Don Rosa

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Don Rosa at MegaCon 2012 in Orlando
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Don Rosa at Home, 2010

Keno Don Hugo Rosa (born June 29, 1951 in Louisville , Kentucky ) is an American comic book writer and illustrator . He is best known for its Disney - comics known. He also created the characters Lance Pertwillaby and Captain Kentucky . A total of 87 Disney stories were published by him from 1987, 17 of them in his magnum opus Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions (The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck) .

Rosa was awarded the Eisner Award twice, nominated several times for the Harvey Award and is considered the most popular living representative of his division. As a big fan of Carl Barks , he orientated himself strongly to his comics, which served him as a model in many ways; he is therefore often referred to as the "new Carl Barks".

Like Barks, Rosa is known for the extensive research he does before every comic in order to give his stories, which are often set against a historical background, a greater authenticity. His drawing style, on the other hand, is unusually edgy and unpolished for Disney comics due to a lack of professional training. Rosa is also known for his drawings, which are filled with many details, and the pronounced facial expressions of his figures.

With a few exceptions, he initially drew his Disney comics for the American publisher Gladstone , and from 1990 for the Danish Egmont publishing group.

biography

Don Rosa, 2004

Youth and Studies

Don Rosa is the grandson of Gioachino Rosa, who immigrated to the United States from Maniago in northern Italy in 1905, shortly after the birth of his son Hugo Rosa . His mother was German - Irish and also had Scottish ancestors.

Inspired by the comics collection of his sister Diana (* 1940) and enthusiastic about the stories of the Disney illustrator Carl Barks , which he read about a decade after their creation, he began to draw himself at the age of six. Barks' work was of particular importance to him even then; as a “real” part of his youth, they are the reason why he still settles his Disney stories in the 1950s. Some ideas of his youth, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, which he outlined at the age of eight years already as a comic and The Universal Solvent (dt. Journey to the Center of the Earth published) as Disney history, Rosa devoted later as a professional comic artist again. In later years he made drawings and caricatures for his school's school newspaper; in addition, a number of cartoons were created from 1966 to 1970 that were printed in the daily newspapers of his hometown The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times .

In 1969 Rosa began studying civil engineering at the University of Kentucky , where he also drew for the student newspaper. After initially contributing individual drawings and graphics for two years, his first commercial comic strips followed here - the strongly autobiographical Pertwillaby Papers . These appeared from 1971 in 127 episodes of four or five individual images each, which were combined to form larger stories, and, like all later Rosa comics, were also "inspired by the great Dagobert adventures of Barks". In doing so, he was already imitating his role model Barks by having extensive library research preceded his actual work in order to create authentic places for action and to incorporate a lot of background information. On the side he did some work for fanzines .

In 1973 he completed his studies with a Bachelor of Arts .

Early working life and marriage

After graduating, Rosa joined the Don Rosa Tile Company, founded in 1905 by his grandfather, which produced bricks and other building materials. It was around this time that Rosa began collecting comics on a large scale, so that today he owns one of the largest private comic collections in the United States. In 1980 he married the teacher Ann Payne, with whom he still lives today. You don't have any children.

As a part-time job he continued to draw and write for various fanzines and worked for the magazine The Rocket's Blast Comiccollector in the Information Center , where he answered various questions about comics. He later took over this department in full for 42 issues. He also published there from September 1976 to 1979 three stories by Lance Pertwillaby in individual episodes, which were, however, much more extensive than in the student newspaper - one of them remained unfinished with only two episodes. In particular, through his work in the information center, his fame increased in the fan scene. It was also thanks to this fact that from 1978 onwards he was able to publish a superhero parody called Captain Kentucky every week in the Louisville Times . The main character was Lance Pertwillaby's alter ego . However, according to her own statements, Rosa considers ordinary superhero comics to be “cultural fast food”; so he does not understand why they are being bought.

After three years and 150 episodes, he finished his work on the satirical comic strips in 1982 with the death of his main character because the salary did not seem sufficient to him. He had made up his mind never to draw comics again and merely continued his unfinished Pertwillaby story with the third episode; it begins with the protagonist waking up and realizing that his superhero career has only been a nightmare. In 1983, Rosa's Love and Rockets and Don Rosa's Comics & Stories, an anthology of previous Pertwillaby adventures, were published. While the former was a success, the collection suffered from such low demand that the third and final part never even hit the market. One of the reasons was the concentration of the American comic market at the time on superhero comics. For the same reason, all traditional Disney releases ceased to hit the American market in 1984. The newly founded Gladstone publishing house secured the rights to the publications a year later and was looking for new comic material that could be published.

Work for Gladstone and Oberon

In 1986, Rosa became aware of Gladstone-Verlag, which reprinted old classics by Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson , among others . He called on editor-in-chief Byron Erickson and declared that it was his "destiny to draw Uncle Scrooge-tales". Erickson, who only a few knew of Rosas previous Fanarbeiten, encouraged him to work on the story Son of the Sun (dt .: The gold of the Incas to start), the Rosa based on a Pertwillaby history prepared for Disney characters. Since he had never drawn these professionally before, he adopted many poses from old Barks comics. He also learned during the drawing process of his subsequent early works by drawing and slightly varying individual sequences. Son of the Sun appeared in Uncle Scrooge 219 in July 1987, was a resounding success in the fan scene and was nominated for the Harvey Award. After publishing five more comics with Gladstone, Rosa sold his construction company in 1988. He drew a total of 18 stories for the publisher, although the publisher achieved little extra income from Rosa's stories, which did not justify the high costs of his employment as a draftsman - regardless of his nonetheless below-average salary. Rosa also drew four comics for the Dutch publisher Oberon .

