Disney-comics digest #594.

[Don Rosa]

RICHARD AND MIKE:
	What interesting remarks I find in the Digest tonight! When I started
doing Duck comics in 1987 I never expected to be regarded as highly as I now
seem to be in some quarters... but neither di I ever expect there would be some
readers who might think my stories were the worst Duck stories ever... and after
that sinking in, I would then never expect that some of that latter group would
join the former group. This is why I have such trouble understanding what I'm
doing or why people react to it in the ways they do.
	My questions to the two of you from whatever perspectives you might have
-- what was it about those older (or the current) stories that causes some
readers to think my stories are the (good phrase) the worst tragedy to ever
befall the Ducks? I suspect it's just the unhappy looking, un-Disney looking
art, eh? Or was there something about the actual stories as well?

MIKE:
	HERO ILLUSTRATED?
	When American comic books began to become less (or virtually NOT) a
popular medium with readers and became a "collectible" item for speculators, two
monied groups decided to move in and wrest control of the minds of the core
group of maleable 10-14 year olds away from the comic companies and
old-fan-writers. The first group came from the failing sports-card collecting
hobby, and the biggest card moguls formed WIZARD magazine, a hyper-flashy MTV
generation magazine that concentrates on violent super-hero comics and their
investment and resale values, rather than any aesthetic values of art or plot,
and also strongly promoted trading cards so that soon American collecting and
card collecting became the SAME hobby as they are today. Obviously this magazine
was designed and destined to be a smash hit in the American comics market, and
was. So soon thereafter a video-game mogul moved in and sponsored HERO
ILLUSTRATED, a clone of the vapid, visually flashy WIZARD, and had as their
promotional gimmick sideline video games rather than cards. These American kids
aren't bright enough to recognize blatant market manipulation and crowd control,
and they fall right in step to do and buy whatever they are told. 
	HERO differed slightly from WIZARD in that it isn't QUITE as vapid... I
have met the editors of HERO on several occassions and they are just old fans
acting out roles to fit their publisher/backers' desires. They are (as are ALL
old fans) Duck fans at heart, and do sometimes sneak in mentions of Duck comics
here and there. WIZARD on the other hand NEVER mentions Disney/Ducks, as if the
best-selling comics in American history and still in the world don't even exist.
But sadly, even when HERO mentions Duck comics, their American kid-readers read
past it like "huh? whatzis -- a gag right?" since they have been taught that
everyone in the world reads the comics they read and think just like they do
(i.e.:  letting promotional directors do it for them).
	I've still yet to determine whether the HERO article will be just about
Barks' Ducks or about all comic book Ducks in general, lumping Donald and
$crooge in with Baby Huey, Count Duckula, Daffy and the ilk. This would indicate
a deep misconception about the differences in these characters... but we'll see.