My favorite cover with "all the characters" is the one that got partially reprinted on the cover of BOOM's "Walt Disney's Christmas Classics 1"--scroll down the INDUCKS page and see the whole thing in all its glory! And note the fascinating character replacements/deletions in the Dutch version!
And note the fascinating character replacements/deletions in the Dutch version!
Interesting. I'd heard about the "unofficially dead" designation that Fethry and Ludwig carry at Egmont, but didn't realize they also don't acknowledge Brigitta's existence. And why remove The Blot?
And note the fascinating character replacements/deletions in the Dutch version!
Interesting. I'd heard about the "unofficially dead" designation that Fethry and Ludwig carry at Egmont, but didn't realize they also don't acknowledge Brigitta's existence. And why remove The Blot?
But...that's the Dutch version, not an Egmont version, of the cover. Ehapa (Germany) and Sanoma (Finland) were both fine with the Italian original.
Don't know why the Dutch took out Fethry and Ludwig. Rob, any thoughts? If they had wanted to include characters used in stories in the book, they would have used Brer Bear and Li'l Wolf, not Panchito and José. I see that in the Dutch comic in which this illustration was printed on the first interior page (as distinct from the Dutch comic in which it was printed on the cover), the actual cover also has a character replacement, with Gladstone substituted for Fethry. The Dutch are not anti-Fethry, though--he's certainly appeared in Dutch publications, as recently as last year, and it looks like he's also been used by Dutch writers. Brigitta and Ludwig have also shown up in Dutch comics recently, though I don't know whether they've been used by Dutch writers.
I'm personally happy to have Brigitta erased, though I think they should have replaced her with another female character. Maybe they thought the Blot was too menacing for a happy Christmas picture? Or that it didn't make sense to show him menacing José?
Interesting. I'd heard about the "unofficially dead" designation that Fethry and Ludwig carry at Egmont, but didn't realize they also don't acknowledge Brigitta's existence. And why remove The Blot?
But...that's the Dutch version, not an Egmont version, of the cover. Ehapa (Germany) and Sanoma (Finland) were both fine with the Italian original.
Oops, you're right, got my publishers mixed up there. Which makes the decision to remove Fethry and Ludwig even more inexplicable; as far as I know, the Dutch are okay with them.
The Dutch publishers were (and mostly still are) very much opposed to the use of Ludwig, Fethry and Brigitta and Rockerduck in Dutch publications (similar to Egmont's approach), except for the "Pocketbooks" which only print Dutch translations of Italian stories. Editor in chief Thom Roep particularly disliked the characters, and only after Roep retired a few years ago, there has been an attempt to introduce Fethry to the broader Dutch public with a special issue of "Donald Duck Extra" (a monthly magazine that's separate from the more popular Weekly magazine, and only prints D-coded stories) that explains who the character is ( inducks.org/issue.php?c=nl%2FDE2015X12#c ). They later did the same with Brigitta, and since then the two characters have occasionally appeared in the Donald Duck Extra magazine, but there's still no sign of them in the main Weeklies. They have never appeared in any Dutch (H-coded) stories, and it's very unlikely that they ever will. And since the Weeklies are still by far the most popular and well-known publication of these stories in the Netherlands, they remain very obscure.
The practice of replacing Ludwig, Fethry, Brigitta, etc. with more familiar characters happened quite a lot, even in entire stories, where Ludwig was replaced with Gyro or Donald.
Last Edit: Jan 1, 2019 22:10:38 GMT by Scroogerello
The Dutch publishers were (and mostly still are) very much opposed to the use of Ludwig, Fethry and Brigitta and Rockerduck in Dutch publications (similar to Egmont's approach), except for the "Pocketbooks" which only print Dutch translations of Italian stories. Editor in chief Thom Roep particularly disliked the characters, and only after Roep retired a few years ago, there has been an attempt to introduce Fethry to the broader Dutch public with a special issue of "Donald Duck Extra" (a monthly magazine that's separate from the more popular Weekly magazine, and only prints D-coded stories) that explains who the character is ( inducks.org/issue.php?c=nl%2FDE2015X12#c ). They later did the same with Brigitta, and since then the two characters have occasionally appeared in the Donald Duck Extra magazine, but there's still no sign of them in the main Weeklies. They have never appeared in any Dutch (H-coded) stories, and it's very unlikely that they ever will. And since the Weeklies are still by far the most popular and well-known publication of these stories in the Netherlands, they remain very obscure.
The practice of replacing Ludwig, Fethry, Brigitta, etc. with more familiar characters happened quite a lot, even in entire stories, where Ludwig was replaced with Gyro or Donald.
Very interesting! Thanks for filling us in.