1989 disputes with the publisher ended the collaboration: Disney prevented Gladstone from returning submitted work to the authors. However, this was not acceptable to Rosa for ideological reasons. In addition, he earned half of his income from selling the original drawings to fans and was therefore vitally dependent on them. There was a brief engagement in television for the series DuckTales , for which he wrote a script , and Captain Balu and his daring crew , for which he wrote two scripts. He also completed two works originally intended for Gladstone and published them with Oberon. In the Disney Company, Gladstone the rights to the comics had in the meantime withdrawn and she published a short time itself, Rosas comic appeared The Money Pit (dt. The value of money ), whom he had also originally drawn for his old publisher. Since these individual orders brought in little money, he devoted himself to some of the construction projects of his former employees, who had in the meantime founded their own construction company.

Work for Egmont

Don Rosa in Helsinki , 2008

In 1990 Rosa contacted the Danish publisher Gutenberghus (now Egmont), then the largest Disney publisher in the world, who had already reprinted some of his works without his knowledge and distributed them in Europe with great success. The publisher therefore agreed to a collaboration and initially published the ten-page book The Master Landscapist (dt. The landscape architect ). Numerous other comics followed in the next few years, many of them sequels to Barks classics, which are much more popular in Europe than in the USA.

Rosa's final breakthrough as a draftsman came with the twelve-volume cycle Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck ( Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions ) , a biography of Dagobert Duck that Egmont asked him for in 1991 and on which he worked for a total of two years. In the following years Rosa also drew a total of five additional chapters; also the previously created stories Last sled to Dawson (dt. The last sled after Dawson ) and Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies (dt. The secret of the lucky ten ; was only published in 1995) are partly counted as part of the saga and were included in both previously published Edited volumes added. In addition, Rosa made an extensive family tree of the Duck family. Like the entire work, this is also controversial among fans, as Rosa was primarily based on the comics by Carl Barks, the inventor of Dagobert Duck, and only used the stories of other cartoonists if they did not contradict his ideas based on them; accordingly, there are contradictions to the stories of other artists. In order to include as much information as possible in the project, he discussed his design with Disney experts from all over the world before starting to complete the cycle. In 1995 he was awarded the Will Eisner Award , one of the most important prizes in the comic sector, for Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck , which he received a second time in 1997 (as best writer / artist in the field of humor) for his Disney comics.

In 2002, Rosa stopped his work for a long time because he did not agree to the processing of his submitted comics. The coloration seemed to him to be unsuccessful and imprecise, and details were pixelated. In addition, his name was used for advertising without his consent. It was not until December of the same year that an agreement was reached that gave him a greater say in the processing of his comics.

Due to a retinal detachment , Rosa had to stop drawing comics in 2006, but he still made a few large-format illustrations. In 2008 he underwent eye surgery. In interviews, however, he confirmed that he will probably never draw Disney comics again.

style

Don Rosa on the Don Rosa Germany tour in Hanover , 2008

Content

In Hall of Fame 6, Byron Erickson divided Rosas Comics into four categories:

  • "Research Stories" (such as The Crown of the Crusader Kings (dt. The crown of the Crusaders ))
  • "Barks sequels" (a classic example is often Return to Plain Awful (dt. Back to the Land of square eggs called))
  • “Stories about Dagobert Ducks Biographie” (mainly the stories from Uncle Dagobert - his life, his billions ) as well
  • "Fun-with-physics-stories" (for example cash flow (Eng. A slippery affair )).

According to her own statements, Rosa prefers to draw long adventure stories, while it is much more difficult for him to write funny ten-page stories and he is not interested in one- or two-sided stories: he needs “a little more” to “get stuck”. His few “ultra-short stories” were therefore all created at the request of the respective publisher. Typical is the extensive research that Rosa does in order to make his stories as authentic as possible and to enrich them with background information, which is rather unusual for Disney illustrators. Often the entire plot takes place against a historical background. For his research he often goes back to the magazine National Geographic , already for the strips in his student newspaper he often visited the university library or interviewed the professors at the university directly.

Also striking is Rosa's special humor, which also includes numerous puns. Many of these, however, cannot be translated and are often replaced by other gags in other languages ​​or left out entirely. In The Curse of Nostrildamus (dt. The curse of Nostrildamus ) about the at has Nostradamus ajar astrologer strikingly large nostrils (ger .: nostril (s)), which also adorn his magical amulet. In Return to Plain Awful (dt. Back to the Land of the Four Angular eggs ), the point of the story is also a play on words: in one of the most famous Barks quotes Scrooge emphasized that he had made his fortune "square", which in this context means "decent "Or" honorable ". Since the Eckenhausen people love the shape of the square, at the end of the story, to his horror, they bring the money that Dagobert gave them into that shape with an ax. Then Donald says in the last picture to Dagobert that the Eckenhausen residents also made their money “square”. The German translation omits the play on words; Instead, Donald says to Dagobert and Mac Moneysac : "And besides, they [the Eckenhausen people] are just as thick-headed as you!"

A similar element are the abbreviations for institutions and persons adopted by Barks, especially within the Fähnlein Fieselschweif , which in turn result in a word, such as the title ANSWERMAN for Awesomely Noteworthy Senior Woodchuck, Expert Researcher, and Master Archaeological Nit-picker . Of course, these are also difficult to translate and have to be replaced by the translator, the previous example became READING RAT for leading knowledge, collecting eminence, correctly applied theories and in-depth investigations .

