Dutch stories and ... [dull numbers omitted]

[Fluks, H.W.]

Simo:

H> Anyway, I think that currently
H> - the best Dutch stories are better than the best Egmont stories 
H> (not counting Mickey stories - And not counting Rosa stories);
H> - the average Dutch story is just as dull as the average 
H> Egmont story;
H> - the worst Dutch stories are better than the worst Egmont stories 
H> (easy to say, since Egmont is producing so much more).

> Uh, oh. There seems to be a quite general idea of that:
> 
> i) Stories coming from HOLLAND are GREAT, SUPERIOR BY THEIR 
> QUALITY and really quite like something what Carl Barks used 
> to do. (RIGHT?!)

WRONG. And you can't draw that conclusion from what I wrote above. I did not
say *anything* about the *quantity* of the Dutch stories. In a year's
production, *most* stories are "average" or "bad". That goes for Danish
stories too.
Stories coming from Holland are generally just as dull as stories coming
from Denmark. See my second point above.

> ii) Stories coming from DANMARK are DULL, BORING and totally 
> meaningless NONSENSE you don't need to account at all.

This sentence looks like meaningless NONSENSE to me. 8-)
How did you get the idea that this is "a quite general idea"?

> Some of the artists are not drwaing only 
> Dutch stories: Colomer has been one of the most productive 
> artists working to Egmont since 80's.

True. But in the particular case of Colomer, I think his work for the Dutch
(in the early 1980s) looked much better than his work for Denmark.

> Dutch are mainly concentrated to produce 
> short stories ("fillers") - Note that there are only some 
> 150 stories having 8-16 pages. That's not very high number 
> from a over ten year period.

Right. That's their policy: only produce the kind of stories that you can't
buy elsewhere. The "fillers" (IMO not a quite accurate term) are often
stories with main characters who are not used in other countries. These
shorter stories are meant for smaller children - which is a reason why they
are so short.

> In Dutch weekly 
> during last six years Vicar's dull Egmont stories have been 
> seen over three times than what have the most published 
> Dutchman's (Heymans) stories!

Right. And maybe that's why they become so dull: there are so many of them.
And they all look alike.
(I'm generalising here, of course. Several Vicar stories are good or very
good.)

> Since the Dutch stories are an average so short, it's not a
> miracle that Dutch editors are using Vicar's and Branca's 
> stories as weeklies first leading stories.

It's the other way around: because the Dutch editor can use the Vicar
stories (and sometimes Branca), they only need to produce short stories
themselves.

> - Dutch are not producing lot's of material for weeklies.

Right. 5 times as few as the Danes, 9 times as few as the Italians. But
still more than the French and the Germans.

> - Are the writers behind the quality of the Dutch stories?

That certainly is a part of it. I would say Straatman and Geradts are
usually average, Kruse and De Graaff are usually above average. Jonker is
average but sometimes very good. Heymans is usually good or very good, when
he writes himself.

BTW, in Holland, they usually let the Dutch artists choose which scripts
they like to draw. This means the best scripts are usually drawn by the best
artists (Mau Heymans, IMO). The rest goes to the Spanish studios (mainly
Comicup).

> - Is the quality of the Dutch stories so high after all?

As I wrote: the *best* Dutch stories are better than the *best* Danish
stories. But this doesn't say anything about how *many* good stories they
produce.

> - What would happen to the quality of the Dutch stories if they 
> would need to increase their production?

It would lower, undoubtedly. Usually, quality goes down when quantity goes
up.
(The Dutch production was at its top in 1977, when only a handfull of
stories was produced...)

> - If Jippes' Barks -remake stories were not counted would the 
> best Dutch stories be still better than the best Egmont stories?
> :

YES.
(In my previous mail, I didn't even think about these Barks/Jippes stories.)

> (In a long run) how would the popularity of the Northern Europe 
> weeklies go if they were compiled by using only "high-quality 
> comics from Holland" and Barks re-re-re-re-re-re-prints - and 
> they came out only once or twice per month? (quite like in the 
> USA in the 90's)

I don't see the relevance of this question. Were you seriously thinking that
I wanted to *stop* the Egmont production, for some odd reason?
BTW, Gladstone and Disney Comics in the USA also published a lot of Danish
(and some Italian) stories. And I'm not even talking about Rosa and Van Horn
here.

> It's also likely that nobody was boring enough to read this 
> message this far. >(

--Harry, a.k.a. Mister Boring.