Rosa Archives and Donald's Dog

[RMorris306@aol.com]

    It's great to hear about the Don Rosa Archives! As far as I know, there 
were five Pertwillaby Papers serials: two done for Rosa's college newspaper 
(the first reprinted in COLLECTOR'S DREAM, the second in ROCKET'S 
BLAST/COMICOLLECTOR) and three more original ones serialized in RBCC (the 
last incomplete). A collection of all five, particularly including a 
concluding chapter to the last ("Knighttime") would be wonderful! I've got 
the three collections of CAPTAIN KENTUCKY (which I bought from Don himself at 
a con), but a collection of that would be excellent too, though in 
Europe...even more than in America...there'd probably have to be footnotes to 
explain the local references. (How many Europeans, or even Americans outside 
Kentucky, would know who Barry Bingham, Jr. or J. Fred Frogg were?)

    Aside from those two strips (and of course his Disney stories) the only 
Rosa work I know of was "Information Center," a column devoted to comics 
questions and answers originally done for RBCC and then for other fanzines i
ncluding COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE, THE COMIC READER, and AMAZING HEROES. They'd 
definitely be worth reprinting, especially the early ones which contain Rosa 
cartoons, although the later ones used a lot fewer of them.

    Donald's dog may have been called "Fido" in some countries, but in 
America he was "Bolivar," at least originally. He was a big St. Bernard who 
originally appeared in the DONALD DUCK newspaper strip (supposedly modeled on 
artist Al Taliaferro's own dog), and brought into the comic books by Carl 
Barks. In later years his name became "Bornworthy," supposedly because some 
South American licensees considered it demeaning to give the name of one of 
the greatest heroes of their continent to a dog...though, again, why they 
didn't simply change the dog's name themselves (as, judging from "Fido," 
other countries did), I don't know. Aside from Bolivar, the only dog I know 
of who regularly appeared in the Duck stories was the bloodhound General 
Snozzle, the "Official Hound" of Huey, Dewey and Louie's troop of Junior 
Woodchucks. (And a few Donald Duck cartoons teamed him up with Disney's most 
famous bloodhound of all, Pluto...but he was and is generally considered to 
be Mickey's dog, not Donald's.)


Rich