DCML digest #551

[Don Rosa]

From: Kriton Kyrimis <kyrimis at cti.gr>
>>>DON:
>>>In this story, when Scrooge hears that workers in the Panama canal may
earn up to 30 cents an hour, he exclaims that he is never going to pay
anyone such princely wages, especially a relative!
I had asked this before, but nobody seemed to know at that time: how
much was 30 cents an hour when Barks was writing his stories? Was it a
princely sum, minimum wages, or less than minimum wages?

In the 1950's, 30 cents per hour was a very LOW pay rate... but it was not
so low as to be unheard of! It was a *possible* pay rate for menial labor,
as opposed to today when nobody would work for less than about $4-5 for
even the easiest job regardless of their situation.

>>>>(And was this
amount a princely sum when the Panama canal was being dug?)

In 1906, yes, it was a princely sum! It was such a good pay rate that it
lured able-bodied Americans to the yellow-fever swamps of Panama for a
chance to be paid so well! And only the white Americans were paid this
much... black Americans and Panamanian workers earned less than 30 cents
per hour. It's when my research revealed that the pay was 30 cents per hour
that I knew I'd have to mention the fact in my story, though as always I
would imagine readers figured I was making it all up rather than basing
everything on fact.
(The only glaring inaccuracy I recall putting into that tale was that my
Bucyrus Steam Shovel was running around on tank treads. They were actually
moved on train cars. Tank treads were not invented until the necessity of
the Great War to End All Wars, still 10 years off.)

From: "Anders Christian Sivebaek" <acsive at mail.mira.dk>
>>>The german readers on www.comicforum.de btw are very frustrated they
wont see these blueprints.

Well, maybe they'll see them when that story is reprinted in the German
"Rosa Album" series.

Speaking a bit more on the blueprints, I've now seen all three of the "Big
Three" weekly versions of it, all of the versions that Dan Shane created on
his computer here in Louisville and which were printed directly from his
computer file into the Egmont comics. And each printing is different. All
are rather nice, but they're still different.
The Swedish version looks good, but the blue is a light turquoise. Still,
no problem.
The Danish is interesting in that each page is printed on a different
printing press! The two blueprint pages happened to fall on the break line
of the halves of ANDERS AND which are printed by vastly different printing
processes. Part of the Danish weekly, the core, is printed on an ancient
rotogravure press that has been part of Egmont (Gutenburghus) for a few
thousand years, and which they want to keep busy for tradition (printing
being the original function of the now vast Egmont company). But since that
printer is too small to handle the whole job, the rest of ANDERS AND is
printed by modern methods on slicker, better paper. Therefore the second
page of the blueprints look okay, not bad, just slightly out-of-focus...
but the *first* page is gorgeous! Crystal clear and razor sharp! Also, if
you look very closely, it seems that Denmark changed one thing in Dan's
title block -- they decided to use a different name than we had for the
architect. They did not have Dan's architectural font so they used a
calligraphy font. But it looks okay, as if the egotistical architect added
his own name in fancy handwriting.
Now the Norwegian version is quite clear and sharp... but their color blue
is so dark that the furniture and other fine-lined portions of the plans
are almost invisible. But not quite, it still looks good. The oddity in the
Norwegian version is the changes/omissions to the rest of the story. On the
first page the little cake-topper candy hangman's gallows on the top of
Grandpa's cake are missing. Also in that panel there is a scroll below the
circle that the Money Bin is in which is supposed to say "CREATED BY CARL
BARKS" to show that this story is part of the Barks series tribute and that
the Bin is the subject of this story (along with Barks' Beagles). But in
Norway that circle says "written and drawn by Don Rosa". That's certainly
flattering, but it almost gives me equal billing with Barks in his own
tribute series, which isn't proper. And it also leaves no explanation for
why I would draw that odd circle around the Money Bin in that panel. I hope
readers don't assume I gave myself that high billing.... do you think they
would?
Finally, in the panel where the Beagles emerge from the well in the
basement of the Bin, and they are supposed to be looking at a wall where a
disgruntled workman has scrawled nasty graffiti about Mr. McDuck, this
being how the Beagles know they are in the Bin. But in the Norwegian
version there is no graffiti! The wall is blank! How do they know where
they are?
Anyway, I am prouder of these Bin blueprints and Dan's work on them than of
anything else I've done since the "Lo$" series. This was great fun!