I was going to debate it in the DT17 thread (no, not really, but I couldn’t resist!) but overall, I still like most of Rosa’s work, despite the fact that it’s very fan-fictionish looking at it again. If there’s anything negative about it, it’s that Rosa’s popularity has overshadowed many other artists and writers who have created much more polished and professional work that is more easily accessible to new readers.
I was going to debate it in the DT17 thread (no, not really, but I couldn’t resist!) but overall, I still like most of Rosa’s work, despite the fact that it’s very fan-fictionish looking at it again. If there’s anything negative about it, it’s that Rosa’s popularity has overshadowed many other artists and writers who have created much more polished and professional work that is more easily accessible to new readers.
I agree with this view, completely. If I had wanted Robert Crumb to draw Donald Duck, I'd have asked HIM to do it. And his story writing leaves a lot to be desired as well. I like Phil DaLara's, Dick Moores', Paul Murry's, and even Riley Thompson's Donald Duck better than Rosa's, even though I don't like ANY of their styles for Donald. I prefer lots of fans' drawings of Donald to Rosa's.
I was going to debate it in the DT17 thread (no, not really, but I couldn’t resist!) but overall, I still like most of Rosa’s work, despite the fact that it’s very fan-fictionish looking at it again. If there’s anything negative about it, it’s that Rosa’s popularity has overshadowed many other artists and writers who have created much more polished and professional work that is more easily accessible to new readers.
I agree with this view, completely. If I had wanted Robert Crumb to draw Donald Duck, I'd have asked HIM to do it. And his story writing leaves a lot to be desired as well. I like Phil DaLara's, Dick Moores', Paul Murry's, and even Riley Thompson's Donald Duck better than Rosa's, even though I don't like ANY of their styles for Donald. I prefer lots of fans' drawings of Donald to Rosa's.
I also said that I like Rosa’s work. His stories are entertaining, just more so to people who know all the Barks references he’s making. Barks, Jippes, Van Horn, Scarpa and others make a better “first Duck story” because they’re not bogged down in absolute continuity. Don Rosa’s art is different, but not bad. Now say, Kay Wright or any other number of Whitman era artists, those stories are awful to look at. Rosa’s may not be “by the book” Disney, but they aren’t terrible. I just wouldn’t put Rosa on a pedestal like others do.
I think he's good at writing adventurous stories. I generally like his humor, even though it's hit or miss at times. His continuity-references never really super-bothered me. Continuity-references are good when they are appropriate, when it makes sense for a character to connect what happens to something that has happened before. It's nice to see that stories take place in the same universe, and aren't isolated in their own bubble. That's realistic in the right way. I've never liked adding continuity "just because", but I would need be shown some examples of Rosa doing that in order to comment on them.
All in all, I would say that my view of Rosa's continuity-use is a positive one. I (mostly) like how he crafted Lo$ around continuity, and I think Gyro's First Invention is another great example of tying together a few seemingly unrelated events and creating something new out of them. I've seen people here say that continuity inhibits creativity and hinders potentially great stories. I'd like to point out that the opposite can be true - limitations and obstacles force people to be even more creative to work around those problems.
On a continuity-related note, Rosa's Duck family tree is probably what made me interested in the Duck universe for real. Suddenly Donald wasn't just a cartoon duck - he had... roots, I guess. The universe felt bigger and more real, and that really interested me. Rules and continuity are a good thing.
I don't think every story should have to be a good "first Duck story". There's nothing wrong with a story building on another; otherwise we would stand still and not move forward. Anyways, when Rosa does indeed do stories that build on other stories, there's always a quick recap of them. (If I'm wrong about that, please point me towards the examples.)
I think the reason Rosa gets the level of criticism that he does is likely because of his popularity and the fact that Egmont treats his stories as the word of god. I like when a universe has rules and continuity, but I still don't think they should single out Rosa's work like that. However, it is Egmont that has treated Rosa's work like this - not Rosa himself. Rosa should be criticized for his stories (which I know most of you do) - not for how Egmont (and possibly others) market his stories.
About Rosa's art: I like it. I like the details, although I admit there's sometimes too much of it distracting from where the reader's focus should be. I can see why people call his poses "stiff", but it's not so bad that it bothers me. I should say that I'm not a super-fan of how he draws Donald. I mean, I like his Scrooge, and I know Scrooge is just Donald with spectacles and whiskers... but somehow, his Donald looks odd to me... I can't quite put my finger on it.
I disagree with comparing his style to Robert Crumb's. Sure, Rosa draws a lot of details and his lines are thicker than most other Duck artists. But I'd say that's where the similarities end.
