DCML, Luck,Favourite Comics

[Rob Klein]

I agree with Don and the others who are disappointed in the recent "conditions" 
on DCML. I am confident our problems will pass.  There have always been 
periodic lulls in the amount of new, interesting posts.  I am also confident 
that the "I meant-YOU meant" posting style defending squabbling and "chit chat" 
will stop.  As far as the OT forum/list,...My opinion is that it is a great 
success. My idea for it was: to have a place where interested DCML members 
could take OT threads over to another place and CONTINUE them, without straying 
too far away from the DCML original topic.  It is ONLY when such topics get TOO 
FAR away, that we do it. My purpose was NOT to have a lot of chit chat activity 
ALL THE TIME, or to have a high volume of posts. Nor was it to have all 
the "objectionable postings" from DCML move to "DCML-Talk".  WE DON'T WANT "I 
SAID...YOU SAID" DISCUSSIONS OR ACCUSATION POSTS COMING TO US, EITHER!

Cord has set up the perfect forum/list for us. Most of our activity has been 
testing our system. We've had only a few threads, because only a few topics on 
DCML were worthy of OT discussion which had the potential for straying far 
enough from the Disney Comics topic to yet be interesting to our members.  THAT 
is the ONLY use I envisioned. If we have a month between interesting topics,-SO 
BE IT!  The important fact is that we have a place to go if, and when we need 
it.

Regarding Gladstone's Luck:  I think that the odds against the random coming 
together of the torn map in a close enough agglomeration to be read with ease 
(Hondorica) are astoundingly high. But, I also think that the odds of many of 
the "coincidental events" that did happen to Gladstone that cannot in ANY way 
be quantified, have also astronomically high odds against them. there is no 
real way to compare their possibilities of occurence. They all require 
differing assumptions as to the realms of possibilities and potentially inter-
related events (e.g. the "removing one grain of sand effect").

Regarding the 3 Disney "Comics-related" "self-contained publication issue" that 
I would keep if fate would take away all others from me (which I could NOT 
replace):  

I would keep Volumes I, II, and III of Carl Barks Library (All the Donald Duck 
one-shots) and(US #1-20), if those "single hard bound books could be counted as 
ONE ISSUE.  If the three had to be "individual comic books", I would be in 
trouble, as they are from the 1940s and very early 1950s-and will crumble to 
dust within the next 10-15 years or so. Picking my favourite 3 stories would be 
almost impossible-as I have hundreds (just among Barks, Gottfredson, Jippes, 
and Scarpa, alone). At gunpoint I would keep (1)Barks' US "Lost in the Andes", 
(2)Gottfredson's "Mickey Mouse Meets the Phantom Blot" as reprinted in 1955 
Mickey Mouse Parade US release (I forget exact title of book), and (3)Freddy 
Milton's epic Donald Duck story "De Grote Niezer" as printed in Dutch Disney's 
1980 Groot Vacantieboek.  

What I would keep as long as possible, as there is NO way to replace it with a 
low cost re-print, is my mint (new) original 1949 Donald Duck March of 
Comics "Race to the South Seas" (by Barks). Unfortunately (as I understand it) 
the original art, and all photostats of the art have been destroyed or lost).  
ALL reprints of the story (including CBL) are NOT the original art of Barks, 
but have been re-inked by Dutch artists Dick Vlotes (spelling error?) and Daan 
Jippes. Jippes' pages are passable, but many of the Vlotes pages are horrible 
distortions of Barks' lines (to my taste). That ruins the enjoyment of the 
story for me. Also unfortunately, its newsprint pages will eventually turn to 
yellow-brown, and crumble. I sincerely hope that SOMEONE will allow their copy 
of that issue to be scanned, so that it's pixeled colour can be removed, and 
Barks ink lines can be preserved and later reprinted for posterity. I cannot be 
the generous one to risk my books value by bending it in a scanner, as I will 
need to get every bit of value out of its sale (as I will need that money to 
supplement my old age pension). I hope someone with a poor-condition copy (but 
with the degredation not effecting how the panels would scan) will allow 
his/hers to be scanned-so Barks' original lines can be scanned and saved. 

There is no comic or related item that I would never sell.  Unfortunately, I 
will likely have to sell ALL of my items that are worth anything, just to eat 
or have a roof over my head when I am very old.

Rob Klein
 

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