I said Dutch writers may have used Fethry because I ran across the INDUCKS page for this story by Geradts--a 2010 story which also features Launchpad! But that may well be the single exception to the "no Fethry in H-coded stories" rule. And it certainly wasn't a normal story--it seems to have been published in single pages, somehow associated with those cool Duck stamps (some of which I've actually bought on eBay!).
Personally, I wouldn't miss Brigitta in the least, but Fethry exists in my mental Duckworld so that Tabby might make sarcastic comments about him, and Ludwig's been a resident of my mental Duckburg since my 1960's American childhood, when he appeared along with the central cast in comics I read.
Fascinating to see the panels you post! My only experience of Dutch publishers changing the *art* of a story has been in Sinterklaas stories: changing Christmas elements to Sinterklaas-related elements, including changing a Santa in a street scene to a Sinterklaas. The most striking of these changes to me was the redoing of Barks' story where Donald roasts the Christmas turkey on the point of his rocket: the turkey is changed, throughout the story, into a giant taai-taai cookie! GeoX covered that one on his blog.
In the second excerpt you post, where Ludwig is replaced with Donald, who is that character who is replaced by Gladstone?
I said Dutch writers may have used Fethry because I ran across the INDUCKS page for this story by Geradts--a 2010 story which also features Launchpad! But that may well be the single exception to the "no Fethry in H-coded stories" rule. And it certainly wasn't a normal story--it seems to have been published in single pages, somehow associated with those cool Duck stamps (some of which I've actually bought on eBay!).
Ah, yes, similar to how Don Rosa would sometimes "sneak" Ludwig cameos into his stories, some Dutch artists have put little Fethries and Ludwigs into their art (usually in the background) over the years. Although he is not the artist of this particular story you mention, Jan-Roman Pikula is one artist who is especially known for putting these little Fethry/Ludwig cameos in his work, usually in crowd scenes and the like. In the story you mentioned, Fethry briefly appears as an unnamed employee at the Duckburg park. I think the writer might not have even intended Fethry to make a cameo, and it was purely an in-joke form the artist. Launchpad's appearance is perhaps even more unusual; as far as I know it's one of only two non-DuckTales comics in which Launchpad appears ( the other one is this Vicar Christmas story inducks.org/story.php?c=D+94039 ).
Fascinating to see the panels you post! My only experience of Dutch publishers changing the *art* of a story has been in Sinterklaas stories: changing Christmas elements to Sinterklaas-related elements, including changing a Santa in a street scene to a Sinterklaas. The most striking of these changes to me was the redoing of Barks' story where Donald roasts the Christmas turkey on the point of his rocket: the turkey is changed, throughout the story, into a giant taai-taai cookie! GeoX covered that one on his blog.
Haha, I've seen some of those, yes; the art change looks a little awkward, but back in the Olden Days, Sinterklaas was a far more relatable and popular holiday than Christmas among the average Dutch children, so the Dutch editors would change the art of US Christmas stories, until the 1970s/80s, when they started producing their own Sinterklaas related stories. Of course, those are also a thing of the past now, since about two or three years ago, the Dutch publishers have (understandably) stopped producing and publishing Sinterklaas related stories (or even acknowledging the feast's existence), due to controversies surrounding the Sinterklaas festivities in recent years.
In the second excerpt you post, where Ludwig is replaced with Donald, who is that character who is replaced by Gladstone?
And note the fascinating character replacements/deletions in the Dutch version!
Interesting. I'd heard about the "unofficially dead" designation that Fethry and Ludwig carry at Egmont, but didn't realize they also don't acknowledge Brigitta's existence. And why remove The Blot?
Actually,Fethry isn’t “dead” in Egmont stories. Check out “Get Up And Go”,or “Birds of a Fethry”, both which has Fethry in a major role.
As far as I know it's one of only two non-DuckTales comics in which Launchpad appears ( the other one is this Vicar Christmas story inducks.org/story.php?c=D+94039 ).
Well, technically, he appeared in quite a few non-DT stories… namely, Darkwing Duck comics!
More seriously, the Vicar story and this one may be the only ones to use Launchpad in an openly non-DT context, but there's quite a few stories nominally under the DT brand that use him alongside a Donald who's not at all in the navy, and wears his usual costume. William Van Horn made several, I believe, and he wasn't alone. These stories use the DT cast but clearly don't take place during the timeframe of the TV series, but rather afterwards, when Duckburg has returned to the comic status-quo.
Per INDUCKS, Launchpad has cameos in several non-DT "big anniversary stories". Suchas…
And finally, there's a series of French one-pagers starring Launchpad (i.e.), which also occasionally use Donald, and, that I know of, never featured any other DT-specific characters like Doofus or Webby. Most strikingly, these don't even bear the DuckTales logo — INDUCKS has them down as DuckTales stories, but they seem to have declared this purely on the basis that Launchpad is in them. Which is, you know, fair enough, but when INDUCKS determines DuckTaleness by presence or absence of Launchpad, it becomes helplessly tautological to try and find any non-DT stories with Launchpad.
