
with their lack of plots and characterisation and humor. Those are lost
arts.)