Black people in Disney comics

[M.J. Prior]

Harry Fluks:

> The pig mayor is the most common one.

I knew it! There was some point to my question.

Kriton Kyrimis:

> making a couple of the dwarfs black, (...) Gladstone had done 
> this for some of the background characters in their comics, even 
> though Barks had drawn his stories for a market that pretended 
> that black people did not exist.

So black people ARE allowed in Disney comics! 
In Voodoo Hoodoo, first page, there *was* a black man cleaning 
the street, but later this man was replaced by a white man on a 
tricycle-or-something. Maybe Disney had the black man replaced 
by this man Bop-Bop because Donald adresses him as 'an expert 
on ghost stuff', which they probably considered insulting to black 
men cleaning the streets, but, of course, not to white men on small 
tricycles.

Question: Has only the artwork been changed, or did they change 
the text as well? (Maybe the black man had also been named Bop-
Bop.)

- Hi, Bop, Bop! You're an expert on ghost stuff! What is a ZOMBIE?
- A-a man that wouldn't stay dead, Donald!
- Did you ever see one?
- Nossir! An' if I ever do, it'll be just a SHORT glance!

The version with Bop-Bop on the tricycle can be found at:
http://kits-silver-age-comics.com/voodoo/1.htm

There are lots of Duck-stories to be found on the internet. 
Doesn't Disney care about this? Can everybody just scan his 
favourite comics an publish them on the internet, where everybody 
else can read it, without Disney making money out of people 
reading those comics?

Back to Voodoo Hoodoo. The version printed in the Netherlands 
still has the black streetcleaner. Donald adresses him as Siebe, 
which is the name of a (black) character in Daan Jippes' only non-
Disney comic 'Twee voor thee'. (Two for tea.) I think that's funny. 

In Don Rosa's 'Terror of the Transvaal', there are lots and lots of 
white people to be found in *South Africa*, but only four black 
people, in one single panel on the last page, and from a long 
distance, so if you didn't care to look more closely, you wouldn't 
even have noticed! 

Is this because black people *aren't* allowed in Disney comics, 
after all?

I do realise this is a tricky subject, and I want to make sure that I 
don't want to insult anyone by bringing it forward.

Michiel Prior.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Froze my fingers to the bone digging nuggets out of the creeks! 
And I brought a fortune OUT, instead of spending it in the honkeytonks!