Disney-comics digest #585.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at compuserve.com
Fri Feb 17 06:22:43 CET 1995


MIKE:
	Well... the package of fanmail forwarded from the Finnish editor arrived
today. It was all of 20 letters. Rather embarrassing, I should think,
considering the readership he solicited them from is 350,000 per week. I began
to assume that these were simply letters that had accumulated in his office
uninvited, but now you say that he mentioned in print that people should send
letters to me and that I would reply? That ain't many letters, is it?
	(Sigh)... yes, I guess I will try to answer them somehow, even if it's a
computer generated letter with a signature. If he implied in print that I would
reply to the mail he'd send me, that really was presumptious of him, but I'll
try. I guess one reason I was sorry there weren't more letters is that 20 is not
TOO too many to at least TRY to reply to.
	How did he ask for this fanmail? I have never seen credits given in
Finnish issues, so how do these readers know which stories I've done? Did he ask
for mail for Barks as well? And for other Egmont artists? (That might explain
that most mail naturally went to Barks, as it should, and to others, leaving
only 20 letters for me.)
	Anyway, the editor ALSO sent me all the Finnish issues that have featured
my stories in 1994 and 1995 ("Croesus"). So I don't need those from you or any
other Finnish friends; however, if you've already sent more, I'll be glad to
have them. Still, he might have missed some issue -- for instance, none of these
issues have this request for fanmail or have any articles about who I am for
people to know to write to me. The #2000 has an article about Barks and Van
Horn, but my "Croesus" story, in an issue as recent as that, is not credited...
so I can't figure out how his readers know who I am.

	Coincidentally, also today, Byron Erickson sent me a batch of other
foreign issues that he's set aside that have my stories. This included several
more Italian digests where the stories WEREN'T all recut and reassembled like
how they screwed up my poor 60th Birthday DD tale. But one of the things he sent
were a stack of French PICSOUs that had the Lo$ stories, but which also gave me
credits and little write-ups for each episode. I had no idea I was getting that
kind of attention in France! This is what I mean by how odd it is to be sitting
here in Kentucky, ignored and forlorn (sob), not even knowing that I'm getting
all this attention in European comics and comic fanzines. How weird.

	A final bit of news: I gave a 2 hour phone interview today which will be
part of a ten page report on Duck comics which will appear in one of the next
issues of (of all things!) HERO ILLUSTRATED. This will be nice publicity for
Disney comics, and results not from any publicity efforts from Gladstone but
simply because one or two friends I have at HERO are such Duck fans themselves,
though they must normally repress that when writing for a magazine which caters
to the teenage super-hero fanboy Duck-haters. They are very nice to devote 10
pages to this and I hope it's a good write-up. Naturally, America being what it
is, it will also include a price guide in order to justify Duck comics to
American readers who equate the purpose of a comic book as its resale value as
they are already figuring how they're going to sell something even before they
buy it. But that's how it is here. HERO is still to be commended.
 




More information about the DCML mailing list