Well... I never dreamed my posting a message here would lead to such a reaction. I guess I'm flattered... but why is it so unusual for a cartoonist to contribute to a comics forum? We have computers, too.
Okay... I guess I need to sit down and do some writing here. The matters that people seem to want me to reply to are getting extensive. I never contribute to forums like this now... in the 90's I would sometimes answer direct questions put to me on forums, but I would never enter into a discussion of my work, pro or con. I am naturally delighted when people like my stories, but when they don't like my stuff that's fine with me... I dislike most of it myself. What I do like to remedy is when someone might dislike what I do due to some misunderstanding or misrepresentation by someone else. I naturally want to correct that misunderstanding -- then if they *still* dislike my work, that's fine. Dislike it, but dislike it for what it is, not for how it's been misrepresented or misunderstood.
Okay, first off, the irritation I thought Babel Fish was showing me in someone's messages about how I do not use other authors' Duckburg characters, particularly the Italian authors:
As you should know, I am an American, and I grew up in the 1950's. And the Duck comics with which I grew up were my older sister's, so they ranged from the late 40's to just about 1960. Now, these were stories by Carl Barks and some other writers & artists (whom you comic scholars know well) who used Barks' characters and the entire Duckburg "world" that Barks created. Eventually Barks and Western Publishing (for whom he worked) quit the comics business, but Barks' Ducks were still quite popular (!!!) elsewhere in the world. So new stories of the Barks Duck Universe started to be created by Europe-based Egmont and the Dutch publisher, these stories still based solidly on and only on that old Barks Duckburg. No characters have been added to that Universe since Barks retired.
As to the Italian Duckburg Universe, which I know is much vaster and complex than what Barks used... these stories were never seen in America. Certainly not when I was young, and not even when I was first doing Duck comics for Gladstone and Egmont in 1987-2005. Gemstone used the Italian stories in a Donald digest for a year or two, but I never received any of those.
So, fact #1: I'm sorry to admit it, but I don't know ANYTHING about the wonderful Italian Duckburg world. How could I? It was never seen here or anywhere in English. Egmont publishes many Italian stories in Europe in their many digest-size comics, but I can't read any of those even if I had any. Of those I've seen during my trips, I admire the art (though it's VERY different in style from any Duckburg art ever seen in America), and I see that there are characters being used whom I don't know. But I don't know a blessed thing about any of them, so I can't very well use them in stories. But even if I learned who they were and *wanted* to put these great Italian characters into stories, I would be prevented by...
Fact #2: I am not allowed to use any characters except those from the Barks universe which is the "universe" that is used in the Duck comic magazines published by my employer Egmont. Outside of Italy, there are TWO types of Duck comics -- the larger magazine style (the classic American-style "comic book") and the small digest-size booklets. The magazines use the Barksian stories, the digests use the Italian stories. There is NO crossing or mixing of these two universes, probably because of the striking difference in the Italian art style. And I am employed exclusively by the magazine division. So I am limited to using the American/Barks universe.
But... if you know me, you know that the only reason I got into this line of work is due to my lifelong love of *only* the Barks Duck comics. So this limitation isn't a problem for me. Perhaps if the Italian stories had ever been published in America, I'd love those characters also -- it's impossible to know.