Disney-comics digest #603.

[9475609@arran.sms.edinburgh.ac.uk]

      DAVE:
      Sorry I overlooked the Da Vinci title.  I have this nasty habit of 
looking through PREVIEWS for anything cartoon-related or by Sergio 
Aragones, then avoiding everything else... >sigh<

      JORGEN:
>And the Norwegian runs one Taliaferro strip each issue.
      So does the Danish one -- and it's the same strip each week.  I 
think what happens is that Egmont prepares and colors a Taliaferro strip 
each week and makes it available to every publisher, and some use them 
all the time.
      Why the British mags prefer Bob Foster's strips -- apparently so 
much that they're willing to color them themselves -- is beyond me.  But 
to be honest, I enjoy Foster's writing more than post-1945 Bob Karp... 
      At the end of the (school) year, I'll index the year's British 
comics.  Boy, what a lot of lemons.  I've finally realized that they 
purposely do not print the more complex stories, unless they're MM 
(because the Brits want a MM every week).

>- The Beagle Boys (D93304, 6 pages). Art by Xavi.
      Doesn't look like Xavi to me.  It doesn't have that same 
pseudo-Branca style that Xavi likes -- the Beagle Boys are so darn ugly 
here, and Branca makes them into very impudent, lovable rascals.  I'm 
going from memory -- but maybe this is the same artist of that MM "Art 
Attack" story?

>In Kalle Anka #9 there is a contest where people are supposed to call 
>a number and tell what story they liked best. Is this the first time 
>this is done?  >snip<
      It's an old tradition in Germany.  They call it the "Wunschcomic" 
competition ("wish-comic").  But they do it BEFORE the stories are 
published!  What I mean is, they show a few panels from each of three 
stories, and you call and give your opinion of recent stories and as a 
reward, you get to cast a vote as to which one of the three gets 
published first!  And the two that DON'T get chosen aren't printed until 
about six months later.  Issue 43/1991 (or so) included Don Rosa's 
"Incident at McDuck Tower" among the three choices.  It won.

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
      "If it weren't for the help o' Hard-Haid Moe/I woulda married a 
long time ago!/Where did you come from -- where did you grow?/
Where did you come from, Hard-Haid Moe?"