DCML digest #942

[Don Rosa]

Subject: Don Rosa: Escape from Forbidden Valley
From: Eta Beta <eega at supereva.it>
>>>>>>>DON
I recently read (at long last!) "Escape" in "Zio Paperone", and
enjoyed it very much.
I have a little curiosity about the gag with the giant moth on
top of a nephew's head, which reminds me of a rather similar
one in a 1936-37 episode of Mandrake the Magician
Is this just a coincidence, or one of your "hommages" ?

Just a coincidence. Living in America rather than Italy, I have never been
exposed to either old or new "Mandrake" newspaper strips. It has never been
in the local paper, I've never seen a collection of old strips (such as you
have in Italy), and the comic-book reprints of the strips in the 30's and
early-mid 40's are a bit early to be represented down in my "vault". There
was a single puzzling issue of FOUR COLOR in 1956 and a lackluster 10-issue
series of new (not newspaper reprint) stories in 1966-67, both of which I
have but neither of which ever caught my attention.
The only exposure I've ever had to the "golden age" Mandrake was the issue
of MAD comics I grew up with that had "Manduck the Magician" by Will Elder.
But yes, if *all* of my work is a constant homage to something, it is to the
work of both Carl Barks and Bill Elder. And now that you mention it, that
giant moth sitting stoically on Huey's (?) head like an owl and gazing into
the fire was surely, in the recesses of my brain, an Elder gag. (As opposed
to an elder god which comes from H.P.Lovecraft.)(And would have been an
eldritch gag.)
(And nice to see you in Torino... but you need to catch me sometime when I
am not "public property" so I'd have time to make my own schedule!)