Disney-comics digest #267.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM
Sun Mar 13 19:55:30 CET 1994


FREDRIK:
	Perhaps I failed to remember that you are one of us writing in a
"foreign" language, and stuck too closely to the exact wording you used.
You didn't say you didn't like my stuff -- I was saying that THAT sort
of comment would be one that I wouldn't mind. Your comment was that my
work "depended" on Barks' stories for their success, as if even if they
ARE good, I owe it to Barks. If that's not what you meant by "depend"...
okay.

	Just because you mention chapter 9, I see that when they reprint
that at Gladstone, I need to write into my accompanying text some sort
of explanation to prevent some readers misunderstanding that story's
climax. I have gottn a few comments from overseas that they were
offended by my attempts to "turn $crooge into another American
super-hero", which would be the most repugnant idea I can imagine. In
the first 9 chapters I try to show $crooge becoming a figure of
legendary bravery, cunning and strength -- to show what the world's
greatest Duck was like at the PEAK of his life, which would have been
when he struck gold in the Yukon. I show him having the strength of
several Ducks his size -- or the strength of the biggest dog/man. BUT...
my text accompanying the scene in chapter 9 - part 3 when $crooge tears
up Soapy Slick's riverboat was meant to say that I was showing the
LEGEND of that day, NOT the fact. I didn't mean that $crooge was
ACTUALLY doing the things shown in that sequence... but, as always, I
never know what the translators do to me text that might sabotage my
true intent.

	But whatever the outcome of readers' approval of the Lo$, and
regardless of the fact that I did enjoy the hard work it entailed, the
fact is (as I think I've said) I had no choice but to undertake it.
Disney-Disney had been ordered to do it by their marketing devision and
asked me for advice on how to begin. When I mentioned this fact to the
Egmont people, they decided that, in the light of what they were doing
with the characters, Disney-Disney shouldn't be allowed to touch that
series and that I should do it first and suggest to Disney-Disney that
if they let it go they could reprint the Egmont version for free. Maybe
somebody at Disney tricked me into doing just what they HOPED I'd do
(since they knew I refused to do any work for them)... I'll never know.





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