However, I should say that since I grew up with Rosa's work, there might be some nostalgia blinding me. That being said, if someone were to point at something I liked as a kid and say "this is bad because [...]", there is a good chance I would agree - if the argument is convincing, that is. I'm interested in the truth - not "being right". Also, discussions are fun.
Rosa writes Disney comics for people who don't like Disney comics. This makes him the shortest link between mainstream American comics culture and Disney comics culture. And that makes for some funky results. I totally understand why he's a divisive figure at times. If anything, he's not divisive enough.
His work is an inherent paradox, in that the elements that make him stand out from other artists (an 'epic' tone, elements of realism, postmodernism, adult humor) bring out both the best and the worst in him at different times.
For me personally, Rosa's work was one of the things that catapulted me into becoming a fan myself. And I've been trying to both incorporate and distance myself from his ideas ever since. I apologize for every time I inadvertently turn a thread into a discussion about Rosa and/or headcanon. It's Godwin's Law, man. I need to start a fan journal or something.
On a related note, I do wish he'd stop playing the auteur role so many years after he's put down the pen. I appreciate his insights, but his need to always have the last say is a little off-putting. The idolatry he enjoys makes it worse. Death of the author, etcetera.
In short: yay or nay, there's no getting around the guy.
Rosa writes Disney comics for people who don't like Disney comics.
(postmodernism)
On a related note, I do wish he'd stop playing the auteur role so many years after he's put down the pen. I appreciate his insights, but his need to always have the last say is a little off-putting. The idolatry he enjoys makes it worse. Death of the author, etcetera.
I want to ask you about these points. "Rosa writes Disney comics for people who don't like Disney comics." What does that mean?
And I don't think I understand what you mean when you say that Rosa uses postmodernism.
What's this about Rosa playing auteur? I'm unfamiliar with this.
Rosa's chief strengths are his thorough grounding in classic movies (which gives a sweepingly cinematic style to some of his action scenes--the final showdown in "A Letter from Home" is a particularly memorable example), his knack for using his engineering background to come up with some truly clever and unique plots ("A Matter of Some Gravity," "Treasure Under Glass," the various Omnisolve stories), and his sheer enthusiasm for the Duck characters.
Rosa's chief weaknesses, which I've belabored on multiple occasions, include his his relentless preoccupation with continuity and with character "consistency," which got worse and worse as he became more self-conscious of his international reputation as the One True Guardian of the Ducks. By insisting that Donald must always be depressed and frustrated, that Scrooge must always be tough and cranky, and the Nephews must always be noble to the point of self-righteousness, he harmed his stories by making his character dynamics grindingly predictable, and ironically made the characters seem less real than they would have if he had allowed them to be a little more changeable--like real people are.
Rosa's distractingly and often grotesquely over-detailed artwork is another weakness of his, although during his pre-Life-of-Scrooge period at Egmont he managed to reach a pretty good artistic balance--stories like "Treasure Under Glass" and "Island at the Edge of Time" are lacking in the stiffer and more Barks-imitative look of his earliest Gladstone stories, and also haven't veered as far into excessive shading, weird anatomical detail, and other off-putting artistic quirks that marked his later stories.
Rosa's wordiness is another of his weaknesses; his Mad-Magazine-influenced sense of verbal humor (elaborate and long-winded build-up to a brief punch-line) can be pretty funny at times, but it also causes him to take multiple panels and/or a painful excess of dialogue to execute many of his gags (like the "It'll take more than bullets before it's time for me to run" bit in "The Empire-Builder from Calisota" or the "instrument of destruction" lawyer joke in "Lost Charts of Columbus"). However, his wordiness is a lot worse in his "serious" scenes--whether it's his long, long paragraphs of quasi-historical exposition, or his attempts at meaningful character-building dialogue--Scrooge's supposed apotheosis at the end of the "Richest Duck in the World" (Rosa's extended version), where he's speechifying about great men staying active, visions, etc., is one of the absolute worst examples (and one of the most fanfic-y scenes in all of Rosa's work).
In short, Rosa is to Duck comics what Kenneth Branagh is to Shakespeare: a talented guy with sadly limited artistic discipline, a flair for the dramatic, an obsession with heavy-handedly spelling out his characters' inner lives, and a burning desire to provide the "definitive" interpretation of someone else's work.
At his best, Rosa is definitely the most ambitious Disney comics creator. His imagination isn't limited by this is my job syndrome. You can tell he sincerely loves the source material. Perhaps, too much. At times, his work can be pedantic and limited by what he considers Duck comics as influenced by Barks. Scrooge is a superhero, a myth. Donald is the depressed, jealous suffering nephew. The nephews are little saints. Goldie is some mythical Klondike siren. And he really could mishandle Donald. I think djnyr nailed it. He wrote the characters like they were chiseled in stone. Mustn't deviate. Even if Barks did.
