Out with the New, in with the Old

Daniel J. Neyer jerryblake2 at juno.com
Fri May 14 02:12:50 CEST 2004


When Joe Torcivia says he'd like to see all-new stories, he's speaking
from his own viewpoint--that of a great collector who has pretty much all
the Disney stuff worth reading. However, many of us (myself included)
were too young to see the good stuff when it was first printed and too
poor to buy out of print stuff. So, I'd like to see at least 50% reprints
in the Gemstone works--and new stuff should also be chosen more
carefully. Sonia Dyer says there's nothing wrong with publishing "both
genres" of Mickey stories--fantasy stories and detective stories--but
Gemstone has not been doing that. With the exception of Byron Erickson's
Mickey tales and Noel Van Horn's terrible Phantom Blot one (which
violated Mouse history unforgivably by making Mickey an idiot and having
Minnie save the day), all the Mickey "adventure" stories published by
Gemstone have utilized ghosts, dragons, wizards, Greek myths, or other
supernatural phenomena for story devices. I can just imagine the uproar
if Gemstone started doing this with Duck stories on a regular
basis--people would claim that their intelligence was being insulted,
etc. I get the feeling that editors--and many readers--say to themselves:
"Who cares if these stories are utterly unbelievable? They're just Mickey
stories, and Mickey is just for kids." Well, I beg to differ. I, at
least, enjoy Mickey's adventures even more than those of the Ducks, and
it's an insult to the immortal Mouse that stories like "For Art's Sake"
are allowed to represent him. Gladstone did the same thing in their
second run by printing only the Jaime Diaz "Goofy in History" yarns and
the "Mickey and the Sleuth" stories in MICKEY AND DONALD. Why does it
seem so hard to run stories featuring the two-fisted, good-natured,
childlike, and resourceful MICKEY MOUSE?

(By the way, Gary, feel free to print this comment in a Gemstone letter
column if you want--this and any of my previous "complaints and
comments."

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