digest #230

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Tue Aug 15 14:54:47 CEST 2000


From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Eirik_J=F8rgensen_Sollie?= <eirik.sollie at c2i.net>
>>>>“What is Carl Barks own favourite story?”

I think Barks would probably have different answers at different times for
different people as regards this question.
But when I was writing comic fandom's question & answer column, "The
Information Center", which I did at different times for the RBCC, the COMIC
READER, THE BUYER'S GUIDE, AMAZING HEROES, and maybe some other fanzines, I
got that very question from a reader. This woulda been about 1975. So, I
sent the question to Barks and his very definite reply (at that time) was
"Microducks from Outer Space".

From: "Rodney w bowcock jr." <rodney-selfhelpbikeco at juno.com>
>>>In the 10 pager in WDCS 164, Scrooge talks about a person named Miss
Pennywise who owns an old note of his, that in his words "could ruin me!"
I do know that by this point in time (1954) Barks had largely developed
the Scrooge character, so my question is:  Is this the forgotten person
Scrooge borrowed money from?  I wonder why he borrowed the money, and
where he ran into her in the past.  Could this be something that might
turn up in a new Life and Times chapter?  Or maybe it's already been
taken care of, and I missed it?

I was well aware of this story, but I wrote the bit off as an instance
where Barks needed a fast way to establish a reason why $crooge would be
very concerned about what Donald did to this customer in this "gag" story.
So, I sorta "dismissed" it as I did with a very few other old Barksian
"facts" such as the Magic Hourglass, to which $crooge was supposed to owe
his entire fortune. These were elements that went so much against the rest
of the Barks-$crooge canon that I decided, for my purposes, they were to be
overlooked.

>>> Up until re-reading this story I thought
Soapy Slick was the only person Scrooge borrowed money from.

That's how I see it. After that, he would never need to borrow money, and
surely borrowing money and paying interest would be just about the LAST
thing $crooge would ever do. I bet growing up on $crooge comics is why I
have never used credit cards and have paid cash for everything in life
except my house.

From: "Sandven, Halvor" <halvor.sandven at dnb.no>
>>>I think the most interesting part og the Rosa-Calendar was the first
page,
showing HDL bathing, fishing and playing with ball, but looking very bored
doing this. Instead they daydream about being back to school, having a
swell
time there. This is rather unusual.

Yes, I agree. And you've answered a question of mine as to what sort of
caption publishers were putting on that illustration. My original caption
(which is why I incorporated that caption box into the art) was something
to the effect that this was a scene from the "bizarro world" or such... I
don't recall my exact phrase after over a year, but the gag (such as it is)
was supposed to be that this is the last thing that kids on summer vacation
would want to see, a school calendar. Perhaps the publishers thought that
philosophy of telling kids school was bad was not proper, even though my
real intention was simply some wry humor. So, when they used the
illustration in Finland, and now in the Egmont reprints, they remove my gag
line. And yeah, that makes the whole scene seem inexplicable to you and me
both!

>>>At the ground we see several comics laying around. Most of these have
the
logo of the norwegian weekly, but there's one other different-looking comic
featuring

??? You trailed off. I'm sure you were going to ask about the digest
(pocketbook) in the corner that says "ROOPE-SETA". I drew all those comics
into my art with FINNISH titles like AKKU ANKA (Donald Duck) and ROOPE-SETA
(Uncle Scrooge) since I never expected the art to be used outside Finland.
But don't ask me why Egmont decided to go to the trouble of changing some
of the covers but not all of the covers, and left that one as the original
Finnish issue.

>>>>a Couple of weeks ago we saw a brand
new Disney-publication in Norway (Scandianvia?). This is a quality-paper
comic with title 'Back at Last', this time featuring Fethry. This comic
will
feature Disney-characters that are not so very often seen in todays
weeklies. The next issue will feature Moby Duck. I just wonder how long
this
publication will last.

I was told about this comic when I was making a list of all the Duckburg
characters to put into the Egmont Christmas Calendar I did last week.
Fethry is in issue one, next will be Moby Duck, and in the final issue will
be Ludwig Von Drake. I was worried that my editor would tell me they wanted
me to include Fethry and Moby Duck in my calendar art, something I would
decline to do. But it turns out, at least so I'm told, that this 3-issue
series does not herald the return of these characters to the weeklies --
all three are still "officially dead" in the Duck Universe. But I LIKE
Ludwig Von Drake (I sneak him into the crowd scenes in my stories
sometimes, though I'm not allowed to use him as a character), so I was
still allowed to make him one of my Christmas vignettes.
(By the way, I *was* allowed to also include Jose Carioca and Panchito
Pistoles in my series!)

Anyway, okay, that will be my last message for a while, so if anyone asks
me a direct query I won't be able to answer it until next week.... unless
you come and ask it to me in person in the city of A Coruña in Spain where
I will be at a comic convention starting tomorrow. Bye.








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