DCML digest #1268

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Fri Feb 21 15:28:44 CET 2003


From: lgiver at postoffice.pacbell.net
Subject: The surprise on the Don Rosa covers on Sigvald's  webpage.
>>>>Sigvald's webpage has 12 Don Rosa covers; there are 2 pairs, "Son of the
Sun" and "Return to Xanadu (second part)".  The surprise for me was the
Disney
printing for Xanadu, US 262, was reversed left-to-right compared to the
Anders An cover.  So which was did Don Rosa really draw it, and who
flipped it over, and why?

I guess I should be answering this, but I'm not sure that I can! I did this
cover about 13 years ago!
But my guess is that the Euro version is the way I drew it, and the American
version is flipped. This might be because the Euro version appeared on
Donald Duck titles and the American version was used on an Uncle $crooge
title. The main character, the title character, should be facing to the
right, "forward", in the direction the story will be read.
For just such a reason, I'll usually draw a story in such a way that as the
Ducks are entering a jungle or tomb or otherwise advancing into their
adventure, I will have them traveling to the right. On their return, I will
draw the action generally towards the left. Not a hard and fast rule,
something I think I do mostly subconsciously.
This subconscious storytelling is what I think my "secret" is, and there
must be a secret, because I still wonder about the popularity of my weird
looking stories. But when people start telling me that the "pacing" or the
"motivation" or the "timing" or the etc., etc. of my stories is brilliant
and they want me to describe how I achieve it, it worries me greatly since I
don't know what they're talkin' about. I just slap the story down on the
paper the only way it seems like it can be told. I don't analyze it, and
such questions from readers make me worry that anything I do right must be
by sheer accident and I'll never do it right again. But hopefully, if I'm
doing it right, I'm doing it right subconsciously just because I've read so
@$#%* many funnybooks (and seen so many old movies) ever since birth. At
least I hope that's the "secret" -- I don't know what else it could be. If I
was analyzing these techniques (if that's what they are), I think it would
surely spoil the brew.




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