And wasn't there a Marco Rota story that reused the premise of Voodoo Hoodoo? Except Donald was actually shrinking after being exposed to an old African mystic ball?
3. The Road To Mandalay written by Dave Rawson and Pat McGreal. Two versions, both by Egmont, made no more than 2 years apart. Version 1 and version 2. Why?? I suspect there is an interesting story behind why these two versions happened. Does anyone know more about this?
Yes. "On the Ball," as it was initially called, was originally commissioned as a special story for a single Asian Egmont affiliate, where the relevant issue of the local weekly (not in Inducks—not sure which Asian country) came with a special gift: a buildable model of the magic sphere that appears in the story.
My memory is a little rusty, but I believe that the gift actually came first: the Asian publisher figured out that they could give away an assembly kit to build such a sphere, and they asked Copenhagen for a story starring both Donald AND Mickey with the thing as a central magical object. Since the story was only planned for publication in that one country, its art was assigned to be drawn by Tino Santanach, who drew a lot of such special regional stuff.
It might have disappeared after its Asian publication, but my editor at Gladstone heard about it from its writers and decided to order it for American publication, even though we had no way of giving away a sphere assembly kit in our comic.
When European Egmont publishers saw the American edition, they got the idea of using the story too, but—apparently—nobody wanted the sphere to look as it did in the Asian comic, and they liked the idea of a Donald/Mickey crossover being drawn by one of the most popular "star" artists of the time, so it was given a new code, a new title ("The Road to Mandalay"), and reassigned to Ferioli to draw. The European publishers paid Copenhagen to produce it a second time; it was no accident.
3. The Road To Mandalay written by Dave Rawson and Pat McGreal. Two versions, both by Egmont, made no more than 2 years apart. Version 1 and version 2. Why?? I suspect there is an interesting story behind why these two versions happened. Does anyone know more about this?
Yes. "On the Ball," as it was initially called, was originally commissioned as a special story for a single Asian Egmont affiliate, where the relevant issue of the local weekly (not in Inducks—not sure which Asian country) came with a special gift: a buildable model of the magic sphere that appears in the story.
My memory is a little rusty, but I believe that the gift actually came first: the Asian publisher figured out that they could give away an assembly kit to build such a sphere, and they asked Copenhagen for a story starring both Donald AND Mickey with the thing as a central magical object. Since the story was only planned for publication in that one country, its art was assigned to be drawn by Tino Santanach, who drew a lot of such special regional stuff.
It might have disappeared after its Asian publication, but my editor at Gladstone heard about it from its writers and decided to order it for American publication, even though we had no way of giving away a sphere assembly kit in our comic.
When European Egmont publishers saw the American edition, they got the idea of using the story too, but—apparently—nobody wanted the sphere to look as it did in the Asian comic, and they liked the idea of a Donald/Mickey crossover being drawn by one of the most popular "star" artists of the time, so it was given a new code, a new title ("The Road to Mandalay"), and reassigned to Ferioli to draw. The European publishers paid Copenhagen to produce it a second time; it was no accident.
Wow, that's quite a backstory. Fascinating that Egmont had to see an American edition of a story produced by one of their own affiliates before thinking, "Hey -- maybe we should publish this in all the Nordic countries!"
The decision to do a new version for Scandinavian publication must have happened pretty quickly, too -- Mickey and Donald #7 is dated September 1996 on the cover and indicia. From what I know about American comic book publication, this date/month does not refer to when the book was actually published, but to 2 months or so later (I forget the reason why). So if M&D #7 came out around July of 1996, that means it took around three months to get the Ferioli-redrawn version out in the Scandinavian weekly, by October 8, 1996.
Thank you, Ramapith ! That's a very interesting backstory! So had Gladstone not reprinted the original version, it would not be listen on inducks right now. I wonder if there are any D-coded stories that were only printed in Asia and are not listed on inducks.
Fascinating that Egmont had to see an American edition of a story produced by one of their own affiliates before thinking, "Hey -- maybe we should publish this in all the Nordic countries!"
The decision to do a new version for Scandinavian publication must have happened pretty quickly, too [...] if M&D #7 came out around July of 1996, that means it took around three months to get the Ferioli-redrawn version out in the Scandinavian weekly, by October 8, 1996.
In that case, my rusty memory is in error; I thought I'd recalled other Euro-publishers as having seen the American edition, but if they published the new one just a few months later, then the lead time doesn't make sense.
I'm guessing that an Egmont regional meeting, the Euro-publishers were simply told about the American edition as an upcoming thing, or were even shown the Asian edition as a proof of concept (because the Euro-comics often give away free gifts as well).
Either way, though, this much is certain—the first version of the story was made expressly for a remote Egmont affiliate in Asia, and then it picked up unexpected interest from the USA and from Egmont's larger European publishers.
And wasn't there a Marco Rota story that reused the premise of Voodoo Hoodoo? Except Donald was actually shrinking after being exposed to an old African mystic ball?
For what it's worth, the classsic computer game Voodoo Castle features a shrinking spell. It's definitely a thing, and I doubt Rota had Barks in mind when he wrote that story.