Oh, sure, I was winking so hard, so often, my eyebulb got outta joint. But it hopefully wasn't too noticeable. After all, if the reader was not familiar with the Barks originals, how could he spot the winking? I was winking only at the Barks fans. But I originally thought that ONLY Barks fans would read the series -- I was stunned when, in America, it turned out that most readers were not Barks/Duck fans at all, and were only reading it due to the many kindly reviews being received. I would have *never* thought that anyone but a Barks fan/scholar would like the thing!

By the way, I think I finally grasp the idea of the “outside writing” referred to above — that being how my entire “Life of $crooge” series is controlled, not by an editor, but by Barks’ work of over half-a-century ago, my sole purpose being to bring all those various factoids into a single narrative. Okay. Sometimes I’m a bit thick!

Exactly. And what struck me as particularly good about the story was the way that I did not think that a reader who didn't already KNOW that was your purpose would be able to tell from the story, which I think is impressive.

Ed differed slightly, in that he felt that there were some examples where the story was openly winking at the reader about the Barks references. He didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but he thought it was noticeable, where I did not.

Thanks much for the quick "Hiya" to my son. He was quite excited when I showed it to him.

Now get these guys to start collecting all your work into some trades, darn it. $6.95 for each Rosa story is gonna kill me.

Aha. That sounds logical. Well, maybe so! Potentially good figgering.
By the way, I think I finally grasp the idea of the "outside writing" referred to above -- that being how my entire "Life of $crooge" series is controlled, not by an editor, but by Barks' work of over half-a-century ago, my sole purpose being to bring all those various factoids into a single narrative. Okay. Sometimes I'm a bit thick!

But… sounds like you think there was an Eisner nomination for the first volume last year. No, ’twas not. And I was frankly astounded that Gemstone got NO recognition for that splendid job… or for such a tremendously popular book. For example, it was Bud Plant’s best-selling comic-story collection for 2005, including new material, not just reprints, outselling any of the “graphic novels” or comics albums or whatever which did get nominations. Go figger.
And if the collected original 12 stories got no nomination, then the subsequent, less focused stories certainly won’t

I figured they overlooked the first trade collection because of the Eisner they gave for the series as Best Continuing Series. Of the storylines that won Eisners for Best Serialized Story, only two also won for Best Graphic Novel - Reprint (and one of them was the Bone Vol. 1 TPB, which collected the ENTIRE Bone run, including the Eisner-winning storyline)

Now a graphic novel with such a cool and unique idea as to collect all the tie-in stories to Life and Times? I think that should have a good shot at an Eisner nomination!

Thanks. But sorry it was broken up & stretched over 3 monthly editions! My stories are intended to only be stretched over 2 weeks in the weekly Euro editions, or collected into a single part story that they have alternate art to accomodate.

"He was excited when I told him I was talking, on the computer, to the man that wrote & drew the story. If I could bother to ask you to just say, “Hi Zack” back on this thread, he would think it’s the coolest thing."

I suspect your offspring is "easily amused" if a hello from me would impress him, but anything for a Duckfan!
HIYA, ZACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But... sounds like you think there was an Eisner nomination for the first volume last year. No, 'twas not. And I was frankly astounded that Gemstone got NO recognition for that splendid job... or for such a tremendously popular book. For example, it was Bud Plant's best-selling comic-story collection for 2005, including new material, not just reprints, outselling any of the "graphic novels" or comics albums or whatever which did get nominations. Go figger.
And if the collected original 12 stories got no nomination, then the subsequent, less focused stories certainly won't.
Notice also that my pal Todd Klein, who again (naturally) won for lettering, his award listed all the comics and books he worked on last year... EXCEPT my Duck stories, which he does voluntarilly as a Duckfan. And in previous years they used to list my Duck stories under his work. Again, go figger.

>>>>And they don’t even have plans to do *that* as far as I know.

Well, darn it. All I have of your work is the stuff that Gladstone put out (the 4 Life & Times... books and the 4 Uncle Scrooge Adventures books), plus a few of the newer Gemstone books. I was hoping there were plans to start reprinting all of your work, putting them together in nice collections, similar to what Gladstone did (or in any collected format for that matter). I do plan on picking up the Life & Times Companion.

Just wanted to let you know that my son absolutely loves your "The Magnificent Seven Caballeros" story (and I'm quite fond of it too). He's been cracking up over it. He was excited when I told him I was talking, on the computer, to the man that wrote & drew the story.

If I could bother to ask you to just say, "Hi Zack" back on this thread, he would think it's the coolest thing.

Thanks again and take care.

I wouldn't be surprised if another Eisner nomination happened as a result of the release of the Companion.

Well, I guess so... but you'll hafta tell me how I could prove it.
Why am I here? I have an autoGoogle set up to search the internet for mentions of "don rosa". Naturally, since 99.999% of such references are posted by Europeans, I can't read many of them, but this one I could. So...

>>>>Are there any plans to collect & release all of the more recent Duck stuff you have done over the last few years?

You might know (?) that Gemstone will release the Life & Times of $crooge COMPANION next month, and I expect they'll do as great a job on that as on the first volume. But... I would expect you might ask about a collection of all my stuff starting from the beginning circa 1987. But you're asking about only the "more recent" stories? You didn't buy them when Gemstone printed them in the last year or two? Well, then, even if they start a "DON ROSA LIBRARY", it would take them some time to get around to reprinting the stuff they just printed in the past 12-18 months. And they don't even have plans to do *that* as far as I know.

"Outside writing"? As in an editor telling me what to do or not to do? No, everything in that series (and in all my stories) is purely my own work. Sometimes my editor will tell me to lengthen or shorten a sequence, but that's all. If you mean "outside writing" in the sense that I am controlled by what Barks did 50 years ago, yes, you're 100% correct!

>>>There are quite a few things that are introduced as though they are going somewhere, but then vanish without trace.

??? Like what? (I suspect you refer to references to Barks stories or characters that I expect Barks experts to understand without me completing the reference. Remember, I work directly for the European market where virtually everyone, including the man-in-the-street, are totally familiar with Barks' stories. There is NOTHING in America as universally popular with EVERY living soul as Barks' Ducks are in Europe. Nothing.)

So you might want to check out recent back issues of Gemstone's Uncle Scrooge prestige title.

I really need to move right over to "buying trades." Saves money over the floppies. That said, Gemsonte's prestige-format Scrooge comics aren't a bad deal either.

I almost stopped buying comics in the 90's because of what I call the "Jugs & Demons" days. I was tired of all the angst, but it was the Rosa stories that made me laugh out loud. "The Son of the Sun" was what got me hooked back onto the ducks & kept me in comics for at least 10 years.

In the words of my man, Obelix, "Zygakly!"
I couldn't agree with you more.
When you have poor writing, and continuity is used as a crutch to attempt to cover up the failings of the writer, it's awful.
When, on the other hand, you have a great storyteller who's using continuity as a solid framework to build a story on... well, that's another thing again.

This is some great comic book storytelling right here.