digest #345

[Don Rosa]

From: "Janne Heino"
>>>I have a question about the story "Back in Time for a Dime", written by
Don Rosa.
Where has this story been published??
Don: Could you tell some backgrounds? For example why didn't you draw the
story yourself ??

This came about when I had just been forced to quit working for Gladstone
due to Disney's order to them that they no longer return my artwork. So,
having already liquidated my construction company, I was effectively
unemployed. (This was about a year before I found out that Egmont wanted to
hire me, something I never even suspected was a possibility.)
I was contacted by the publisher of the "Ducktales" kiddie magazine, a
magazine for very young children with puzzles and games and stuff, which
had one short comic story in each issue. I didn't want to do a Ducktales
story, but their fee for writing the thing was too tempting to pass up and
I needed work. I would not have drawn it myself under their Disney-imposed
policies, but they already had the Diaz Studio doing their art, so they
never asked.
Anyway, I wrote the story and it appeared in an issue of that magazine...
the "INDUCKS" surely lists the issue. When it was printed there was a
bonehead change in my dialogue, something about where my line was "There's
a tremor running through the house", "No, that's only a mouse" -- changed
inexplicably to "There's a tremor in the house", "Is a mouse shaking it?"
This is what makes writers' hair fall out. Then I had a beastly time
getting the publisher to pay me. I did not want another job with them, and
they never asked me, apparently not wanting to deal with someone who wanted
to be paid for work.