DCML digest #872

[Don Rosa]

Um... I sent part of this message a few days ago, but it never showed up in
the Digest. Sorry if this gets duplicated somewhere...

From: Goofy313g at aol.com (Gilles)
>>>>If Donald Duck has built his 313 alone with spare parts, why does the
car
have a name? (Belchfire Runabout).

Where do you get that name? From one of those Barks oil paintings done in
the 90's? I got the names and parts I used in my story (you seem to refer
to) from a 1940's Barks story. As I've said before, I disregard any new info
that appeared in those oil paintings.

>>>>And why, in the story "The Duck Who never was", does the car exist when
Donald doesn't?

Even though the real "313" was built of spare parts, the body would have
come from one model, so there could be a car that externally resembles the
"313" without Donald's involvement. But anyway, remember that story was a
dream Donald had. Maybe.

>>>>About Grandma's Detroit Electric car:
It seems that there are two distinct cars: one is more square than the
other...

Since that car isn't a Barks invention, I never noticed. I'd attribute that
to two distinct artists, one is more square than the other.

>>>There is another problem: why is the number of the car sometimes 1902,
sometimes 1890 ? ? ?

Those "numbers" are the years that the artist is implying that the
Studebaker Electric was built, but they seem a bit early-ish, especially
"1890"! I rather doubt that any artist really checked to see if they had the
years or designs correct. And they shouldn't -- who wants a realistically
drawn car in such a story?

>>>>A question which has nothing to do with the preceding questions: do you
still
have contacts with Marc Worden?

Not for a few years.

>>> Does he draw Disney comic stories?       If
no, what was/is the link between him and Disney Comics universe?

He had the highest of all callings... he was just a fan. Like I was when I
knew him.

>>>>Did you know that Gus's relatives in his tree were characters from barks
stories before I told about this in my site?

Sure.
(Are these questions you want to appear in the DCML or would you rather just
do this by private e-mail?)

>>>What do you think about Barks' "The Hero of the Dike" story?
Would you ever write a sequel to this story, or do you consider this has
never appeared?

I never thought about it much... that story is not from my "preferred"
period of vintage Barks. But yeah, I would have some trouble explaining
(even to myself) why Duckburg is suddenly below sea level. In what way does
it need a sequel?  One of your favorite stories?

>>>>Why in your story coded D 91071 (I think I remember the title is
something
like "the Island at the edge of time"), why doesn't scrooge live in the Bin?

Maybe he sometimes stays in a (cheap!) apartment he keeps in town? Maybe he
was out cattin' around?
When I suggested the Bin blueprints to Byron, he said that perhaps some
people thought that U$ did NOT live in the Bin, so I said we can use as the
"official" version that he has living quarters in the Bin and also a
(cheap!!!) apartment in town for various reasons. Like for business or
cattin' around.

>>>Why didn't you use in the Lo$ the panels in Barks' WUS 49 (I think it is
"the
lunar gold rush) in which we can see scrooge at the klondike and scrooge in
the transvaal with a argus McSwine lookalike character?

Because these seemed to be clearly implied (both in the setting in which
they were being told and in what was happening) to be tall tales that U$ was
spouting to the kiddies. But I decided to still use it in the same fashion
so that no one could say I left anything out of my "Lo$"... in case your
translator omited it, U$ is supposed to be telling this same tall-tale to
Teddy Roosevelt at the end of chapter 10.

>>>Will Panchito and Jose appear in some of your stories?

Where are you? In France? They used my "The Three Caballeros Ride Again!" in
PICSOU... I have the issue. They've used that story everywhere. You missed
it?

From: Geo <geodiaz_79 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Whitman and Gold Key logo's on 70's comics, cover differences
>>>>I discovered something odd.  I was always aware that the 70's issues of
all Disney comics appeared with either the Gold Key or the Whitman logos,
but I found that the cover colors are different on the few that I have both
versions of.

To recap, there was a time when Western was releasing two versions of every
comic it produced... one was the Gold Key version for newsstands, and the
other had their "Whitman" logo (the logo they use on toy-store stuff) for
the packs sold in toy stores. For some reason only the Gold Key versions had
the numbers on the covers, though the Whitmans gained the numbers after Gold
Key ceased and there were *only* Whitman versions. Since this would require
changing the cover lay-out, even that tiny bit, the two versions would
naturally be printed at different times, either days apart or just hours.
And even if they *tried* to use the same ink colors, the intensity would be
different as ink resevoirs in the presses ran low and needed refilling. The
colors you describe, dark blue or purple, are colors that are often
different on comics of the same issue. I upgraded an old JIMMY OLSEN issue
from 1956 just last week, and I noticed that on one the logo was pure blue
and on the other it was royal purple. Also, I always keep my eye open for
copies of my own first story in U$ #219 because the inks ran low during
printing and the canes turned from a normal brown to a weird chartreuse! The
yellow-green canes were printed on the direct-sales copies which are the
ones that are mostly in the hands of collectors in America, and the proper
ink color ran low even before the newsstand copies had all been printed. So,
copies of #219 with normal brown canes in the hands of $crooge and Glomgold
are quite hard to find. I've signed hundreds of copies of that issue, and I
think I've seen less than 10 with brown canes.
Anyway, long story short, ink color fluctuations on comic covers is not
unusual....