However, his plots were great. They were movie level. Bold, dramatic. His artwork is superb. Detailed like a mosaic. You can instantly tell a Rosa story. Which is a plus.
I will say, I can completely understand why he is exasperating to some. He claims to be firmly Barks but he picks and chooses which parts of Barks he follows and which parts he ignores to weave his tapestry. The statement about writing Disney comics for non-Disney comics readers is apt. His views on canon still reverberates through the fandom for better or for worse. But I am glad we had him. The Disney comics world would be poorer without him.
I'm firmly in the pro-Rosa camp, though I don't find his every joke funny, his every decision satisfying. But I thoroughly enjoy his take on the Duckworld. I love almost all his stories and love to reread them. Most of the humor works for me and the overall view of the characters fits for me. I honestly don't know what I would say about his art if I hadn't encountered it almost entirely in stories he wrote; because it's all a package for me, his art gets across his own plot and dialogue and jokes so well, I love his art, too.
His work greatly enriches the Duck comics universe. Yes, I think other creators should feel free to ignore his continuity and dream up their own stories, including backstories, that do not fit with Rosa's. But it's a gift to the Disney comics world that someone with that much love of the Barksian Duckworld and that much care for historical accuracy went down that crazy, obsessive path that led to the Life & Times and the Rosa family tree. Yes, yes, he loves his version of Barks's Ducks; still, he demonstrably loves what he finds in Barks.
I do think that the resentment of his Duckworldview has more to do with Rosa's huge popularity at the height of his work and with Egmont's editorial decisions than it does with any inherent stifling effect of one such comprehensive backstory/genealogy. Quite apart from Rosa's own attitudes about whether his version should be "definitive" (I've always read him as saying it shouldn't, though of course having obsessively worked it out he thinks it's the best!), the sheer existence of one creator's Great Narrative need not limit anyone else's creative choices.
Does everyone who dislikes Rosa's work wish that no one had ever been allowed to write a comprehensive backstory? It does seem that some people think that the very idea of a comprehensive backstory is an affront to the looser tradition of Disney comics, and that any comprehensive backstory would have this creativity-stifling effect that they lament. That's not convincing to me, and it's demonstrably not the case in Italian Duck comics, which didn't reorder its world in alignment with Rosa's family tree etc.
I myself mostly adhere to Rosa's backstory and genealogy, because I find them to be coherent and pleasing and to add depth to the characters and their world. At the same time, one of the things I most love about Disney comics worldwide is the fact that there is not any overall canon-enforcing entity. There is no other narrative world quite like Disney comics in this respect--not on this scale, in any case. It is DEEPLY COOL that we have this multi-layered narrative behemoth with countless intra-world contradictions, based on the same characters (differently interpreted). I want there to be people creating comics that diverge from Rosa's Great Narrative, and, of course, there are. Even Egmont allows authors to do stuff that violates Rosa's canon, e.g. setting stories in the post-1970 present. Italy goes on writing stories with Brigitta, and Egmont will reprint them. The Netherlands and Brazil can go their own way. Korhonen, who builds on Rosa, doesn't feel he has to adhere to Rosa's every spec.
Barks's Duckworld felt "real" to me in childhood; so did many of the fictional worlds I encountered in books and a few select movies. I'm temperamentally like Rosa in that I want a coherent single framework of history and family tree in the Duckworld that is "real" to me personally. Rosa's works quite well for me, so I've mostly adopted it. Stories are now only "real" in my headcanon if they fit in this framework. But that said, there are hundreds of stories by authors other than Barks and Rosa which have become "real" to me--sometimes with minor fudging, such as the mental erasure of post-1970 tech that is not crucial to the plot. AND there are dozens of Duck stories which cannot feel "real" to me because they don't fit in this framework which I yet also enjoy and reread. They are for me in the same category as Mouse stories. The Mouse characters never became "real" to me in childhood and haven't since, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying and rereading some Mouse stories.
I assume there are other people who don't need even a personal "canon" of what's real when it comes to Duck stories. That's great! I do, but that doesn't mean I want any one continuity to limit the creativity of comics creators.
I want to ask you about these points. "Rosa writes Disney comics for people who don't like Disney comics." What does that mean?
Well, it's mainly a provocative statement to get people thinking. But Rosa himself has said that he doesn't consider himself affiliated with Disney, that he's only a disciple of Carl Barks who happened to draw Disney characters. He tries to draw a line between his work and that of other artists. Is that fair? That's debatable, though I'm sure many of Rosa's contemporaries would agree. He certainly enjoys fame from comic circles beyond the Disney comics horizon (remember the Eisner award), and draws in fans who will otherwise never pick up a Disney comic in their lives.