In addition, many allusions to Carl Barks and his work are hidden in the stories themselves, all facts of the fictional world are based on his comics. Some marginal notes or subordinate clauses from Barks stories, which he put in Scrooge McDuck's mouth, for example, were processed by Don Rosa into completely new comics, in which he told the implied events in detail. More rarely, they are direct sequels to classics (e.g. Back to the Land of the Square Eggs ).

Furthermore Pink builds often parodying references to films in his comics one: The Duck Who Never Was (dt. No day like any other ) borrowed about the title of The Man Who Never Was and the plot of Is not life beautiful? . Stories about Dagobert Duck's youth on the Klondike also contain many references to western films . Furthermore, Rosa lets his main characters repeatedly meet real historical contemporaries, who mostly actually were at the scene at the time concerned. Scrooge about learning in The Buckaroo of the Badlands (dt. The hero of the Badlands ) much of the later US President Theodore Roosevelt , the in he The Invader of Fort Duckburg (dt. The ruler of Entenhausen ) and The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut ( dt. The Jaguar God of Culebra ) met again and met in the further course of his life, among others, Wyatt Earp , Jack London , Geronimo and the Dalton brothers . In any case, Rosa sees his adventures as a “combination of film and comic”; he has always focused on the plot and uses the drawings for illustration and as a way to hide gags.

With the exception of the stories from His Life, His Billions , Rosa's stories take place in the 1950s. He considers this to be the best solution to the problem that, after Barks, Dagobert was a cowboy in 1882 and a gold prospector in 1898; the alternative would be “immortal characters from a fairy tale world”, which would deprive the plots of the Barks adventure of their “dramatic and realistic component”. The understanding of his characters is closely related to his idea that Dagobert, like the other Ducks, is a person who "just looks like a duck". Accordingly, Rosa created an exact chronology for his life, his billions, from the birth of Scrooge in 1867 to his first meeting with the adult Donald and his nephew Tick, Trick and Track in 1947.

The first concrete indication of the time of the event is his other stories in the fifties in the form of the year 1954 on a spine in the third image of the 1988 published history load sled to Dawson (dt. The last slide to Dawson ). Even in his 1994 60th anniversary of the character Donald Duck drawn History The Duck Who Never Was (dt. No day like any other ) is congratulated Donald only because of errors on his 60th birthday, his actual age, however, not reveal. In 1997 published history A little something special (dt. His Golden Jubilee ) Pink solved the problem of commission for the 50th anniversary since Barks Uncle Scrooge had invented so that he, the celebrations in Duckburg in honor of Scrooge's 50th year since he moved to the city in 1902. A similar solution he found for 1994 published History From Duckburg to Lillehammer (dt. There is everything ) that as a commission on the occasion of the Olympic Games of Lillehammer arose, took the Pink only after he had found that already in the fifties in the Norwegian city had held some smaller Olympic competitions in which the Ducks may have participated accordingly.

Narrative style

Rosa's handling of timing and rhythm is very different in his long adventure stories and his short stories. For example, in comic scenes that appear in the short stories in particular, he uses a delay in the image sequence by inserting an additional panel that gives no indication of the course over time or its extent and is primarily intended to increase the tension and effect of the subsequent image. A moment of astonishment or speechlessness is usually captured in the panel. The frequently used insertion of a quiet panel before the climax of an action or slapstick scene has a similar effect, giving the reader the opportunity to imagine what is to come. In other places Rosa deliberately omits the image of the key moment in order to increase the effect through the necessary extensive cognitive performance of the reader. As a further stylistic device, he uses close sequences of images in action scenes without dialogues that depict dynamic processes. In his later work this leads to an increase in the number of panels per page. In stories like The Coin (German thaler, thaler, you have to hike ) and Attaaack! ( Eng . Aaaaaattacke ) he combines sequences of many short pictures with changing perspectives, which subjectively accelerate the action, with a slow-motion representation of the events. Through this conflict of form and content, he seeks to create tension and identification of the reader with what is shown.

Don Rosa also uses such time manipulative techniques in adventure stories, but they only play a subordinate role in the creation of comedy compared to pronounced facial expressions, allusions and background details. The techniques support the effect of the dialogues and actions. Don Rosa took over the technique of the cliff hanger from Carl Barks , which creates tension at the end of a page or part of the story and slows down the narrative sequences in front of half-page images.

In the layout design, Rosa prefers eight rectangular panels per side, but he often breaks out of this scheme. He also uses background or panelless images, elongated and half-sided panels. There are up to 16 panels per page, with the average number of panels increasing in his late work. The layout design often submits to the narrative flow and often serves to emphasize the depicted object, the plot or the emotions of the characters. In particular, he often uses half-page panels to take snapshots, manipulate time, reproduce tensions or conflicts, summarize, mark the climax or turning point of the story or to introduce the location of the action or the story itself (then often as a so-called splash panel , a special one large-format and detailed panel at the beginning of a story). He also combines half-sided panels with panel inserts (small panels that penetrate or lie in a large one) to highlight parts of the whole or a specific moment. In contrast to Barks, who put a moment of knowledge into the half-page panel, Don Rosa prefers this moment to a previous panel. He uses this to increase tension, often as a cliffhanger. A special feature are the meta panels used only by Don Rosa in the Funny Animal genre, i.e. the grouping of the panels on one side into a higher-level panel with its own statement, as well as the frameless panels. He also uses overlaps with the panel frame to emphasize plasticity or to emphasize certain objects.

