Ducks im Spiegel / Mona Duck in Rotterdam

[Nils Lid Hjort]

I've spent the last two months working in Australia and have not 
had time to throw more than occasional quick glances at the Disney 
comics digests. I apologise if the two matters I'm now pushing towards
your collective attention have already been notified & discussed. 

1. The high-profile German weekly magazine "Der Spiegel" has a good 
article in its April 22 issue about Duck comics as such and interestingly
also about the Duck reading culture in Germany. The D.O.N.A.L.D. 
(Deutsche Organisation nicht-kommerzieller Anh{\"a}nger des 
lauteren Donaldismus) is throughly discussed. Readers are also being 
told of Barks, Erika Fuchs the translator, the "An die Donaldistische
Freude" which is sung at all meetings, and so on. 
Check http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,73804,00.html . 
Try also the www.donald.org Heimat-Seite. 

2. According to various sources Donald Duck was born in June 1934, 
but the Dutch culture-philosopher Eckart Bauer holds that his
existence predates that of Homo Sapiens. We should not be surprised,
therefore, to find an art exhibition featuring "Mona Duck", early 
instances of `Anas Erectus', and a Mickey Mouse version of a van Gogh 
self-portrait, and much more, in beautiful `de Kunsthal' in Rotterdam. 
The title of the exhibition is `Overal is Duckstad' (`Dukcburg is 
everywhere'). It lasts until September 3. 

This Dutch exhibition is not quite new; previous versions have been 
held in Austria and elsewhere in Holland. About 30,000 visitors 
came to this exhibition when it was staged in het Museum van de Twintigste
Eeuw [Museum of the 20th Century] om Hoorn. 

Nils Lid Hjort