Disney-comics digest #769.

[Don Rosa]

HARRY:
        The cover for "Lo$" chapter X: when it came time to do a cover, I
couldn't help but be honest with Gladstone and tell them that there already
was a cover that I liked which they could use. I knew this would knock me
out of an extra income in doing a new cover, not to mention the future extra
bucks when we are finally allowed to sell our art... but to not tell them
that they could have something for free just woulda' been kinda weasely. I
did the same for the next cover, and even the same, in reverse, for one of
the next German "Don Rosa Library" albums (and they pay even more). As
always, it's not a fair system that allows two publishers to freely use
someone's work, but that's the system these publishers are in, and even if I
don't agree with the morality of that system, I'm not going to lie to those
publishers about their options, even at my own expense.
        That chater X cover was slightly redrawn. I redid the Beagle Boy's
upper lip because I decided that it looked wrong, and I think I touched up
one or two other spots (FREE to Gladstone... just to improve my own work...
same way I did those new panels for that "Guardians of the Lost Library"
story). But when they told me they were gonna flip the cover art to allow
for the oval portrait, I neglected to warn them to flip the "D.U.C.K.".
Lucky it was simply written and not really hidden, or no one could ever have
spotted it! Egad -- that reminds me -- the cover for part XI will also be
flipped, and that "D.U.C.K." IS hidden. Give up on that one!
        I dunno -- I guess I was too busy to redraw those two battleships,
or I didn't want to bother poor busy Gladstone with the idea. What I SHOULD
have bothered them with is to make sure they had proper color notes on it,
but I never thought they wouldn't. (As I've said, the 1902 battleships were
drastically miscolored, as were the Rough Rider uniforms, through some fault
of Egmont's photostat people.)
        I hadn't noticed any misplacement of Grandpa Beagle -- I'll check
that out. Yes, it was surely for the benefit of the speech balloons, but I'm
not sure why he couldn't have started out on the proper side of $crooge.
        There was a time in my fanzine-strip days when I thought very hard
about which side of a 2-page spread the "surprize" panels might appear. But
now, when Egmont so severely limits my page count, I can't possibly afford
to do that. Besides, one country will differ from the next as to how they
present the story. And then there's Germany who, for unknown reasons, never
uses my recap panels and makes a half-page recap of their own, thereby
throwing the half-pages of the story into a bottom-on-top mess until they
place a half-page ad partway through the story to straighten it out again.
So it's now IMPOSSIBLE for me to take that aspect of the storytelling into
consideration. There's really little about the Egmont method of
presentation, whether its coloring, lettering or printing, that enhances the
stories, sad to say. But that's life.
        And if you were to ask me... comics became 6 panels per page instead
of 8 simply (as you suggest) to stretch the same story into more pages.
Buyers only notice how many pages of art they buy, not how much plot or
substance they're getting. Otherwise, how do you explain American super-hero
comics? Even 10-12 years ago when I was still glancing at American comics, I
recall something called MAGE that I looked through, and decided that I could
fit the issue's entire plot into 3 pages rather than 22. But there's
different things than what I think are important driving American comics in
the 90s. I guess I'm another dinosaur. But you'll never get less than 8
panels from me.
        I wish I could get 10 or 12 panels on a page, what with these dang
space limitations I have! Right now I'm trying a new idea: I plotted out a
new story I'm calling "The Treasure of the Ten Avatars" about $crooge
hunting a lost city in the upper Punjab. I plotted it out to 30 pages! I
only have 24 to work with! I squeezed it together into 27 pages. I don't
want to cut any out! So I plan on doing the treasure hunt in such a way that
the Egmont weeklies can use it as a 24-page 2-parter, or someone else like
Gladstone or the other foreign albums can use it as a 27 page one-part
adventure! The weeklies will simply have to call it "The Treasure of the
Seven Avatars" -- they'll have to eliminate three or so Avatars. Of course,
there were ten Avatars in Hindu mythology, but I can't help that. I'll leave
it up to the publishers as to what they want to give their readers.

ARTHUR:
        What do you mean, what is the true face of Disney? I don't
understand the question...

        And PLEASE DON'T UNSUBSCRIBE ME TO THE LIST.