Drawing style and composition

Since Rosa never had any drawing training and even never attended art classes during his school days, his drawing style seems unusually unclean and angular compared to other Disney illustrators. His work is therefore very reminiscent of underground comics . Rosa himself ascribes this less to the fact that he is, for example, a fan of Robert Crumb , but rather to his inadequate drawing technique; he could simply “not draw better [...] than in this style”. He also drew the characters for his first Disney comics from Carl Barks; only later did he shape his own drawing style with increasing confidence in the craft. He uses hatching and the play of light and shadow much more than is usually the case with Disney stories. Cross and parallel hatching, which other artists almost never use, are an essential tool in Rosa’s graphic design. But just like Barks, he relies on expressive facial expressions and gestures that are set with a few lines. He only applies hatching to the figure's face if this is useful for depicting emotions.

Don Rosa draws Donald for a fan on the Don Rosa Germany tour in Hanover , 2008

Rosa works on a single comic page for a whole day, with research even for two days. As far as possible, Rosa uses techniques that he learned during his studies and often uses templates for curves and circles.

The images in Don Rosa's comics have a high density of content, including a lot of text, usually several speech bubbles per panel, more secondary characters than, for example, in Carl Barks, subplots running in the background and detailed backgrounds. Therefore, there are hardly any empty spaces in the panels. According to Rosa's own statement, this is also due to his lack of training, so that he "stuffs as much into the background as he can" in order to be as entertaining as possible. The function of the frequently used subplots in the background is usually only to loosen up the plot.

An important composition tool for Don Rosa is the camera perspective, which also takes on narrative functions, such as in the frog's eye view and bird's eye view . In his later work there are also film-like tracking shots that depict a situation from several angles, for example in “Gustav the Unlucky”. These are primarily used to better represent feelings. On the other hand, he uses light and shadow effects little in the composition and mainly to loosen up the image or to emphasize the center of the narrative focus.

In Don Rosa's panels, there is very seldom a duplication or overlap of the content of text and image. The correlative word-image relation is predominant, in which image and text complement each other and can only be understood together. Rosa takes advantage of this interplay to bring more subtle jokes and innuendos into the plot. In the long adventure stories, there are also often parallel relationships that drive the development of plot and characters. Rosa usually compensates for extensive texts with unusual camera angles.

Other trademarks

DUCK

In his comics, Rosa hides the dedication DUCK ( Dedicated to Unca Carl from Keno ) in Carl Barks' honor . It can usually be found in the first panel on the first page and is also included in many cover pictures. However, no dedication included those stories that Rosa on the basis of external scripts only drew, in particular, therefore all single and two-wire (with the exception of The Paper Chase (dt. Newspaper Hunting / Breathless )).

After the dedication in his first Disney comics had been deleted by the publisher because it looked like a (forbidden) signature of the draftsman, he initially waived its use in Recalled Wreck (German: Even the man is ), but then went for the first time in Cash Flow (Eng. A slippery affair ) to cleverly hide it in a drawing. Of course, this also made it difficult for the reader to find it, so that later he always placed the dedication in the first picture of the comic. The dedication is now so well known that the publishers no longer retouch it even if they discover it.

The first four stories he drew for Egmont do not contain any dedication, although Rosa herself has since forgotten why. The dedication is also occasionally missing in later stories.

Mickey Mouse

Rosa's second trademark are the Hidden Mickeys : he hides images of the character Mickey Mouse in his comics, albeit not with the same regularity as the dedication . Examples are a Mickey-shaped planetary constellation in Rocket Reverie (German comet rodeo  / rocket dreams ) or the combination of a Capybara with plants in the foreground, which optically combine to form a Mickey, in The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros (German The Glorious Seven (minus four) Caballeros ). Nevertheless, he does not count Mickey Mouse in the "Duck universe".

Relationship with Carl Barks

Due to his careful handling of “Barks facts” and the fact that he only ever considers himself a fan and admirer of Barks (whom he considers to be “the greatest figure in world literature”), Rosa has been called the “new Carl Barks” several times “Denotes what he himself strictly rejects. In his opinion, his example remains unmatched; nobody deserved to be compared to him. Rosa was also dubbed “Barks' illegitimate grandchildren”.

For Rosa, Barks is above all a role model in terms of content and storytelling. According to Klaus Piber, Don Rosa sees himself as the guardian of Barks' narrative tradition, without wanting to copy or imitate his role model. The drawing styles, for example, are very different. In other formal points, such as the layout design, Rosa often follows similar paths as Barks, but breaks out of the fixed scheme more often. Just like Barks, Rosa does not name his ten-page or even shorter stories; they are all added by the publishers.

Nevertheless, Rosa was often criticized by Barks fans because he continued his stories and, for example , invented billions of new characters for his life . The DONALD appointed him nevertheless in 2006 for the creation of the cycle an honorary member.

Combines the only story Barks and Rosa directly, is The Pied Piper of Duckburg (dt. The Pied Entenhausen ). Barks hadn't finished the story because he thought the many rats to be drawn in it were too much of an expense in relation to his pay. More than 30 years later, it was completed by Rosa.

On August 12, 1998, Rosa and Barks met in Medford, Oregon . In addition to her work and the comic book market, the conversation also covered topics such as “the weather [and] the stock market”.

Work and publication

Early work

The first strip of the Pertwillaby Papers appeared on September 9, 1971 in the student newspaper Kentucky Kernal. The main character is Lancelot Pertwillaby, for whom Rosa herself was the model. Although he is portrayed as a bit naive, he has many adventures with his friends and girlfriend. He mostly owes this to the main enemy of the series, the old National Socialist Viktor Domitrius Smyte.

