The past weeks' digests

Larry Gerstein gerstein at math.ucsb.edu
Thu Aug 31 01:57:57 CEST 1995


        Hi, gang.  
        This is the last day, for a while, that I'll be going by the
nom-de-plume "Larry" ... I'm off to Williamstown, Massachusetts, and
college, very shortly, so I'll have my own account to use (rather than the
family one).  But Per, you can keep sending the digests to my Dad's E-Mail
address for now.  I have to do some work on my Williams account before I
can accept new messages there.  By next week things will be well.

        BARRY:
        As I correct my own name, I've gotten another one WRONG!  Sorry,
Barry.  I know you're not your wife.  I only have brief periods at my Dad's
office when the computer is accessible, so I generally have little time to
glance over my letters again before sending them.  Here, the realization I
should have had shoulda been:  "SHARON?!  Not at the Egmont dinner!"

        Gaiist at aol.com:
        ""The Money Counting Machine" [USA 34] has a cute plot, and the
Gerstein translation is a great example of a translator making the best use
of his material.  That said, I think that it is also painfully obvious that
the story, like so much of the Gladstone material, is padded to the point
of boredom."
        I wasn't making the best use of "material" that Gladstone sent me,
though...I loved that story in German, so I selected it myself for
Gladstone!  To me, at the time, I (coff, coff) didn't think the story had
that many faults.
        But I'm glad you liked my version of it.  I didn't think it was
that sluggish, but... oh, well.

        FABIO:
        "David kept on talking, and talking... ;-)
(Hi, Barry: not to talk about I.D., hum?)"
        Gosh, was I SUCH a jabberer as all that...?
        (You'll get a private mail from me soon, Fabio, with other things
to tell you, so don't worry!)

        DANNY:
        "Are Fethry (I don`t think so), Gladstone's nephew (I don`t know)
and Rumpus Barks` charakters or inventions of other artists?"
        Fethry was created by Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard in 1965, I
believe.  I have to admit I'm not sure which nephew of Gladstone you're
referring to.  And Uncle Rumpus was created by William Van Horn.

        CAREY:
        The decision to move all Gladstones to 32-page newsprint-covered
issues appears, as far as I can reckon, to have been made after they got a
reaction to their first SOLICITATION (in comic shop "preview" catalogues)
for the new format.  My local comic shop, and some others, ordered more
copies of the 32-pagers, because Gladstone's reference to "high-quality
paper" made them think the entire issues would be printed on slick paper. 
These shops were surprised to see that the paper in question was just
Gladstone's usual paper.

        WES:
        "I did try to read the whole thing, but I fell asleep..."
        In the same letter, you say that the story ("Monarch of Medioka")
was GOOD!  Was one of these comments sarcastic?
        ("Monarch of Medioka" is one of my very favorite Disney comic
stories, IMHO.  Gottfredson at his best!  Rather slow in 7 serialized parts
though.)

        KATHY:
        "Mythological Menagerie" will be reprinted in WDC&S 600 along with
three other vintage ten-pagers (Barks' "Rabbit's Foot" from WDC&S 32,
Jippes' "Do-Gooder Duck", and Van Horn's story of DD as binge eater from
WDC&S 133).

        KNUT:
        "I always loved that first Phantom Blot story! Just yesterday I
spent over 1 hour looking for a comic book I bought some years ago in the
USA with that story, very differently edited than the version I have in my
"I, Goofy"-book..."
        The version you're looking for must be the 1956 version, with the
"trap" sequences rewritten and redrawn by Paul Murry.  The traps in the
1939 version of the story are:
        A gun that will shoot MM when a cat jumps for a fish.
        A gun with a rope trigger which MM will pull when burned by a flame.
        A noose suspended from a high beam, from which a drugged MM will fall.
        A barber chair with a dagger that will impale MM.
        An electric-shocked door.
In the redrawn version these become:
        A mallet that will knock MM out when a cat jumps for a fish.
        MM tied to a giant tortoise which is placed beside a steep cliff. 
(This is a long sequence replacing 2 of the original traps)
        A noose lowering MM into some water full of vicious swordfish.
        And, again, the electric door (unchanged).
Disney Comics reprinted the redrawn version in 1990's DISNEY COMICS ALBUM
4;  and in 1988, Gladstone's MM IN COLOR book had the original version,
spared even the relettering that's in the I, GOOFY book.

        DWIGHT:
        "I do recall seeing an issue of "Beano," the British comic weekly,
sometime in the mid'70s, which featured a strip called "Dennis the Menace,"
but a decidedly non-Ketcham local original character."
        This character is still going, published from Scotland.  I made
ends meet between Egmont jobs by doing some writing for him while in
Edinburgh last year;  while I can't say I was very good with those
characters (they turned down a lot of my attempts), I did have the
distinction of being the first American ever to work for the company.
        I also "Americanized" a 32-page Dennis story for them, which will
be the first appearance of their Dennis in the U. S.  Not a great story,
but with some great possibilities for me.  I had to come up with my own
idiom for the characters, so I mixed one part Donald, one part Mickey, and
one part Matt Groening.  We'll see how it goes over.

        HARRY:
        Glad you liked "E. A. T."!!  Again, it's one I chose, so I'm to
blame if it hits or misses in the United States.
        "On the first panel of page 3, Scrooge is clearly dialing a number on
his phone. So it's not logical for him to say "Miss Quackfaster, give me
my head watchman!""
        I thought he was pushing a line-switch button that would give him
the front desk, as opposed to Mr. Montague in the money-counting office or
Clerkly in some other department.  But maybe I'm wrong!

        I'll be back soon, with some other news.

        David Gerstein
        <gerstein at math.ucsb.edu>
        "Have a chestnut, boys! ... OW!"

gerstein at math.ucsb.edu





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