Don, Re: DCML Digest Issue 4

Søren Krarup Olesen raptus at stofanet.dk
Sat Aug 9 20:50:14 CEST 2003


DON:

> Good lord! I'm downloading e-mails while on a camping trip in Olympic
> National Park... and I belatedly catch this crack.What is this!?!??!
> What a foul lie!!!!!!!!

No reason to call our heavenly father, Don, and sorry for interferring in your
camping trip. Erm...*what* is a lie?! You did not write exactly as I wrote in my
previous mail, for the simple reason that I rarely quote anyone word-by-word (in
private mails).

> I challenge you to produce any message where I said any such thing or
> ever attempted to "promote myself" in the least way.

Nono, Don, I am not going to fall into that trap. Sorry! If you wish to quote
yourself, you might like to find the private e-mail you wrote to me on December
27th last year. And be sure to quote all the four slating lines that you wrote
to me.

Besides, and this is the difficult part perhaps. When I mentioned "promotion",
I wasn't talking about financial promotion, or in which way you may negociate
with the publishers, hence allow me to drop your "...in the past 15 years" lines
please...with all respect.

So, what is it then?! Your "promotion", Don, as I see it, is of a more ideological
nature. The mere idea of the ducks, and your apparent intrinsic displeasure of
non-ducks. During the many years of the existance of this mailing list you have
several times claimed that you are "innocent", you didn't enforce people to do
this or mean that, you just write the stories and stay neutral. Fine.

This might work for you on a public mailing list, where you always appear as
the helpful saint, who "had no influence" whatsoever. Now, fact it, that some
people here take your words very seriously, meaning that if you e.g. say that
Dumbo is a silly elephant (quoting from memory only), this might be next days'
truth to somebody. Your power is enourmous, Don, not necessarily towards the
publishers and all that, but you do actually influence a lot of (excuse me)
younger people, who might have liked the entire Disney comics universe to begin
with until you told them otherwise. Power is a delicate thingy, and you should
have learned how to handle it after those 15 years in business.

Listen, I am not exactly the right person to go and "protect" people from your
ideas. I only wish to have a serious debate about Disney comics in general.
However, your ideas are *not* general "Disney comics" ideas. Far from it. They
circle around historical facts and dates, which leaves me cold! They are mostly
full of humour, and that's why I keep reading your stuff, but apart from that...

So much for public announcements, where your are a nice fella. How come that
you then act as being back-in-the-school-yard, when addressing your critics in
private, and why is it, that I cannot show that without...

> You can get yourself sued in a very nasty way for this sort of reckless, sneaky
> and libelous activity!

...getting myself a law-suit on my neck? I may not have followed the etiquette,
but apparently you have by slapping me in private. Give it a break, Don...and a
thought too.

> And while we're at it, why do you suddenly address me directly in the
> midst of an argument that I was not even part of,

That (I agree) might have been a mistake, but it seemed appropriate at the time.
It sorta fell into my train of argumentation. How come, that you differ so much
in your public messages in comparison to your private messages?

> What happened? Did you just write that entire e-mail in a moment of
> INCREDIBLY poor judgment?!

Judgement of what? You? No, my judgement is solid rock, I might be wrong, but
it would take something truly significant to change my mind.

> Let's have a retraction of your statement and an apology.

Ah, the non-master and non-manipulator speaking?! In your dreams, Don!

Søren

P.S. And one of your old stories are printed next week in the Danish weekly
for the first time. Looking forward to it (seriously!) Not for critisizing but
for enjoyment. Aren't we all?


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