+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #198.

[Don Rosa]

TRYG:

	You were surprised that Disney gave artist credits. If not for
Bruce Hamilton, they never would have. When Hamilton was originally
bargaining to get the license in 1986, he gave in to many of Disney's
archaic attitudes, but one thing he INSISTED on in spite of Disney's
refusals was that writer and artist credits would be given. When Disney
took over, they couldn't very well stop giving art credits without
looking very, very bad -- however they weren't as honest about it as
Gladstone was and is again: when Gladstone uses foreign stories, they
credit the country and publisher... when Disney gave foreign credits for
the reprints, they would imply that it was all new material being done
just for Disney Comics. 
	On the other hand, when they got back in contact with me in 1992
and wanted to finally agree to return my art so that I'd do some covers
for them, one of the other things that I required that they agree to is
that they were contractually obligated to give me full credit, in print,
in the issue, for any work I did. Therefore, though it should never have
been so, in one swell foop that made me the first human being to ever
get artwork officially returned from Disney or get obligatory credits
in a Disney licensed or owned comic book. They wanted to put my name on
the cover of the issue that reprinted "Return to Xanadu", but I said
that I would decline having my name on a cover before Barks had his name
on a cover. I think Barks and I shared that honor of being the first
people to get cover credits on a Disney comic on UNCLE $CROOGE #275,
when I wasn't looking (unless I'm mistaken).
	Without my knowledge, I found out that I received the first-ever
cover credit on a Danish Disney comic when they recently printed that
"Guardians of the Lost Library" story, and it was so surprising to the
Danes that there was an article about the event in the paper there.
	When I went to work for Egmont in 1990, they soon thereafter
started printing full credits in all the European Egmont countries (I'm
not sure if my presence had anything to do with it -- it was never
something I asked them for), but Disney soon demanded they stop due (so
I hear) to European laws that say that if a writer or artist gets
printed credits he then gains some form of ownership in his own creation
(an idea intolerable to Disney!).

GEIR:
	What is a DETROIT Electric? Was "Detroit" the name of a company
(I assume, in Detroit)? I always vaguely recall the sound of "Studebaker
Electric", even though I know Studebaker manufactured gas cars,
normally.
	But please excuse the artists who gave the Electric exhaust
fumes. I just used the Electric in my "Donald Duck 60th Birthday" story,
and quickly found that there's no other way to show that the Electric is
moving unless there's a little puff behind it, since it moves far too
slow to show motion lines. I can claim that it's a dust cloud? Also, the
only sound a creaky old car can make is "chug chug"; to use an electric
hum would be very distracting to readers and confusing to the 99% of
them who have no idea that's an electric car.

	And to the folks discussing Gladstones and Marvels and newsstand
distribution: there was never anything "wrong" with the American
magazine distribution system except that the local distributors (a
business purportedly controlled by the underworld) didn't do their job
when they didn't feel like it. Large companies would send agents around
the country to make sure the local distributors were placing their
magazines on the stands properly, as they were PAID to do. But tiny
companies like comic book publishers couldn't do this, so many
distributors didn't bother to distribute the very LOW profit items. Here
in Louisville, I know for a fact that in the 70s the local distributor
would let the comics sit in bundles in the warehouse for a few months
then open the bundles, tear off the covers, send in the covers for their
FULL REFUND, then dump the comics.
	Gladstone comics now are NOT distributed to newsstands -- only
comic shops. The "Marvel Gladstones" are the ones which are supposed to
be distributed to newsstands. But since the Disneys don't sell or
because they are not perceived as being part of the American comic hobby
since they aren't super-heroes (as we've said), I have never seen any
Marvel-Gladstones on the newsstands with the Marvels. They probably toss
them on the floor in the back room to make sure there's room for all
those REAL comics. And then I go to Europe where the FIRST thing you see
in any newsstand you walk into is the rack of Disney comics. What a
weird country we live in.