"The Duck Who Never Was"

[Don Rosa]

From: Thomas Pryds Lauritsen (thomas at duckburg.dk)
Subject: Re: "The Duck Who Never Was"
  > [...] that DD's birthday is *June 9* and *not*
 > "Sept. 6", how could all of those translators and editors have not
realized
 > that they had an error in their script?!)
>>>This is only guessing, but perhaps the fact that one writes a date on
the form "day - month" in many European countries played a role?

I'm not sure how -- I am aware of that difference in how dates are written,
so my script called for each line to be clearly labeled with the words "DAY"
and "MONTH"... and I inked the numbers of "06" & "09" into the lines on the
original art. It was the placement of those added labels that was always
reversed by the local publishers... the same way that "$crooge" and "me" are
always reversed later in the chalked Family Tree. As I say, I suspect the
error was in Egmont's typed-up script, but the reversed date is such an
obvious error, especially when the whole point of the promotion is that
Donald's "birthday" is June 9. I don't know how that mistake could be made
without being caught by someone. Even if the mistake had been in my original
script (and I've certainly had errors in my scripts!), somebody should have
spotted it. But I am referring to 10 years ago, because........

 > It would be so easy to reuse this story properly -- all the editors would
 > have to do is say "here is Don Rosa's 60th Anniversary Donald Duck story
 > from 10 years ago" and use the correct script
>>>This was what they did in Denmark (and probably the other Scandinavian
countries, too).

And it's interesting that I mentioned those DD's 70th hardbacks and said
that I didn't know how the story was handled therein, because that very day
I received the Swedish edition and today I received the Norwegian... and I
see the story is correctly handled in both. And now you are saying that the
Danish edition used it properly as well. Very good! Thanks!

>>>"The Duck Who Never Was"
represented "a new century", which is strange since it was made in the
90es and it mentions Donald "being" 60 years old which was relevant in
the 90es.

That is rather odd... but I guess they wanted to use that story, and they
had to have *me* be the representative of "the new century" since I am the
"new guy" among all the featured artists.