Up to issue 65, Rosa developed a political satire in the first story at the request of his editor. She tells of how Lancelot Pertwillaby tries to study at the university for free. Only after relieving the editor was Rosa able to do what he wanted. He started this with his second story, Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes , the basis for the later Disney cartoon Son of the sun (dt. The gold of the Incas represented). He had written the script two years earlier, but was never allowed to implement it. The story is about the search for the treasure of Manco Cápac ; it comprised the Pertwillaby episodes 66 to 127.

The story of Zub-Zero , episodes 128 to 133, was published by Rosa in The Rocket's Blast Comiccollector . It is about the search for an art collection stolen by the National Socialists, which is hidden at the North Pole. It's the only story he didn't later turn into a Disney comic. In the same magazine, episodes 134-139 were published to make the story Vortex . This is about the discovery of a black hole and the journey to the center of the earth. The identical theoretical concept of such an undertaking used Rosa in The Universal Solvent (dt. Journey to the Center of the Earth ). The last story, Knighttime , was discontinued after two episodes, followed by the unpublished third part (see biography ). However, the story was the template for two later works: The Once and Future Duck (German: The Journey into the 6th Century ) and The Black Knight (German: The Black Knight ). Lance and his cronies travel back to the year 540 in it, but there they discover that King Arthur is not - as expected - good and noble, but a war-addicted ruler. Rosa later said that by the end of the story the travelers noticed that they had not traveled back in time, but into another dimension. Finally, Lance was in trying to return to land in the upper atmosphere and fall to the earth - as Donald in The Duck Who Fell to Earth (dt. Satellite hunter ).

The stories of Captain Kentucky appeared in the Louisville Times on August 6, 1979. The protagonist was the antihero of the same name , the alter ego Pertwillaby, who wants to fight against injustice and crime. By consuming the radioactive octa-hexa-glop, he becomes a superhero. Rosa also parodies other aspects of American superhero comics, for example, the hero is opposed to enemies such as Nuke Duke or J. Fred Frog, the latter being an oversized hand puppet of a frog. In addition, Rosa's real basset Cleo is elevated to a sidekick in the comic . Usually Kentucky fails on its missions, but destroys large parts of the city. Captain Kentucky is set in Louisville itself and features some guest appearances from local figures. Still, the series was unsuccessful and was discontinued after three years.

Disney comics

Don Rosa in Stuttgart , 2006

Already the first Disney story of Don Rosa, Son of the sun (dt. The gold of the Incas ), published in July 1987, was a great success and was nominated for the Harvey Award nominated. As he did several times later, for this adventure he used an idea that had arisen much earlier: his old Pertwillaby Papers story Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes .

Until 1989, Rosa-Comics first appeared in the comic books of the American publisher Gladstone, at the same time the Dutch publisher published four works he had drawn on the basis of foreign scripts; it was followed by a few stories that were first published by Oberon and one that was first published by Disney. Until the provisional end of his comic career after the eye disease in 2006, all other pink adventures were published by the Danish publisher Egmont, so that the latter published the majority of his works.

The German first publication of most of the stories took place in the magazine Micky Maus , starting with Mythological Menagerie (Eng. Animals from all over the world ). This was followed by a series of albums sold through bookstores entitled Onkel Dagobert by Don Rosa (OD), in which almost all of the Rosa stories were reprinted, albeit not in chronological order. As part of the book series Disney's Hall of Fame (HoF), his works appear again in chronological order, with the exception of the stories about Dagobert Duck's biography, which had previously been collected in various special volumes on Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions (SLSM) and as Rosas Main work apply; In 2008 a second anthology was published with more detailed background material, for which all stories were newly colored and lettered and some errors were corrected.

Rosa has worked on the following Disney stories since 1987 (sorted by year of first publication):

