Disney-comics digest #820.

[Don Rosa]

DANIEL V.E.:
        Shangri-La comes from the book LOST HORIZON by James Hilton. I would
guess that Barks got it from the movie, rather than the book, judging by
what the articles have him claim his reading habits were... but who knows.
        Kublai Khan's Xanadu is known mostly from Colleridge's poem (and
from the mention in CITIZEN KANE's opening shot), and it is probably wholly
fictional. 
        The Bermuda Triangle. Whenever that is mentioned I think of when it
became popular fodder for cheap tabloids back in the 70s, and all the bad TV
movies that have been made about it. As for what it "really" is, there's not
a shred of evidence it's anything at all other than a popular idea to toy
with by SF writers or UFO conspiracy theorists and so forth.
        A good story could be written about it, I'm sure. But I may not be
the guy who will write it since the whole idea has such bad connotations in
my mind as being something out of the NATIONAL INQUIRER.

DWIGHT:
        The problem is not TV. There's nothing wrong with TV. The problem is
too MUCH TV. When there was just 2 or 3 stations with very limited choice, a
kid would decide to watch a ballgame or a news show or an old movie... and
probably go outside or do some reading when he didn't care for the limited
choice. Now, with hundreds of choices of limitless low-quality
chewing-gum-for-the-eyes, the kids will channel-surf, or learn to zone-out
in front of some vapid cartoon. European kids have never had cable or
satellite TV like American kids, until now... and now the European kids are
slowly beginning to decrease their reading as did the American kids 30 years
ago. TV ain't bad -- what's bad is limitless drek that numbs kids ability to
recognize quality, and deadens their willingness to try.

ARTHUR:
        You must go by Barks' old stories, not his modern paintings, to see
what supposed to be in the Money Bin. The paintings naturally are trying to
add as much color and spectacular treasures as possible -- they'd look
rather boring if the paintings only showed fields of white coins. Also, the
audience that the paintings are being done for is primarilly NOT people who
ever read the comics necessarilly, so they don't worry too much about what's
in the Bin as long as it makes a nice picture. And Money Bin paintings
filled with treasure rather than pocket change DO look mighty pretty.
        But in the comics the Money Bin is filled with pennies and nickels
and dimes and quarters. There might be a few tiny pockets of gold doubloons
down at the bottom (I've shown that myself in one story), but that's a rarity.