DCML Digest Issue 24

[Don Rosa]

> From: Mads Jensen <madsj at raptus.dk>
> Subject: Rosa stories ?
> I just finished reading a Geoffrey Blum in the Danish fanzine "Carl
> Barks & Co." #19, I noticed that there's a Rosa story which Byron
> Ericson rejected, but then Bob Foster accepted it at some point. The
> story is called "The Money Whirl Pool" (according to Blum), and I'd like
> to know if anyone knows what became of that story ?

The story wasn't titled "Money Whirlpool". It was "The Money Pit". As you
probably know, that was in the first issue of Disney's DONALD DUCK
ADVENTURES -- I submitted only that single story to them as a symbol of good
faith that I would work for them if they changed some of their various
archaic policies... then I continued to work for Egmont (Gutenburghus, in
those days).

> Furthermore Blum mentions "Ghast Gow" as the first thing he ever saw by
> Rosa, but the interview doesn't mention it any further. But according to
> Blum, the reason why it was rejected was that it was built too much over
> an old classic (which could only be by Barks, in this contents, I
> believe ? :-))

I could decipher what that first misinformation involved, but this seems to
have no bearing on any facts that I know of. Are you sure you're translating
this correctly? "Ghast Gow" seems to not be translated back from whatever
language that fanzine is written in... it is totally unrecognizable to me,
but it doesn't look like it could mean "The Son of the Sun" which is the
first Duck story I ever did and the first story of mine that Blum ever saw.
That story, of course, was not rejected, and Blum never saw it until it was
completed, art and all, at which point he wrote me a long letter saying it
was the best $crooge adventure since Barks retired. Aside from "The Money
Pit", there were no stories that I ever did for Gladstone that were
rejected. Oh, wait -- there was a short story that I wrote (never drew)
about the opening of the new Disney/MGM Studio Park that was rejected by
Disney for bizarre reasons that were never explained... perhaps they simply
didn't want their Parks promoted inside comic books which they didn't have
enough control over... I'll never know the reason. And I'm not even sure if
I was to do it for the Gladstone issues or something else that Hamilton
planned to interest Disney in.
Blum is a first-rate Barks scholar, but this would not be the first time he
has reported incorrect information about my stories without checking the
accuracy of his facts or of ideas he's gotten into his head from unknown (to
me) sources. That's why I had to hand-correct those errors in the Blum
article on my work in the Gladstone "Life of $crooge" book so that I could
allow myself to still autograph the entire print run which I didn't want
Gladstone to hafta eat. If you are reporting the article in the fanzine you
mention accurately, Blum must have been wildly misquoted! Otherwise he's
made up some pretty exotic information in that interview. Or maybe "Ghast
Gow" was a story somebody else did?