Summer report 1

Anders Christian Sivebaek acsive at mail.mira.dk
Tue Jul 30 13:32:42 CEST 2002


Hi all

To whom it may interest here's the first of two reports of what I've
been doing this summer - on-topic-wise that is. 

Started out in the end of june by driving all the way to Vaucluse,
France (Near provence, Avignon and Mont Ventaux). In well time before I
had mailed with Francois and found  out about 3 second-hand-comic shops
in Avignon. 
On the way to Southern France we stopped at a number of gas station and
I found the Sonderheft and Pocketbook that i usually want for souvenirs
from this part of Europe. (I'm a subscirber to the weekly Micky Maus,
so i didn't need that). 
For the night we stopped in Mulhouse, just past the borderline - In a
mall there I found the new Picsou Mag, the new Journal de Mickey and an
extra copy of Picsou 349 with the Sharpie of Culebra Cut. - I'm sorry
to admit being some kind of vulgar donaldist as it was probably my own
fault when my scanner ate a corner of the cover of my first copy of the
issue. 
Further on we drove to the little village Mallemort du Comtat - I'm
convinced that we were the only, at least danish, tourists in town. The
owner of the 3 metres wide house (very long) we lived in was a very
nice elderly man who was kind to suplly us with spices, beans,
courgettes and figs. I got very friendly with his cat too, I allowed
myself to call him Oscar, which he didn't seem to mind. 
One of the first days we went to carpentras where we did pass a closed
second-hand-store. another one which we passed on the way to the car
was extremely interesting for me. It was called Shakespeare - the owner
was english and had a wide selection of english authors, including of
course a section with Shakespeare - so I bought the collected works of
Shakespeare for 8 euroes - in France!
Since then I've read both hamlet and Romeo and Juliet (spoiler ahead!)
and it didn't excactly make me happier than I already was to read that
they all die in those plays...

Why would I be a bit sad when I was on a nice trip to southern France
with 35 degreses celsius every day? Well, I guess I missed one certain
person back in Denmark - but I'll include that a bit later, as it
actually gets on-topic in a totally insane way...

Also in Carpentras we visited a bookstore where I saw the wide
selection of my favorite genre that the french publisher offer for the
children - Fantasy, including, Harry Potter, Philip Pullman, Tolkien,
C. S. Lewis, Diane Wynne-Jones and the like. 

The day came when we drove to Avignon - and I had top slap myself in
the face when remembering halfway there that I had forgotten my print
of Francois' mail with 3 adresses for good second-hand-shops in  the
city... but well, all settled after we had visited the castle of the
Avignon-pope - a very interesting place, that our french friends here
well be able to tell you more about the history behind. The tourist
information was able to tell me two of the shops I had to go to. so we
went there. The first place the owner did have some old Journal de
Mickey, but I was looking for Picsous, so I just looked at the wide
selection of other albums in the store, especially french ones. - The
next store could show some old Mickey pockets, among which I bought one
with the gold nugget boat-story by Barks - only old Picsous there. 
I had gotten a lot of my french back so I was able to ask the owner
about the 3rd store Francois had told me about. He knew where it was -
just in the neighbourhood, so we went there, and even found a 4th store
too. But none of these places I found the Picsous I had been looking
for - I saw the many french comics that I like, and of course had to
buy the first issue of Asterix (le Galois). 

I brought all my own Picsous with me and a comparisson doesn't do the
new issues good at all. What did you say happened with the old editor?
He was promoted or such? well, it shows! 
Picsou is reprinting the Lo$ - everytime with the same picture of
little Scrooge was 1877, everytime with awfull coloring (comapared to
colorings of the Coin, Attaaaaaack and Sharpie the coloring is trash...
sorry to say it) and some times with cuttings of the splash panel. 
And of course there's allways the french tradtion of pages about
movies, videogames and such things, which are only going to close the
comics at some point. 
Sad. 

A couple of days before my mother and I went on this trip I had started
to keep a diary of my dreams - what insane things happen in them is
strange. The craziest one I had on the last night before we were
leaving Southern France - When I woke up I had to yell no, as it was
all too unlikely. But it hadn't been in the dream. I had only been
confused that a girl I see as my best friend, and another were in the
newest Donald Duck pocket book (humans, on pictures in a pocket
book??), as they hadn't told me about it, knowing that i would have
liked to know... 
Thinking about it, it would never be possible, but it just shows what
my brain was thinking of - donald duck - and her... 

That's all I have to tell about the trip to France - Next time i would
like to meet with some of you list members - I just got the idea that
none of you live quite near Vaucluse and France is BIG. 

Yours sincerely
A. C. Sivebaek
acsive at mail.mira.dk




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