Please Gladstone/Gemstone, not again...

[Daniel van Eijmeren]

ZELDASTRIFORCE, 03-12-2003:

> I came across some previews of the Gemstone Disney comics for the 
> next 2 or 3 months. Maybe some of it will be news to you. [...]

> UNCLE SCROOGE #325 by Various Carl Barks' classic "Only a Poor Old Man" 
> — the first full-length Uncle Scrooge adventure ever produced by the 
> Old Duck Man — is reprinted in its entirety!

'Only a Poor Old Man'? AGAIN??? Barks did so many more stories than those 
few "classics" from around 1952. Why don't those stories get a reprint? 

I'm sorry for being so hot-headed, but I'm thinking of all the money I'm 
paying to get the same stuff over and over again. I'm (indirectly) 
subscribed to 'Walt Disney's Comics and Stories' and 'Uncle Scrooge', but 
I'm seriously considering unsubscribing. I've always wished Gladstone and 
Gemstone the best, and I still do, but if they go on with this policy, 
they'll have to survive without me.

'Uncle Scrooge' costs me $6,95, excluding the distribution. Half of this 
particular issue is filled up with a re-reprint. That's $3,50 right into 
the wastebasket!

To make things worse, at least for me, some of the Gemstone Barks reprints 
look awful. At least those I've received so far. I've heard that there were 
some technical difficulties, but I don't find that an excuse at all. 
Gemstone could have postponed those stories, by replacing them for stories 
with clean, (re)printable artwork. I think a muddy quality should only be 
reserved for stories which can't be printed in any other way, like some of 
Barks's giveaway stories.

Please Gemstone, give this re-reprint policy some serious thinking. You may 
not have much money to produce comics. But I don't have much money to *buy* 
comics.

Even if the comics would be filled up with new material from the front to 
the back, those comics are already very expensive. And now they even begin 
to contain fillers of 32 pages... Within one year of existance, no less.

Still, the issue can't be ignored for a lot of people, because it contains 
the first English reprint of Rosa's "The Beagle Boys vs. The Money Bin"... 
That story must be CRAMPED with jokes to give me a smile again, after 
having paid seven dollars for only half a comic.

I'm afraid of becoming a persona non grata for saying this, but I have to 
get this off my chest. One other reason for being so heated is that this 
policy makes me dislike Barks's stories. Such a re-reprinted story looks 
like a lame filler to me, while it has been one of my favourites before... 
For example, I'm beginning to really hate that over-used 'Only a Poor Old 
Man' tale.

I think those prestige format comics should contain rarities, like 
*facsimiles* of Barks stories that have never been reprinted in their 
original form. That way, I even would have been glad to see this 'Only 
a Poor Old Man' tale again.

And what about Gottfredson? And what about rare Taliaferro stuff, which 
has never been reprinted before? Just to name two other classic artists.

In those prestige comics I would like to see material that I am 
*searching* for, or material that's new and fresh. Not those overused 
"classics" which are lying on almost everybody's shelves, all coming 
from the same retouched/redrawn reprint source.

--- Daniël