Jorgen's Reviews, Barks Covers & More!

JALustig@aol.com JALustig at aol.com
Thu Sep 21 06:31:17 CEST 1995


Jorgen:
     I'm glad you're continuing your reviews. I try to at least casually
glance at all the Egmont stories I see and since I don't read Danish I have
to rely on the art to figure out what the stories are about. Your reviews
often provide enough of a synopsis so that I can find out what the plots are
if I can't figure it out from the art alone. Actually, I wish your reviews
were collected in the archives for reference. Or are they already and I've
missed them?
      As far as hurting the feelings of someone whose story you don't
like--well, don't worry about it. It's bound to happen, but we are supposed
to be pros and we ought to be able to handle it. No one--including Carl
Barks--could write stories that everyone likes every time. I don't have a
problem with criticism as long as the comments are about the quality of the
story instead of personal attacks.
     Of course, that's easy for me to say--particularly in this case since
you liked the lead story  (D94111 "The Swell of Success") in DD & Co #37.
Yup, I wrote it. I'm glad it seemed to work for you. It was the first story I
wrote after taking almost a year off to deal with some family matters.
Frankly, I was struggling a bit to get back in the flow of things and it's
really nice to hear that someone liked it. Of course, I don't know how well
it read in other languages. To some extent we're all at the mercy of our
translators. If I put in a gag or a bit of word play then it's up to them to
come up with something equivalent. I don't envy them a bit. It would drive me
nuts--which would be a very short drive indeed.

List of Credits?
     I've been thinking for some time that there might be some interest in
having the work of all the pros on this list indexed. I don't mean anything
heavy duty like the Rosa or Van Horn indexes. But it seems to me that most of
the pros on this list are writers and that if we noted the codes of the
various stories we've done then it would go a long way to filling in some of
the gaps in knowledge about these stories.
     I really don't know if there's much interest in this and how it should
be organized if there is. I suspect that most pros don't have time to do much
more than list the story codes and the titles of their stories--if even that.
I'll admit that at the moment I only have a partial list of my own story
codes. I know that there is some sort of data base at our Web-site that tries
to organize story info. (Come to think of it, it might even have some brief
plot descriptions. I'm not sure.) It's been awhile since I've taken a look.
As I remember, though, there's a lot more info on who drew stories rather
than who wrote them--which is perfectly understandable since it's easier to
recognize an artist's style than a writer's style.
      Anyway, I'd be interested to know everyone's reactions to this idea.

Van Horn's Nervous Rex:
      BTW, as long as we're talking about credits, I thought I'd mention
something that I've never seen mentioned here. Before doing the ducks for
Disney, William Van Horn did several short-lived black & white comic book
series in the United States. The longest and the best known was "Nervous Rex"
about a shrimp-sized T. Rex and his overbearing wife, Dearie. The folks at
Disney Adventures liked it enough that they asked Bill to draw a few new
adventures for their magazine. The last of those stories is running in the
October 1995 issue which is due out shortly. I don't know if the magazine is
available anywhere besides the U.S. and Canada.
 
Barks Covers:
     Someone recently asked about the covers that Van Horn drew in the last
year or so that were based on Barks sketches. No, the sketches are not new.
The original drawings were originally submitted as cover ideas by Barks back
when he was still doing comics. The sketches were apparently rejected and
when they resurfaced years later Gladstone asked Van Horn to do some new
covers based on them.
     I guess that's about it for now. Take care.

     ---John Lustig



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