Glad to Be at Gladstone

But as soon as I saw those Gladstones hit the stands I called them up. I never dreamt anybody would ever publish comic books in the same spirit as they were when I was growing up. So I called up Byron Erickson and told him that I was the only American who was born to write and draw Uncle Scrooge comics - it was my manifest destiny and there was really nothing he could do to prevent it. But he knew who I was, I guess, from stuff I'd done in fanzines. Plus I'd known Bruce Hamilton, Gladstone's publisher, since the early '70s when I used to travel to comic conventions with Bob Overstreet, sharing a room, before I realized what his project would do to the hobby. Again, simply because I was so naive. But I called them up and they said, "Well, sure." They were glad at least somebody was interested. I don't think in all the time they were in business Gladstone ever had more than a couple of people contact them who were interested in doing Disney comics. I know I would never have had a chance if all the great funny animal artists had come out of the studios and wanted to start doing Disney comics. Near as I can figure it out, anybody who was my age who had as great a love for the comics of the '50s as I had were now in their late 30s/early 40s and already have jobs as investment bankers or something and weren't going to change their profession. And younger people who had grown up on Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk or Wolverine or even stuff much more recent would have no interest in Disney. They think it's just kid stuff. So maybe that's why there were so few people really interested in doing Disney comics. Also, I knew people who would say they were terrified at the thought of trying to follow in Carl Barks' footsteps, which had never even occurred to me. I never figured to do anything as great as he did. But I was just achin' to have a chance to write and draw the characters I grew up with 30 years earlier. No question in my mind - that was what I wanted to do with my life from then on. It was more important to me - to carry on Carl Barks' work - than my own father's work, a construction company.

I remember when Byron Erickson said I could go ahead and try submitting a story. I told my partner, who would have been my Uncle's stepson, that I was going to save the company so many thousands per year by only going to work two or three days a week. I was going to do something else with my life the rest of the time. The thing that was bothering me about that job was that you would work year in and year out (and the pay was good, excellent money), and you'd have nothing to show for it. Just money. You would have fed yourself and paid the mortgage another year and bought a few more TVs or whatever. But there was no physical evidence that I had lived that year. And it was just more satisfying for me to have a stack of comic book stories to show for the work of a year no matter what it paid. That seemed like something worth doing. So I said I'll do comics for three days a week and I'll just help out at the company for two days a week. I didn't demand to be kept on salary, even though I was half-owner. Save the money, put it back in the company I told him.

So I started doing the "Son of the Sun" story; in other words, turning that old Pertwillaby Papers adventure back into the story it originally was in my head, starring Scrooge, Donald, the nephews, and Flintheart Glomgold. After I was doing comics for a few months, my partner said if I wasn't interested in the company (which by the way was in my name: Keno Rosa Company; that's my grandfather's name and my name) then why should he? He suggested we liquidate it. I responded, "Well, suits the heck out of me!" I was proud of the company. It was almost a household word around Louisville and Kentucky because it had been around so long.

But back to something you asked earlier: how did I think the fans would react?

The first page of "The Son of the Sun" had the ducks going through a museum looking at some of the treasures from the classic Carl Barks stories. My plan was that if I gave the readers a clue that I've read all those stories, they're all part of the history which I'm going to honor and build on and not change a thing, that it would be clear what I was doing. And, thank gosh, the Barks collectors I've heard from seem to like my stories, and they recognize I'm doing it out of honor and trying to carry on a tradition. I'm not trying to be too imitative. I hope I'm not. I am to a certain extent, of course. But I'm just trying to imitate the spirit. Of course, I'm not a good enough artist to imitate his actual art. But I try to at least carry on the same spirit and the same style of characterization.

Donald Ault, a Barks fan who was then living in Nashville, let me borrow Barks' original drawing board that was probably the board Barks drew the original "Back to the Klondike" story on, which "Last Sled to Dawson" is sort of a homage to. And I sat that board on top of my drawing board and penciled and inked the whole story right on top of Carl Barks' own drawing board. The very one he used back in the glory days. And of course that was a thrill. Can you imagine all the great stories that were created right on top of that board? I wish I could have kept it, but I had to give it back to Donald Ault.

