Disney-comics digest #640.

[Don Rosa]

>WILMER:
        How could they use that line from the WYATT EARP theme in my "Lo$"
#8? Perhaps since it was spoken rather than sang? More likely it was
because, as I said, the copyright infringement is established only when (so
I'm told) a complete line from a song is used. "Wyatt Earp -- brave,
courageous and bold" lacks another "Wyatt Earp" to be a complete line. The
name is repeated in the actual theme.

DAVID:
        Welcome back from home. (?) And you were asking what I was referring
to with that corny reference to being "the antithesis of greed" and thereby
"bad for business for the Weasel Group". I love to deal in hyperbole but I
have always refused to use "smiley faces" or such icons to denote when I'm
speaking tongue-in-cheek. "My strength is as the strength of ten because my
heart is pure!" That's another good one. Somebody was asking about whether
my Another Rainbow lithograph would be costly and I was explaining why not,
with a flourish. My attitudes about such things are the only possible grudge
that could have caused them to have tried to defame me before my employers
and agents, and since I know that all that I say on here is being sent to
the Group, I like to give them things to read now and then.

SOME NEWS FROM GLADSTONE:
        I was asking John Clark more about the new Gladstone comics, some
with no "covers" and being 4 pages shorter than others since the first
wrap-around interior would now serve as a cover... and I found out one more
detail. I was asking why they chose UNCLE $CROOGE as one of the comics to
have "no cover" -- I said that of all their comics, U$ is the best seller
and more often bought by the older collectors who would certainly pay the
extra money that the paper costs have necessitated, and that naturally I was
sorry to see that the last few issues with the "Lo$" deal would be different
than the rest. (You all know that we receive no royalties, so only the
presentation, rather than a drop in sales, could matter to us of the Disney
comics.) He said that this was originally the plan for that very reason, but
that they then decided that, since this two-type-comic thing is an
experiment to see how to survive in the future American comic market mess,
the best way to test it is to take their BEST selling comic (U$) and see if
the sales would drop when they had it go "no cover". If the sales on already
low-selling titles dropped further, that wouldn't have been any proof of
anything. With Gladstone's future in mind above the idea of the nicest
possible presentation of a particular series, I couldn't argue with that
logic. Moreover, another detail that their ads naturally sorta sidestep, or
at least make it unclear enough so that dense people like me don't catch on,
is this: though U$ and the other no-cover titles will have 4 fewer pages,
those remaining pages will STILL be printed on the high-quality paper stock,
allowing better reproduction and color. The titles that stay the same with a
price increase will now have the interior printed on lower quality paper.
So, after the lack of a cover on heavy stock, my "Lo$" stories will still be
presented on top quality paper, so perhaps that's better. Actually, neither
system will be as good as the current style, obviously, but that's the way
it goes.
        There's more news about the "LoS". Chapter 11 with Bombie the Zombie
and $crooge having a native village destroyed and all that other wild,
politically incorrect stuff, WILL SEE PRINT IN AMERICA and with very few
changes, none of which even I would probably notice. I think a voodoo mask
that I copied from the Barks original was removed, I'm guessing because it
had big lips. A reference to "fuzzhead" is gone for some reason. Where
$crooge is called a "white duck" is changed to "pale duck", I assume to
remove the possibility that a reader will even begin to think of the ideas
of "black" and "white" races (though who could be whiter than a Duck?). John
Jacob Astor is referred to as just "J.J."  These are all negligible changes.
We'll still see a story of $crooge commiting a crime as "Voodoo Hoodoo" said
he did, but now we see him pay a penalty for it, that being Bombie chasing
him around the globe for 30 years. And Bombie will be on the cover, bigger
than Death.
        Also, John tells me that the "Lo$" has been nominated for an Eisner
award, and perhaps there are other nominations involved... all he said he
knows is that he was called and asked to provide some art samples from the
"Lo$" episodes. Hopefully, Gladstone will get other nominations for other
stuff they've presented as well. It would be too much to hope for that any
Disney material could ever win in American voter awards, but as they say,
just being nominated is good for the material to get it more attention.