I'm sure there's fans out there who consider Rosa as too 'out there', after growing up with Strobl, Lockman, Vicar, or Branca. The Dutch editors certainly did, until the late '10s.
And I don't think I understand what you mean when you say that Rosa uses postmodernism.
With postmodernism I mean a kind of self-awareness and self-referentiality that arose out of nerd cultures of the '70s and '80s. Comics and TV series that were essentially anthologies with the same cast (from superhero comics to science-fiction series) were reinterpreted as self-contained universe adhering to very specific laws. Rosa's tendencies to set his characters utterly in stone results from that, I think. For Barks, Scrooge and his adventures were the subject of his stories. For Rosa, Scrooge and his adventures were the object of his stories. So write could write a story like A Letter from Home, but he could never write The Magic Hourglass (or The Midas Touch, for that matter).
What's this about Rosa playing auteur? I'm unfamiliar with this.
Well that's a bit anecdotal and totally subjective, but Rosa doesn't like ambiguity about his stories. As the author, he certainly has the right to clarify his intent, but he seems to operate under the implicit assumption that his interpretation of his (and by extention Barks') work is the only correct one. As someone who likes to play around with Rosa's work, this is a little discouraging.
With the postmodernism, I think I see what you mean. It's like how Walt Disney (and probably Barks too) saw Mickey and Donald as actors, rather than characters. But instead, Don Rosa saw the characters as ... well, characters - people living in a fictional world, with a past and a future. If that's what you meant then I agree with it, but I wouldn't agree that that's postmodern. I'd call it Writing 101. (I do however agree that many other Disney comic-creators do not see it that way.)
About the auteur-thing, I see where he's coming from. If I wrote a story and someone interpreted it completely different to how I intended it, I would try to correct that. However, if your message to your readers isn't clear, there's probably a problem with your message - you weren't clear enough. That being said, I also like to "play around" with his work and interpret it in my own ways. I'm wondering why that is. The desire to play around with it probably stems from the work as is not being 100% satisfactory in the first place. Satisfaction is of course subjective; it depends on what a reader is looking for when reading a story. I, for example, crave a higher attention to consistency than other readers. This is likely from where my play aroundy-desires stem.
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This following part isn't a response to Duckfan's comment, but I found a continuity-reference in a Rosa story which I didn't enjoy. I just read Barks' A Cold Bargain, in which Scrooge acquires a sphere of Bombastium. Donald goes to hire a boat-crew for a trip to the South Pole, while a scientist scrapes a hole into the Bombastium. On what's most likely the next day, the Ducks board the boat and go to the South Pole. We're told that an ice cream company is willing to buy the Bombastium once the Ducks come home.
And then in Rosa's The Beagle Boys vs the Money Bin, we se the sphere of Bombastium (complete with hole) in Scrooge's freezer. When does this story take place? Well, it has to be after the scientist scraped a hole in the Bombastium, but it has to be before Scrooge sells it. Since Scrooge likely sold it as soon as he got home, it would have to be before they left for the South Pole. That only leaves the rest of the day that the scientist scraped a hole in the Bombastium. Which would be fine. However, in Rosa's story, Scrooge has spent the day researching some Egyptian treasure at the library. Shouldn't he be researching the South Pole instead? Especially since Barks' story implied that Scrooge hasn't been there before?
So basically, yeah... that Bombastium-reference in Rosa's story doesn't make super-sense and I don't like it. If Rosa knew what he was doing, he'd have Scrooge research potential other treasures on the South Pole that day. But he didn't. As it stands, the Bombastium-reference seems like it's just thrown in there "just because", and that Rosa's didn't consider the implications of such a reference. I don't like those. But as I said before, most of his references hasn't bothered me... at least not yet.
With the postmodernism, I think I see what you mean. It's like how Walt Disney (and probably Barks too) saw Mickey and Donald as actors, rather than characters. But instead, Don Rosa saw the characters as ... well, characters - people living in a fictional world, with a past and a future. If that's what you meant then I agree with it, but I wouldn't agree that that's postmodern. I'd call it Writing 101. (I do however agree that many other Disney comic-creators do not see it that way.)
This I can't agree with. Donald in Barks' comics (not least in Barks' best years) is a much fuller and more complex character than he ever was under Rosa. It feels strange to imply that Barks ignored "Writing 101" by writing Donald in different roles and moods from story to story.
I don't believe Barks saw Donald as an actor; I think he saw him as a versatile, human character. There is a difference. The Donald in Taliaferro's newspaper strips really is a generic everyman character for the most part, and replaceable with just about any other everyman character. Not so with Barks' Donald.