17th of May/June 2005

[Lars Jensen]

Sigvald Grøsfjeld jr. wrote:

> In case you haven't noticed there are several events that could be
> tied together in such a story:
>
> June 5th - Denmark's national day
>
> June 6th - Svenske flaggans dag = Sweden's national day
>
> June 7th - Norway's independence day
>
> June 9th - Donald's birthday (shown in many stories like "The Duck who
> Never Was".

Let's get back to your initial suggestion, Sigvald: That Don Rosa make a
story devoted to the celebration of May 17. Egmont publishes its stories
all over the world. Why would they produce a story that most of their
readers would be totally uninterested in? Would a Chinese or a Bulgarian
reader be interested in a Norwegian-only event?

Another thing that bothers me is this: Essentially you're suggesting
that the publishers tell Don Rosa to do a specific story, and make it a
chapter of Lo$, because it would please a certain target group (in this
case, Norwegians). As we all know, Carl Barks was on a few occasions
told by Western Publishing to do specific stories a certain way ("Trick
or Treat", "Back to the Klondike"), and I have seen more than a few
Barks-fans rant against the utter gall of that publisher. "How *dare*
Western tell Barks what to do?!" they say. Well, your suggestion - that
Egmont should tell Don Rosa to devote a chapter of his defining series
to being nothing more than a promo for Norway - is basically the same
thing.

Returning to the "Will readers be interested" theme, I'll quote Dan
Rosenberg:

> If an Lo$ chapter were to be written involving a young Scrooge
> visiting Norway during one of their national holiday celebrations, it
> may work, but to write a story based entirely on this event may sound
> rather boring to the rest of us. This may be a story more
> appropriately done by a Norwegian writer and artist. Besides, no one
> has bothered to ask Don if he would be willing to create such a story.
> And what of all the other countries in the world who have national
> holidays? Won' they feel left out? If Don were to be fair he'd spend
> the rest of his careeer trying to appeal to every reader's sense of
> nationality. I think he might feel he has better things to do.

I don't see Dan clamoring for my "50th anniversary of the current
version of the Danish constitution" idea to become reality, either. In
my opinion, basing stories entirely on celebrating relatively unknown
local events simply isn't interesting enough to a sufficiently large
group of people.

Sigvald, you also wrote:

> You seem to forget that Don Rosa did a great story about the Finnish
> Kalevala epic. A few years ago some people probably said "...the rest
> of the world don't care that much about Finland's national epic..."

But that's different. The Italians have made lots of adaptations of
books such as "Les Miserables", featuring Ducks in the lead roles.
Disney Animation has adapted several Hans Christian Andersen stories,
such as "The Little Mermaid". Most people can relate to those stories
easily. Your original suggestion, create a story whose reason for
existing is to celebrate something most people can't relate to, is in my
opinion flawed. The idea of having the Ducks interact with a specific,
but relatable, element - as Don did with the Kalevala story - is
perfectly OK with me. I did that myself recently, as seen in Donald
Pocket 268 where I tied the Ducks into a relatable and easily understood
German folktale.

And Timo Ronkainen's idea - to have the Ducks tour the whole of
Scandinavia - is perfectly fine, too, in my opinion. Already the target
readership has been expanded from Norway-only to the whole of
Scandinavia - although the independence day business still may be
uninteresting to non-Scandinavian readers. Why not just do an ordinary
event-free non-Lo$ story about Donald & co having an adventure in
Scandinavia?

Lars