DCML digest #480

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Tue Apr 17 14:38:04 CEST 2001


Søren Krarup Olesen wrote an excellent message that I quite agree with! But
I can't do much more than agree. I have always wondered why there is not
much discussion, or actually NO discussion, about the incredible array of
Italian artists who have been producing Duck (& mouse?) stories for
decades, and all of whom make me and others look like so much chopped
liver. But I can't contribute to such a discussion since I can't read any
of their stories and can't even come to a full appreciation of their art
without being able to do so -- that Italian art is too radically different
from anything we Americans have ever seen in a Disney comic, and it would
require reading the stories to come to a complete understanding of what the
artists are trying to do.
But then, why don't a pack of Italians get on here and discuss the stories?
My Euro-travel experience tells me that this *might* be because Italians
are generally not as comfortable with English as the Northern Europeans,
and since the "official language" of this site is English, they stay away
in droves. Our loss. (Especially *my* loss since Italy is my lost
homeland!) On the other hand, the Italian stories have appeared in the
North for decades in the digests -- don't those editions carry the artists'
and writers' names?
Still, no matter what amount of discussion there was about the Italian
artists, it wouldn't benefit us in America since we have never had any
exposure to those comics and probably never will (nor probably any other
Disney comics from now on). But it would still be nice to see more
discussion about them and all the other cartoonists. One of my philosophies
in life is that you should constantly endeavor to learn all you can about
what you like, and to *also* learn all that there is to learn *about*.

Olaf Solstrand also wrote an interesting message that I won't attempt to
quote from. But I will say that I am always quite pleased when someone says
they like my stories and the amount of extra work I put into them, and I am
very gratified if they decide that my stories seem to be their favorites --
I mean, of course this pleases me, how could it not? However, my purpose is
*not* to create stories that compel a reader to accept *my* stories and
*reject* all the others. I have always claimed that the strength in these
comics and the hope of the future of these comics is that they maintain a
variety of types of stories for a variety of types of readers, not in
trying to limit their readership to the lowest (or highest?) common
denominator. Hypothetically speaking, if all readers "accepted" only *my*
stories and no others, and since my stories appear only a few times a year,
these comics would be outta business in about 3 months, and readers would
no longer see my stories or *any* stories. The backbone of these comics is
the sort of variety that has been lost in American entertainment for about
30-40 years. If you reject all other writers' & artists' work
automatically, you're limiting your horizons and you're going to miss a lot
of great stuff (including work by actual *trained* cartoonists who actually
know what they're doing when they put pen to paper, and are not just doing
fanboy fanzine stories like I do for my niche of the readership). So, sure,
I hope you'll continue to enjoy my stories, but don't limit yourself... and
maybe that's not what you meant, anyway, so fine & dandy.





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