noth of Jutland - Folkeblad=People's Paper)
Headline: Don Rosa loves Donald Duck
Explanation of that:
He loves Donald Duck as much as the danes. But he's in dispair over the fact that his countryfolks in the USA no longer likes the hot-tempered duck. - By John Berge - Ritzau (One of the biggest danish pressagencys)
Under the photo a text says: Don Rosa is looked on by many as the best Donald Duck-drawer [note 1] of our time.
The wellknown Duck-drawer Don Rosa is topical at this time with The Quest for the Goldmill [note 2], of which danish readers allready know the first part, and which continues the next two weeks. [note 2]
Don Rosa is happy that he can continue to write and draw new stories for the european readers. Because the american readers -
to Don Rosas great annoyance - no longer reads the magazine [note 4]
"It's a bit strange. In America I live a quiet life in a village [note 5] where the neighbours have no idea what I am busy with. But in Scandinavia I'm almost a star", says Don Rosa.
His new story is called "The fight for Kalevala" in danish [note 6], and it's origin is the Finnish myth of Kalevala.
Rosa got the idea for the story when he visitted Finland 4 years ago and heard the myth about the magic mill, which can give the owner eternal wealth by making gold coins in an unending stream. Of course Uncle $crooge wants to get his hans on this Mill. That's the reason the tightwad, Uncle Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie go on a new adventure.
It was quite a work to fit the text into english. I had 3 translations to relate to, but I had good guiding and I had a competent proofreader.
In one way it's funny for an american to grab on to a national mythas this is. The special thing about the Kalevala is that it's written in a verse [note 7]. I wanted to keep that, says Don Ros. But the Finns have been very keen on it.
Both they and the norwegians have published the whole story as a book [note 8] , and when Don Rosa visitted Finland recently, the attention was immense. In Denmark it is is also being considered if the story should be published as a book. [note 9]
In spite of many years of drawing work Don Rosa claims that he is still a fan of Donald Duck.
- In a way, I sneeked into the business and had the chance to do a story 13 years ago. I had no idea, that i would do more. My great problem is that I work so slow.
- I use much time on the background-drawings, the layout and the details in the stories. If I had beem more professional I would have been able to do more stories.
The drawer Carl Barks, who is looked upon by many fans as the best ever, is still alive, 98 years old, and Don Rosa has made the Barks-puritans both happy and indignant with his sequels and developments [note 10] of classic Barks-stories
- Barks is my idol. He has drawn charecters and done stories which were important for me when I were a child, and it is a dream for me to do new stories with the same charecters, says Don Rosa, who met Carl Barks a couple of years ago.
-He invited me to a vist and showed me around his house. He talked about small and big, but not about the comics. Barks probably thinks it's sad that he didn't become popular untill after his career ended, but I think he values the credit of the posterity. I look at him as one of the greatest story tellers of this century, says Don Rosa.
[2: Quest for Kalevala]
[3: This was not true on the 24th, all 3 parts were out]
[4: They can't, there's no magazine at the moment in america publishing his and others stories]
[5: I wonder what they translated this from... is Loisville small enough to be a village? Or does Don live a distance from Louisville?]
[6:Just some lines ago they called it the Quest for...]
[7:Rhunometer]
[8: This is not true, as far as I know. The norwegains haven't published a book, the story was published in ussues 48 till 50 in all other Scandinavian countries than Finland. And nothing further till now]
[9: I doubt this, but I hope it will be true]
[10:Having trouble translating the word, I'd like to say that it is not meant to be negative in the article. When Egmont uses a synonym for it they say based on, in a quite negative way...]