Disney releases by Don Rosa
year Original title German title album Anthology
1987 The Son of the Sun The gold of the Incas / The son of the sun OD 9 HoF 1
Nobody's business The exam OD 7 HoF 1
Mythological menagerie Animals from all over the world OD 2 HoF 1
Recalled Wreck Himself is the man OD 10 HoF 1
Cash flow A slippery affair OD 10 HoF 1
1988 Fit to be pied The pumpkin fight OD 10 HoF 1
Fir-Tree Fracas Not a beautiful tree at this time ... / Christmas tree commotion OD 7 HoF 1
Oolated luck Oily happiness OD 5 HoF 1
The Paper Chase Newspaper hunt / out of breath OD 17 HoF 1
Last sled to Dawson The last sledge to Dawson OD 7 HoF 1, SLSM
Rocket Reverie Comet rodeo / rocket dreams OD 26 HoF 1
Fiscal Fitness Financial heavyweight OD 17 HoF 1
Metaphorically spanking Skipping has to be learned OD 14 HoF 1
The Crocodile Collector In search of the sacred crocodile OD 9 HoF 2
Fortune on the rocks A dubious business OD 3 HoF 2
1989 Return to Plain Awful Back to the land of the square eggs OD 11 HoF 2
The Curse of Nostrildamus The curse of Nostrildamus OD 8 HoF 2
His Majesty, McDuck His Majesty Scrooge I / Battle for Duckland OD 15 HoF 2
1990 Well-Educated Duck Sailing game with obstacles OD 25 HoF 2
Forget me not forget Me Not OD 25 HoF 2
Give Unto Others Giving is more blessed than receiving OD 1 HoF 2
On a silver platter The magic tunnel OD 11 HoF 2
Leaky luck How won, so ... OD 27 HoF 2
The Pied Piper of Duckburg The Pied Piper of Duckburg HoF 2
Back in Time for a Dime! Duck Tales comic, only with English text, drawings not by Rosa HoF 2
The Money Pit The value of money OD 16 HoF 2
The Master Landscapist The landscape architect OD 14 HoF 3
1991 On stolen time A fateful invention / The time thieves OD 11 HoF 3
Treasure Under Glass Among sharks OD 12 HoF 3
Return to Xanadu Reunion with Tralla La / return to Xanadu OD 8 HoF 3
The Duck Who Fell to Earth Satellite hunter / the duck that fell from the sky OD 14 HoF 3
Incident at McDuck Tower Down OD 14 HoF 3
The Island at the Edge of Time The island on the edge of time OD 13 HoF 3
War of the Wendigo Back to the land of the dwarf Indians / The Wendigowak War OD 12 HoF 3
1992 Super Snooper strikes again Superduck / The superman returns OD 15 HoF 3
1993 Guardians of the Lost Library In search of the lost library OD 13 HoF 4
1994 From Duckburg to Lillehammer Being there is everything OD 17 HoF 4
The Duck Who Never Was No day like any other / The Duck that never existed OD 31 HoF 4
1995 The Treasury of Croesus The message of the pillars OD 16 HoF 4
The Universal Solvent Journey to the center of the earth / The all-dissolver OD 18 HoF 4
Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies The secret of the lucky tens / the hunt for tens between the ages OD 0 SLSM
The Incredible Shrinking Tightwad Shrinking uncles / The incredible story of Mr. D. OD 19 HoF 4
The Lost Charts of Columbus The maps of Christopher Columbus OD 17 HoF 4
Gyro's Beagle Trap In Case of a Trap (created for Tempo magazine ) HoF 5
1996 The Once and Future Duck The Journey to the 6th Century / Lost in Camelot OD 19 HoF 5
The Treasure of the Ten Avatars Expedition to Shambala OD 23 HoF 5
A Matter of Some Gravity Everything is difficult to get across OD 18 HoF 5
1997 An eye for detail Sharpness does not protect against harm OD 16 HoF 4
Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints Travelers through Eternity / Attack of space monsters OD 20 HoF 5
A Little Something Special Its golden anniversary OD 27 HoF 5
WHADALOTTAJARGON Ready for the flag of Fieselschweif OD 22 HoF 6
1998 The Sign of the Triple Goldfinch Gustav, the unlucky one OD 21 HoF 6
The Last Lord of El Dorado The secret of Eldorado OD 21 HoF 5
The Black Knight The black knight OD 22 HoF 6
1999 The Dutchman's Secret The secret of the lost mine OD 24 HoF 6
Escape From Forbidden Valley Return to the forbidden valley OD 24 HoF 6
The Coin The coin / thaler, thaler, you have to hike! OD 26 HoF 7
Quest for Kalevala The hunt for the gold mill OD 25 HoF 6
2000 Attack! Aaaaa attack OD 26 HoF 7
The Three Caballeros Ride Again The Three Caballeros / The Return of the Three Caballeros OD 26 HoF 7
2001 The Beagle Boys vs. The Money Bin Crooks versus money stores OD 27 HoF 7
The Crown of the Crusader Kings The Crown of the Crusaders / The Crown of the Crusader Kings OD 28 HoF 7
2002 Forget it! Forget it! OD 27 HoF 7
Gyro's first invention The first success OD 29 HoF 7
The Dream of a Lifetime Lifelong dreams OD 29 HoF 8, SLSM (2008)
2003 Trash or Treasure Trash and Treasures / Trash or Treasure? OD 30 HoF 8
2004 A Letter from Home A letter from home OD 30 HoF 8
The Black Knight Glorps Again The Black Knight is spitting again / The Black Knight is glorifying again OD 31 HoF 8
2005 The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros The glorious seven (minus four) Caballeros OD 32 HoF 8
Stories in the context of Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions
year chapter Original title German title album Anthology
1992 1 The Last of the Clan McDuck The last of the Ducks clan OD 1 SLSM (2003, 2008)
2 The Master of the Mississippi The Lord of the Mississippi OD 1 SLSM (2003, 2008)
3 The Buckaroo of the Badlands The hero of the Badlands OD 2 SLSM (2003, 2008)
1993 4th The King of the Copper Hill The Copper King / The Copper King of Montana / The Conqueror of the Copper Mountain OD 2 SLSM (2003, 2008)
5 The New Laird of Castle McDuck The savior of the Duckenburgh OD 3 SLSM (2003, 2008)
6th The Terror of the Transvaal The horror of the Transvaal OD 3 SLSM (2003, 2008)
7th Dreamtime Duck of the Never Never The hunter of the sacred opal / The dreamtime wanderer of Never Never OD 4 SLSM (2003, 2008)
8th The Argonaut of White Agony Creek The Hermit at White Agony Creek / The King of the Klondike OD 4 SLSM (2003, 2008)
9 The Billionaire of Dismal Downs The billionaire in the high moor OD 5 SLSM (2003, 2008)
1994 10 The Invader of Fort Duckburg The ruler of Duckburg / The Conqueror of Fort Duckburg OD 5 SLSM (2003, 2008)
11 The Empire-Builder from Calisota / The Richest Duck in the World The businessman without a conscience / The unscrupulous businessman from Duckburg / The grand magnate from Calisota OD 6 SLSM (2003, 2008)
12th The Richest Duck in the World / The Recluse of McDuck Manor The Hermit of Villa Duck OD 6 SLSM (2003, 2008)
1995 8c Hearts of the Yukon Conspiracy of the crooks / The two hearts of the Yukon OD 0 SLSM (2003, 2008)
1996 6b The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff The Avenger of Windy City OD 20 SLSM (2003, 2008)
1998 3b The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark Adventure on Java / The cowboy captain of the Cutty Sark OD 23 SLSM (2003, 2008)
2001 10b The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut The jaguar god of Culebra / Der Fuchs vom Culebra Cut OD 28 SLSM (2003, 2008)
2006 8b The Prisoner of White Agony Creek The prisoner at White Agony Creek OD 32 SLSM (2008)

