Digest #231

[Gerstein, David DK - ECN]

	Hey Thierry,

>Does any member know if any of those Fethry and Ludwig von 
>Drake Italian stories are being published in Egmont countries 
>by the way? If this is the case, how do Egmont explain that 
>they want to ban the character in their Danish production, 
>but publish Italian stories with them? This looks like a very 
>odd attitude to me.

	We Egmonters "killed" Fethry from our Danish production in the early
1990s because the character had been misused too often - readers (and
editors) were used to him acting like a dumber twin of Donald rather than an
interesting character of his own. Not a very rewarding version of Fethry. He
stole the spotlight from Donald, was shallow in and of himself, and thus
acquired a bad reputation.
	The Italian Fethry stories were comparatively okay, though, so we
continued to publish *those* in our pocketbooks, because they were still
popular enough. Makes perfect sense, I hope :-)
	And...
	Very recently (this year) we've begun to feature an *occasional* new
Fethry story in  our own production, so he *is* returning to the weeklies
once in a while. But he's not the boring Fethry of our older stories - that
version remains dead!!! The "new" Egmont Fethry is the *real* Fethry created
by Dick Kinney in 1964.
	There have been two of the new Fethry stories this year, and
according to present plan, more will be coming in 2001.

	David Gerstein