VARIOUS (Carl, Donald, James, Bartholomew)

[Harry Fluks]

Barks in Europe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    After all the reports from Norway and Italy about Barks' visit, I can
only add a few comments about Barks in Holland. Barks is supposed to be in
Holland right now.

    In last Saturday's issue of "de Volkskrant" (a major Dutch newspaper),
a 1/4 page article was published about Barks and the Ducks. It was
accompanied by a photo of Barks, credited to Svein Erik Soland [sic].

    The article concludes with some text about Barks' visit:

-quote (badly translated)-
    Thom Roep, chief-editor of the Dutch "Donald Duck" weekly,
represents VNU [parent company of Dutch Disney editor GP] as host of
Barks in Holland. Roep: "When he visits us, he has already been in Iceland,
Scandinavia, Poland and Germany. Afterwards he will visit France, Italy
and England. And everywhere he is overwhelmed with receptions, symposia
and press conferences... It's a programme to drive one mad. The man
is 93; how can they do this to him?
    "Fortunately I heard this week that he was very well. Barks is
still keen and funny. Still, we prefer to keep his programme in
Holland calm. He himself likes to visit the Rijksmuseum [in Amsterdam].
Furthermore we take a canal boat ride, and we'll visit the Zaanse
Schans [a Dutch mill museum]. We keep it private. We don't want
any bother, no fuss. Let him recover his breath here, because in
Euro Disneyland, he has to march again in the 'Grand Parade'.
Really, I was very pleased for him when I heard he could make this
trip, but I will be even gladder when I hear that he has survived
the tour."
-end quote-

    This week's Donald Duck Weekly is fully dedicated to Barks. He appears
on the background of the cover drawing (with a human nose, but dog-ears).
The editorial pages mention Barks (which is I think the second time in
Dutch DD Weekly ever) as one of the Disney artists: "Did you know that
Walt Disney did not make all those beautiful comics and cartoons all by
himself? He was helped by many artists."  There are two photographs of
Barks (one of them is a close up of the Soland picture I mentioned above).
    The DD issue contains Barks stories ONLY - which has never happened
before in Holland. But they took the (IMO) worst stories they could get:
Uncle Scrooge #29 ("Island in the Sky"), a Gyro story from Four Color
1184 ("Mighty But Miserable") and a Daisy gag. On the middle pages is
a reproduction of Barks' oil "An Astronomical Predicament" (#138 in our
'oils' file), illustrating the US 29 story.


Gladstone's Donald Duck #286 (the 60th Birthday issue)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I really liked this issue. But the Van Horn framing sequence seems
to be a waste of paper. I don't get his ending gag.

    The "Duck Who Never Was": VERY enjoyable. Still, a few questions:
Should the story have had a title? The space below the "Donald Duck"
logo was very un-Rosa-like empty.
    What was the original layout of the date 09/06/19..? Did the letterer
just switch the texts "Month" and "Day" to make it a (wrong) American
date? How could he have solved this better?
    So the Mickey doll is removed as an "ancient icon" in one panel,
but not in the other one. This means Mickey would ONLY have been an ancient
icon if Donald was never born... This (unintended) detail gives a new
perspective to Donald's relation to Mickey... 8-)
    When I first saw Gus' family tree drawing on the wall, I saw nothing
wrong. I have been in the genealogy business for quite a time now, and
it has always been the habit to draw the oldest person on top, making the
tree "upside-down". Of course, when looking more closely to this particular
tree, this is impossible, but maybe that's what the letterer had in mind
when he put the names of Gus and Scrooge wrong?
    I wouldn't have noticed the square eggs gag if I hadn't read about it
on this list. VERY funny!

    "The Secret of Mars" was very entertaining. I expected a quite bad
story, that's only reprinted because it is the "first". But it was quite
fun reading it! And I liked the name of Fabio Gadducci in the credits.
This mailing list is really accomplishing things!


James looking for an artist
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    James, if you don't want to offer your scripts to Egmont again, you
could also try Dutch editor GP. Or you could even ask them if they have
artists that could work for Gladstone.


Bartholomew Esteban
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote to David:
> In one of your letters in a recent Gladstone comic, you mention
> Bartholomew Esteban. [...] Where did you get his first name?

And he replied:
> [...] in a SINGLE comic -- the very first issue of Gladstone's UNCLE
> SCROOGE -- complete credits appear.  Esteban had something to do with one
> of the stories in there, and his FULL name appeared in the credits.

In this comic, a Beagle Boys story appears, written by Bob Bartholomew,
and drawn by Esteban. So I think you misread the credits, David...

(well, I think that's enough for now...)
--Harry.