This and That

[deanmary]

    I am yet another person who thinks "Guardians of the Lost Library" is one of Don Rosa's BEST stories.  I love all the mystery and detective work done which pays off with a great ending.  Perhaps though I am biased as my girlfriend is a library director and I went to school to be a librarian! :)  So if Don thinks "A Letter from Home" is a "bad" story from him, I imagine that I will be delighted with it!

    This is kind of off topic, but I have two book suggestions for people who like "GotLL" and other Barks and Rosa classic adventure stories.  Both books are adventurous mysteries by Dan Brown and both feature Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon as the main character.  The first, "Angels and Demons" is out in paperback in the US and deals with the Illuminati and intrigue at the Vatican.  The second one, "The Da Vinci Code" came out in hardcover a few months back and is about the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail.  I think many people who like long Donald and Scrooge adventures/mysteries would like these books.

    As far as Gemstone succeeding, I think one important point is to get these comics into libraries.  For whatever reason, graphic novels aka trade paperbacks (TPB's) are currently one of the hottest topics in the library world in the US.  Not only are comic books no longer dismissed, but they are instead considered a serious art form.  Obviously few if any public libraries subscribe to regular "pamphlet" comics due to their flimsy format.  However collections of comic stories in the TPB format are becoming very popular.  The in between size of the upcoming "Donald Duck Adventures" series is better, but I think that Disney comics in the more traditional TPB format would be very popular in libraries and the best format for libraries

    I got my monthly Westfield Comics order form in the mail today and was happy to see what is upcoming from Gemstone.  Uncle Scrooge # 321 will include Don Rosa's "Attaaaack", and a Duck story by Geoffrey Blum based on some notes from Carl Barks.  WDC&S # 636 will include a William Van Horn Duck story, and Noel Van Horn Mickey story, and the second of three installments of Rosa's "Three Caballeros Ride Again".  The only possible negative thing that I saw was that Westfield listed each of these as 48 pages instead on the normal 64 pages.  I hope and imagine that this was just a mistake by Westfield and not a reduction in pages by Gemstone.  Perhaps you can clarify Gary?

    I am not really good at picking my favorite 3, 5, 10, etc. of things, so I won't bothering listing my ultimate Disney comic stories  Perhaps we can start another thread though about "Unlikely Favorites".  By that term I mean personal favorites that we love, but are not often mentioned as among the best or most famous of Disney stories.  I will start the ball rolling by bringing up Barks' long story "Big-Top Bedlam".  It was published as Four Color # 300 in 1950 and I believe most recently reprinted in the USA in Donald Duck #261 in 1988.  One of the things that make this one of my unlikely favorites is for what it is not.  Unlike most Barks' long stories, Donald and the boys don't travel far, meet strange natives, solve mysteries, etc.  In fact the entire 28 page story takes place in Duckburg!  The story revolves around Donald losing Daisy's heirloom brooch and what lengths he goes to retrieve it.  It sounds more like the plot of one of Barks' 10 pagers, but this "simple" story works just swell in this longer page count.  So while I love the exotic adventures that most of Barks long stories contain, this makes a nice change of pace.

    Since this story was published in 1950, you get to see Unca Carl's art at its finest.  Barks art is very fresh and inventive here with panels that are not just square shaped as most of his artwork was done.  Also, this is one of Barks' rare stories in which all of the non-Duck characters are totally drawn as human -- not even dog noses or white "Mickey" gloves.  So if you have not read this story for awhile, it is well worth a second look.

    I'd love to hear what are some unlikely favorites of other list members!

    Finally, a hearty welcome back to Katie Sullivan!  I always enjoyed your postings and have missed your presence on the mailing list.  When you last contributed I remember you mentioning that you were starting college, and now you are 23 and have a degree in Literature!  Boy, does time fly by!!!  By the way, did you get to use any of Barks' stories for literature term papers? :)


Dean Rekich
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