The Philosophy of Price Guides

Bob Overstreet and I used to travel to conventions together and I used to constantly be providing him information. Certainly not on prices because I didn't think that was the point of the Price Guide. I should have taken a hint from the name! But I thought it was just for dates and issue numbers and so on, and I'd provide him with all that information. Then I started to realize what was happening. But unfortunately it's like the last of the rain forests have disappeared, the ice cap's melting and the dodos are all dead. There are no hobbies that do not have price guides by now. And once there's a price guide for any hobby, that's the end of it for the people that really care.

I should hasten to add I'm not saying everyone in comics fandom are simply crass speculators or investors. A lot of people are both fans and investors, although I can't figure out how they manage that unless they don't analyze the contradiction of being both. Anyway, investors and speculators can't touch a hobby with a 10- or 20-foot pole when there's no price guide. Even though they see collectors buying and selling comic books for more than half cover price (which is what the selling price should be for a used comic book), they're not going to touch it because they don't have proof. Once there's a price guide, they've got it in black and white. This is proof. Plus, as soon as there's a price guide and the prices are immediately known and don't travel by word of mouth, prices skyrocket.

I've heard from dealers who don't really try to get down to the brass tacks of exactly what my attitude is about all this dealing in old comics - they should know, I buy plenty of old comics still; if I was that much against it, I'd have stopped buying them years ago - but they say, "Oh, there goes Don Rosa. He doesn't think any comic books should be sold for more than cover price." Well, that's not true at all. I don't think any new comic book should be sold for more than cover price. I don't think any used comic book should be sold for more than half cover price! If that were the way it still was, there'd be a lot fewer of us in this hobby, but those of us left would enjoy it far more. Yet I play the game. I realize if I want to get some of the old comics I still lack I'm going to have to. The only bright spot about it is that the speculators - the people that have no business in the hobby except as parasites - they want mint condition comics. That suits them. They're shallow and superficial, so they have to have comics that are shallow and superficial. They never open them anyway so they make sure the back cover doesn't have a crease in the ad or something. Of course comics in "very good" condition, which are in "well-read" condition, have not gone up in price that much in the past ten year and can be fairly reasonable.

But I don't lose sleep over the change the Price Guide brought to this hobby. If I let that worry me, I'd be dead by now. I finally talked to Bob Overstreet in San Diego after avoiding him for ten years since he took my name out of the Price Guide. I never had any falling out with him to any extent, and suddenly my name was taken out. I figured it was because I was starting to say things, not personally against him, but the fact that a price guide does not serve comics fans, it only serves speculators. Which at that point there were very few of in the hobby. The hobby then was just for the hobbyist who liked them. And suddenly my name disappeared. Now, all the information I'd supplied didn't disappear, just my name.

Anyway, I finally talked to him in San Diego a few years ago. I remember I said, "Bob, look out there in that room." (referring to the dealer's room at the San Diego Comic Convention). "That! You created all that!" Even the new comics publishers exist because his Price Guide gave a perception of value to any comic books. Most independent comics couldn't survive except for the collectors' mentality that permeates the marketplace. People buying multiple copies

I don't know. He's handed this hobby over to people who have no business being in it. And yet at the same time, if the hobby hadn't been handed over to those people, it probably, as far as new comics anyway, probably wouldn't even exist now. Because you have so many kids buying comics the same way they buy baseball cards. They've got no interest in the thing - they're just little zombies. Just in it for what they can resell them for. My story "The Money Pit" (Donald Duck Adventures #1 [second series]) addresses the idea of collecting and collectors.

It's a thinly veiled attack on everything speculators have done to this hobby. I don't think they should mind my saying that. They know what they've done and I know what they've done. They've turned it into an investor's marketplace. And I've got no right to say they shouldn't. It's none of my business. Obviously the people that do this enjoy doing it, investing in comic books, and if I don't like it they're the ones laughing all the way to the bank. "The Money Pit" has a lot of preaching in it which probably makes it kind of dull. But it's making a point!

There's people I hear talk about him saying, "Oh, he jacks the prices up on comics because he invests in them the year before," and accusing him of all kinds of shady things. I knew him for a long time and he's not guilty of any of that. He's not guilty of anything. He just doesn't realize what he did, what he's responsible for. He thinks he's just reporting, and of course he does, the fact that they go up. He doesn't realize that as he publishes a price guide the prices are going to shoot up beyond the price guide.

Bob Overstreet's Price Guide is just one part of the problem. You go to a bookstore now and every single thing you could ever have a simple aesthetic intellectual interest in has a price guide in the collectibles section. Because that's the state of this country these days: shallow and superficial. Nobody believes there's any value in anything except the value they can resell it for.