Disney-comics digest #381.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at compuserve.com
Tue Jul 12 06:06:10 CEST 1994


DAN VAN E.:
	Wow! Let me begin!

	I ink directly onto the page that I pencil, and I work in
half-page style due to the large size that Egmont wishes the originals
to be. Since I have never studied either art or anything about the
industry (since I never intended to be doing this for a living, and at
one point, never even intended to do it ever again even as a hobby), I
have NO idea what is "normal" or how anyone else does anything.

	I made a comment about editors down-sizing my balloons ONLY IN
THE GLADSTONE EDITIONS. I make the balloons extra large to receive all
those bizarre, long, drawn-out Scandanavian words, particularly Finnish.
In fact, they still gripe that I make the balloons too small for the
Scandanavians. But Gladstone doctors the photostats so well that even I
sometimes can't detect it, so there's no problems involved as far as I
can see.

	If anyone sends me fanmail to the publishers' offices, it is
never forwarded. They tell me my work is popular, so there's no reason
they'd be trying to "hide" the mail from me. They simply aren't set up
to forward mail to artists or writers, and I'm sure they really aren't
interested in getting into such a hassle. The only fanmail I get is an
occasional letter from Norway where a newspaper article once mentioned I
live in Louisville, Kentucky -- and I get some letters addressed "Don
Rosa the cartoonist in Louisville, Kentucky". The mailman looks my
address up in the phone book, I guess.

	I keep all my scrapped scripts. There is never any unpublished
art since I never draw a page until the script is approved, and anytime
the editor wants a panel redrawn, I simply erase the pencil and start
over. Inked art is always used since it was approved in the pencil
stage. There are MANY pages of stories in the "storyboard/script" stage
that we have rewritten or rearranged or scrapped completely, and I have
them all. Who knows what we might do with them someday. In Norway, they
say they wish to print scrapped portions of the "Lo$" when they get
around to collecting the series in an album or something.

	I know I get a kick out of giving exact details about certain
aspects of $crooge's life. But I resist nailing down other aspects. I
firmly believe the exact amount of money that he has is something that
should only be referred to in gags, and there has never been a story
that referred to his total worth in any way other than a gag amount.
Don't take that comment in "Magic Hourglass" seriously -- not only was
it just another gag comment, but virtually every aspect of that early
use of $crooge must be ignored. Any story which claims that $crooge owes
his fortune to the magic in an old hourglass should be eliminated from
the "canon". I regard that story as never having happened, as I do a
certain (small) number of other early and late Barks tales.

	As for my idea that the Bin holds primarilly only the money U$
earned himself, as I ALWAYS try to explain, no one is required to accept
my version of any of these things. However, how can you say that the Bin
contains ALL of $crooge's money? That makes no sense. That means he owns
NOTHING on earth except that Bin? He owns no banks or factories or farms
or NUTHIN? I know Barks used that idea in certain stories, but you can
easilly see how that was a necessary license to make the story work (it
wouldn't be much fun if we always knew that U$ knew that he always could
sell some property to raise money -- and surely all the land and
companies and factories he owns equals more than what's in that Bin. I
think my idea is the only one that explains WHY $crooge is so worried
about the money in the Bin, even though it's surely only a small part of
his worth. But, again, no one is required to agree with me.

	As for your irritation with the Disney Company, I think there's
one thing you MUST realize, now and forever, otherwise you'll never be
happy. Disney is NOT in business for the sake of "true fans" or lovers
of art or comic purists or even Barks fans (in fact, until less than 3
years ago, they hated the mention of Barks). Disney is in business to
make loads of money off the unwashed masses. The common man. The average
jerk. And the only recognition they are only recently giving to
"collectors" is to those with LOTS of money who are so addlebrained as
to invest in "phony collectibles" (seriographs, lithographs, figurines,
hack-work animation cels... all that stuff that is priced 1000 times
more than it's worth simply because it has a "perception of value" to a
certain number of wealthy collectible-louts. But even here, Disney's
interest is not in their appreciation of Disney history or "art", it's
in the $$$ they can get out of them. 

	No, I may be fascinated by Wilmer's ideas on Miss Penny Wise,
but I've looked at that story carefully, and I regard the comment about
her having something that can "ruin" $crooge as no more than a quick,
throw-away remark that was needed at one point of one story to make the
ending make sense. I just don't give it any thought. I ignore it as I
ignore the Magic Hourglass.

	Finally, I don't quite understand your question about the Lo$
Australian story. Why did I write it? Well, Barks said that $crooge was
involved in the Kalgoorlie gold rush, so I needed to do a story about
that, and was glad to do so since it was another interesting and
historically accurate part of $crooge's history. And I used the story as
a vehicle to explain $crooge's love of history and archeaology as an
avenue to wealth and adventure, as I tried to use each Lo$ chapter as
telling of how $crooge learned this or that lesson. Actually, I kinda
liked that story, though I've heard from one Egmont translator who
thought it was the weakest in the series. But I've already learned that
no matter what I do, some readers will think it's my best work ever,
others will think it's my worst, and everyone else will be everywhere in
between. I'm used to that, though I still value all the opinions I can
get. Except the Weasel's.




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