More seriously, the Vicar story and this one may be the only ones to use Launchpad in an openly non-DT context, but there's quite a few stories nominally under the DT brand that use him alongside a Donald who's not at all in the navy, and wears his usual costume. William Van Horn made several, I believe, and he wasn't alone.
As far as I know, William Van Horn never used Launchpad and Donald in the same story.
However, I'm willing to let Launchpad, uniquely among the DuckTales '87-specific characters, into my headcanon, since he doesn't unduly disrupt general comics continuity. You can take him or leave him, assume he works for Scrooge but interacts with him minimally, assume he test-flies Gyro's aviation-related inventions, whatever works for you. The same can't easily be said about Beakley, Webby, Ma Beagle and her dissimilar sons, etc. I suppose if you really wanted you could have Doofus be a Woodchuck in HD&L's troop and make Duckworth Scrooge's regular butler (I do like him better than "Quackmore") the way Van Horn did in a non-DuckTales story, but that's about it.
The same can't easily be said about Beakley, Webby, Ma Beagle and her dissimilar sons, etc. I suppose you could have Doofus be a Woodchuck in HD&L's troop and make Duckworth Scrooge's main butler (I do like him better than "Quackmore") if you really wanted, but that's about it.
I dunno. I mean, obviously, Beakley and Webby only work as having been introduced through DuckTales; they can't have been off in the background during Barks stories and other pre-DT material. But… Ma Beagle and her dissimilar sons aren't different from any of the gimmick-Beagles the comics have introduced over the years (if Tic-Tac-Toe, Supersensitive and Boom-Boom, why not Bouncer or Bigtime?). And there's no contradiction in Duckworth being the butler of McDuck Manor while Quackmore works at the Bin.
And there's no contradiction in Duckworth being the butler of McDuck Manor while Quackmore works at the Bin.
*Two* butlers? Scrooge would never indulge in such extravagance! (Actually the idea that he would pay the salary of even one butler seems a bit out-of-character; except for the last chapter of Life of Scrooge, which was based on Christmas on Bear Mountain, did Rosa ever give Scrooge a butler? Rosa's Scrooge lived in the Bin so as to avoid having to pay additional property taxes and utilities).
*Two* butlers? Scrooge would never indulge in such extravagance! (Actually the idea that he would pay the salary of even one butler seems a bit out-of-character; except for the last chapter of Life of Scrooge, which was based on Christmas on Bear Mountain, did Rosa ever give Scrooge a butler? Rosa's Scrooge lived in the Bin so as to avoid having to pay additional property taxes and utilities).
My guess would be that he hired Duckworth during his post-Empire-Builder, pre-Richest Duck state — presumably he got him and Jenkins wholesale alongside McDuck Manor itself — but unlike Jenkins, Duckworth was such a loyal and dependable man that Scrooge didn't have the heart to fire him, though I imagine he did halve his salary.
Quackmore, meanwhile, had been working at the Bin since Donald's childhood.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 2, 2019 21:38:37 GMT
I honestly do not understand this closure of the Dutch editors to this or that character. Just...why? I can understand trying to preserve a certain way of developing the storytelling or managing the art. (I do not approve it, for it prevents any serious innovations, but at least I can understand it.) But why interdicting to use a Ludwig or a Fethry? This I really do not get. Bah.
I said Dutch writers may have used Fethry because I ran across the INDUCKS page for this story by Geradts--a 2010 story which also features Launchpad! But that may well be the single exception to the "no Fethry in H-coded stories" rule. And it certainly wasn't a normal story--it seems to have been published in single pages, somehow associated with those cool Duck stamps (some of which I've actually bought on eBay!).
Ah, yes, similar to how Don Rosa would sometimes "sneak" Ludwig cameos into his stories, some Dutch artists have put little Fethries and Ludwigs into their art (usually in the background) over the years. Although he is not the artist of this particular story you mention, Jan-Roman Pikula is one artist who is especially known for putting these little Fethry/Ludwig cameos in his work, usually in crowd scenes and the like. In the story you mentioned, Fethry briefly appears as an unnamed employee at the Duckburg park. I think the writer might not have even intended Fethry to make a cameo, and it was purely an in-joke form the artist. Launchpad's appearance is perhaps even more unusual; as far as I know it's one of only two non-DuckTales comics in which Launchpad appears ( the other one is this Vicar Christmas story inducks.org/story.php?c=D+94039 ).
That's interesting, about the sneaked-in cameos in the art. Thanks for the info!