Disney-comics digest #565.

[Don Rosa]

ARNE:
	As regards the Norwegian texts that you translated for me, I got a call
from a Norwegian fan today (my phone number is not kept secret, and perhaps I'd
get more calls if it weren't $o ex$pen$ive). He knew the writer of those text
pieces, Eric Hoethe (misspelled), and he told me the editor purposely left out
the last line. Wasn't there a final line that said something like "you should
check the first panel for tiny details". I thought that sounded sort of odd --
why the first panel in particular? What was omitted was the purpose for that
remark -- Eric went on to mention how I always hide "D.U.C.K." in the splash
panel. I have no idea why the Norwegian editors wish that to remain secret.

HARRY:
	And speaking of splash panels... yes, the alternate version of that
chapter 8 was one that wasn't much different in the either the one-part or the
three-part version, except those big caption boxes were gone in the one-parter.
This didn't effect the panel with the mammoth, but there was LOTS of stuff going
on under the caption box in the entering-Dawson panel! But what was being said
in the caption boxes in the Dutch issue where those caption boxes barged into
the story for no reason?
	Sometimes when there is a cliff-hanger at the end of a chapter that calls
for a half-page "spectacle" to appear on the next page, the one-part version
will be the same as the three-parter except that I must still supply two
different versions of that next page. The local publishers are not capable of
adding or deleting ANYTHING from the art since it comes to them already colored.
Therefore there must be TWO versions even if there's no difference except a
square box in one corner. But sometimes there's no need for a half-page panel on
that next page and I then do some gag that takes up 3 or 4 panels that the
people who live where they get the three-parter will never see. The recent
Croesus story is a perfect example... in the one-part version there is still a
half-page shot of the rebuilt temple on page 9, but on page 17 there is a minor
gag in the upper half of the page where the three-parter only had a big panel
showing the Turkish army menacing $crooge.
	Nonetheless, the Dutch publisher DOES do SOME coloring on its own, right?
They could VERY easilly obtain the proper pages and color them themselves if
they were interested in the proper presentation of the story. It would be an
extraordinarilly tiny bit of additional work for them. I think you might still
make certain your friend is aware of the two different versions next time you
talk to him. I think it's very probable that Egmont has both versions already
colored, but the Dutch simply don't know to ask for the one-part style.

TO ALL:
	I have a friend who is writing an article on "Politically correct
Disney". It's so extremely rare that someone does an article on Disney in an
American trade-magazine that I was hoping you guys might help out. Seems like
some of us were trying to think of changes made in Disney comics in recent years
to make them bland(er) and PC. The writer already knows about the "War of the
Wendigo" silliness, and the changing of art in my stories involving guns. And of
course there's the redrawing of the cartoony black natives from old stories. But
what are other instances of revising stories and art to meet Disney's ulra-PC
attitudes?