Awards

In 1995 Rosa received the Will Eisner Award for Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck , and in 1997 he won the award for best artist in the field of humor again. In 2007, he was responsible for the story The Black Knight Glorps Again (dt. The Black Knight sprotzt again ) once again nominated.

In addition, Rosa was nominated several times for the Harvey Award, in five categories in 2007 alone.

reception

Signature of Don Rosas (made at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2010 for the German-language Wikipedia)

Byron Erickson says that the special thing about Rosa's comics is not his drawing style, but his story style and the composition of his pictures; he is expressing the right emotions in his characters to move the plot forward. As a reader you are forced to feel the way the artist wants. The amount of work that he puts into individual pages earned him the title of “the hardest working man in the comic business” - according to Rosa, he works five days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. He himself considers his stories and especially the drawings to be “not particularly good” and explains his popularity with the “readers' appreciation for [his] fan-like enthusiasm”.

According to Klaus Piber, the more demanding narrative variants used by Don Rosa and the frequent use of changing techniques show that his stories are primarily intended for older audiences. However, this variety of formal means can be judged positively. The layout design has a high degree of narrative functionality, but Don Rosa shows a lack of discipline in some works, so he uses many half-page panels unnecessarily. Rosa's use of unusual layout options such as overlaps, metapanels and frameless panels explore the possibilities of his genre as well as of the comic medium itself. Due to his dense way of composing the pictures, their functionality is limited, as they are often overloaded, but in principle still given. Several actions are often squeezed into one panel, which allows a high density of information and a complex action on usually less than 34 pages, but the composition of the panels themselves suffer as a result, as the possible means cannot be fully exhausted due to a lack of space. Nevertheless, Don Rosa often succeeds in making the composition fulfill its purpose, even if it is usually not effective. The frequent abundance of details in the background often distracts from the center of the image, but also invites you to let your gaze wander over the scenery. Many of the background details and subplots are actually amusing and loosen up the story. According to Klaus Piber, Don Rosa's drawing technique is good, but does not reach the level of his role model Barks, as the lines are often uncertain, of fluctuating thickness and less sweeping. The proportions weren't always right either.

The word-image relationships are just as effective in conveying the content as those of Barks, they move the plot forward quickly and compensate for the deficits in the composition. Rosa has mastered it even better than Barks at fully exploiting the potential of the combination of text and image. The entertainment effect that the other levels of action made possible by the correlative word-picture relationship unfold, as well as the parodies and allusions are an essential reason for the popularity of Rosa's comics. In particular in the background design, the use of the word-image relation for background jokes and his graphic style, Don Rosa therefore shows an "anti-Disney aesthetic" aimed at older audiences, which ironizes or even rejects the rather cute Disney style.

Jörg Böckem wrote about his main work Uncle Dagobert - His Life, His Billions on Spiegel Online at the beginning of 2009: “The life story of the most famous and [...] most sympathetic billionaire despite some very questionable character traits is ideal reading for anyone who no longer hears or reads likes economic crisis, bank failure, recession and downturn. In 20 […] episodes, Rosa describes the character development of Dagobert emphatically, highly entertaining and knowledgeable; his stories are spiced with allusions to the classic Barks stories and with guest appearances by historical personalities - a declaration of love for the character Dagobert and an homage to its creator. And an urgently needed image campaign for the billionaire and banker himself. ”Nicole Rodriguez wrote on hr-online.de:“ For all big and small Duck fans, this biography is a must, hilarious, exhilarating and sweetening life. ”

The cycle is therefore of particular importance for the development of the figure of Dagobert Duck. After a post by Jochen Bölsche also on Spiegel Online, already Barks "the unscrupulous, inhuman capitalists of the early years gradually the fun uncle and eventually mutate into a quirky, almost pitiable old man." Let Rosas His life, his billions show Scrooge finally as "a sympathetic adventurer and self-made man ”, whose wealth is no longer an“ expression of anti-social greed ”, but a reminder of past heroic deeds.

Anthologies

Hall of Fame series

Special editions

  • Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions. Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-7704-0389-4
    • New edition 2011: Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions / The biography of Don Rosa. 4th edition, Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne, ISBN 978-3-7704-3245-5 .
    • New edition 2020: Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billions. Egmont Comic Collection, Cologne, ISBN 978-3-7704-4117-4
  • Uncle Dagobert - Billions robbery in Duckburg: Taler in danger. (with Carl Barks), Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-7704-3528-9
  • Countries - Ducks - Adventure: The Duck family on a treasure hunt. (with Carl Barks), Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-7704-3709-2
  • Ducks, animals, sensations. (with Carl Barks), Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2017, ISBN 978-3-7704-3956-0

German total editions

  • Don Rosa Collection. Ehapa Comic Collection, Cologne 2011
  • Don Rosa Library. Egmont Comic Collection, Cologne 2020–2022

