Question about Don Rosa's family tree

Daniel van Eijmeren dve at kabelfoon.nl
Tue Dec 16 16:07:57 CET 2003


DON ROSA, 16-12-2003:

> Apparently people want to know how to categorize my Family Tree 
> for indexes (indices)? Though I've probably told this before, 
> would it help to know how it was created?

Isn't there any website which collects the information that you give 
about your work? I knew you have explained the creation of the family 
tree before, but I didn't know where to find it.

Principally speaking, I think that asking an artist the very same 
questions over and over again, is a waste of time for both parties. 
(Although there could be some new facts coming up now and then, but 
that would only be a matter of coincidence.)

I think you hold the record for being the most recorded Duck artist, 
both in text and speech, and that's very nice, but it's a shame if 
all that information gets lost (or even destroyed).

> Originally I created the Duck Family Tree only using the three integral
> Family Trees (McDuck, Duck and Coot) combined and showing how they were
> connected. I finished this project and sent it in [...]. Later (weeks? 
> months? dunno.) the editor contacted me and said that some Egmont branch 
> publishers had seen the Tree and wanted Gyro and Daisy and AM&J included. 
> [...] So I drew 5 more portraits and sent them off. Somebody at Egmont 
> created that nice "hovering leaf cluster" out of pieces of the tree edges 
> I had drawn on the real Tree. So. Is that one project or two?

Two projects, I'd say.

The first project (without sidebar) is the original version, created 
by you alone.

The second (with sidebar) is a version created by you and the editor.
The addition of characters was their idea. The way how that should be 
done is your idea. The resulting portraits are by made you, but the 
layout and construction of the sidebar itself are both *fully* designed
by the editor. (Right?) Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

BTW. Is the first version (without sidebar) the one published by 
Gladstone, in WDC 600? Or is it a changed version, or even a third 
project?

> It seems to me that these Duck Friends sidebars are just like the 
> extra pages I create for a story that are supposed to be used when 
> the story is printed in two parts.

I second that. I think that the sidebar/portraits should be considered 
like the extra comic book pages.

Maybe every new portrait should get it's *own* code, in case different 
editors have made sidebars of their own.

So, I think that it's important to determine if the sidebar is always 
the very same one. Used as one whole piece of art. Is that the case?

--- Daniël

"Yikes! How can anything that stuffs itself with HAY be so HARD?"
Which Barks story? :-)


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