Not translated

  • The Don Rosa Archives - The Pertwillaby Papers.
  • The Don Rosa Archives - The Adventures of Captain Kentucky.
  • Don Rosa Classics: The Complete Pertwillaby Papers. dani books , Groß-Gerau 2012, ISBN 978-3-944077-00-0
  • Don Rosa Classics: The Complete Captain Kentucky. dani books, Groß-Gerau 2012, ISBN 978-3-944077-01-7

literature

  • Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists. Diploma thesis, Graz 2003
  • Don Rosa, Alex Jakubowski and Lois Lammerhuber: I still get chills. Edition Lammerhuber, 2017, ISBN 978-3-9031-0125-8

Web links

Commons : Don Rosa  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. harveyawards.org: Winners and Nominees ( Memento of January 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed July 31, 2009).
  2. a b Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 6.
  3. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 14 - Don Rosa 4 , 3rd edition 2008, p. 127 ff.
  4. a b c d e f g Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, p. 73 ff.
  5. Interview with Don Rosa. ComicRadioShow, August 15, 1998, accessed August 30, 2014 .
  6. See Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 6
  7. Byron Erickson: The discovery of Don Rosa , in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, pp. 4-8 (p. 4).
  8. a b c d Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 7.
  9. ^ Byron Erickson: The discovery of Don Rosa , in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2, 2nd edition 2008, pp. 4-8 (p. 5).
  10. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 3rd edition 2008, p. 10.
  11. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 9 - Don Rosa 3 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 4 f.
  12. Printed in: Onkel Dagobert - His Life, His Billions / The Biography of Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2009, p. 212 f.
  13. Don Rosa: A tour through the saga , in: Don Rosa: Onkel Dagobert - His life, his billion , 4th edition 2005, p. 15.
  14. Don Rosa in an interview with “Triff den Raab” - end of 2010 .
  15. Welt.de : illustrator Don Rosa: A sad comic genius argues with Disney from February 12, 2013; accessed on December 22, 2020.
  16. Byron Erickson: The discovery of Don Rosa , in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, pp. 4-8.
  17. Byron Erickson: The discovery of Don Rosa , in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, pp. 4-8 (pp. 7 f.).
  18. a b Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 36.
  19. Don Rosa: Commentary on The Magic Tunnel , in: Onkel Dagobert von Don Rosa , Vol. 11, 1996.
  20. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 100.
  21. Cf. for example Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 100 on his first four short stories for Gladstone: "Nice, okay, if the work had to be done ..."
  22. See Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 16 - Don Rosa 5 , 2009, p. 34.
  23. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 8.
  24. a b in Guardians of the Lost Library (dt. In search of the lost library ) 6. Panel on page 2.
  25. See Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 14 - Don Rosa 4 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 56.
  26. a b c Don Rosa in an interview ( memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on DerWesten.de from December 24, 2007.
  27. Don Rosa: Uncle Dagobert - His life, his billion , 4th edition 2005, p. 366 (commentary on the last sledge according to Dawson ).
  28. Don Rosa, in: Onkel Dagobert - His Life, His Billions / The Biography of Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2009, p. 93.
  29. a b c Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, pp. 78–86.
  30. a b c Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, pp. 86–96.
  31. a b Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 5.
  32. Johnny A. Grote: Don Rosa - the enticement of Entenhausen , in: Don Rosa: Onkel Dagobert - His life, his billion , 4th edition 2005, pp. 6-10 (p. 8).
  33. ^ A b c Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, pp. 107–111.
  34. a b Byron Erickson: The discovery of Don Rosa , in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, pp. 4-8 (p. 6).
  35. a b c d Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, pp. 96-106.
  36. ^ A b Klaus Piber: Carl Barks and Don Rosa - The analysis of the formal-aesthetic and structural conception of two comic artists , diploma thesis, Graz 2003, pp. 111-106.
  37. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 9 - Don Rosa 3 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 6.
  38. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 181.
  39. a b Jochen Bölsche: Das Ende der Ente , Spiegel Online, July 28, 2009, Part 3: Changes in an Arch Capitalist (accessed on August 11, 2009).
  40. See Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 6.
  41. Cf. Georg FW Tempel, in: Hall of Fame Volume 1 - Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2008, p. 4.
  42. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, pp. 6, 154.
  43. a b Michael Naiman: A Journey to Duckburg ( Memento of December 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), in: Uncle Scrooge 317, January 1999 (online at duckman.pettho.com (accessed July 31, 2009)).
  44. Don Rosa, in: Onkel Dagobert - His Life, His Billions / The Biography of Don Rosa , 3rd edition 2009, p. 5.
  45. ^ Eisner Award Winners - 1990s. In: Comic-Con International. December 2, 2012, accessed June 8, 2020 .
  46. harveyawards.org: 2007 Nominees ( memento of October 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on August 23, 2010).
  47. Byron Erickson, in: Hall of Fame Volume 6 - Don Rosa 2 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 5.
  48. See Michael Naiman: A Journey to Duckburg , in: Uncle Scrooge 317 , January 1999, p. 2.
  49. Don Rosa, in: Hall of Fame Volume 14 - Don Rosa 4 , 2nd edition 2008, p. 3.
  50. Jörg Böckem: Image campaign for bankers , Spiegel Online, February 2, 2009 (accessed July 31, 2009).
  51. Nicole Rodriguez: Declaration of love to a duck: Don Rosa "Onkel Dagobert - His life, his billions" , hr-online.de , February 22, 2009 (accessed July 31, 2009).
  52. a b Jochen Bölsche: Das Ende der Ente , Spiegel Online, July 28, 2009, Part 2: A comic as a textbook .