Gosh, that's the way my life has been for about the last 15 years, not just lately! Does it leave me time to do ANYTHING? Not much! Consider that when any other author or cartoonist gets this popular (for whatever weird reason) & busy... and other Americans in this situation who spring to mind and with whom I'm often at European conventions would be Neil Gaiman and Jeff Smith... they hire an assistant(s) to take care of most things for them. But that's not an option to me working in this system. I still answer 100% of my own mail everyday, personally see about all that's needed from me by Egmont or Gemstone or any other publisher, do all my own organizing & travel planning with convention sponsors, publishers, etc., deal with my own lawyers, as well as try to keep up with my *normal* life as much as I should in continuing with my comics, books, music, movie collections, and running my own household which includes maintaining a 25 acre (10 hectare) estate like a national park with trails and meadows. How can there be time for all that?! There *hasn't been* for 15 years, but I always put the Ducks first.

Lately circumstances have caused me to place everything on a more even keel, so I am taking care of my own life a bit better than I have in the past two decades... not being an iota less busy, but just channeling the work % in different directions... I'm still missing far too much of all the things I always expected to do in life which I see I'm not getting done as the years roll past. Plus my wife is retired (schoolteacher) now and would VERY much like me to simply start selling my comics collections and retire with her so we can both enjoy ourselves, travel, etc., rather than me locking myself to the drawing board so earnestly for 3-4 months nonstop on each project.

I sold just a fraction of my comic collection last year, just the "new" stuff, 1970-1985 stuff, and (with the help of friends) I made more $ in 6 months than I made in 6-7 *years* of doing Duck comics. So you can imagine how I'm torn between what to do next. There's no pension waiting for anyone who spends their life making comics, but I have a pension waiting my use in my collections of "stuff". Just waiting. But I love making $crooge stories!

I'm still working on the two projects that Egmont tells me are most urgent at the moment -- I am completing my contributions to the 4th ROSA HALL OF FAME book for one Egmont division, while for another division I am creating a series of 12 posters for the 60th anniversary of Carl Barks' $crooge McDuck in 2007. And yesterday a big mucky-muck in another Egmont division called me about another special project being considered for next Spring. When I get those projects done, then I can see about a new story...

I was getting double-vision when my eyes were tired or when I drank something like a glass of wine. And I began thinking that that was why it's been getting more and more tedious and difficult to draw over recent years... my brain and eye muscles are working harder to keep my vision clear. But I've gotten special glasses for both normal use and for drawing, so I hope that at least helps. But I haven't done as much drawing (not days/weeks/months on end) as I had been doing, so I still don't know what will happen when I go back to doing a story rather than poster jobs that don't take such intense work, day after day.

Disse posterne / plakatene. Det har vært diskutert om disse tidligere. Muligens har jeg ikke fått det med meg...

Vet noen noe om hvordan de skal "ut til folket"? Jeg håper virkelig det blir en mulighet til å få tak i dem i "stor" størrelse uten stiftehull og bretter.

GPLongford skreiv:

Det virker som at Don Rosa ser for seg at de skal utgis som plakater sammen med DD&Co og liknhende utgivelser i andre Egmont-land.

DDF(r) vil visst prøve å overtale Egmont til også å bruke dem i en kalender (slike vi har sett før) og gjerne i en egen deluxe utgave i form av en slags stor kunstmappe.

DDF(r) vil visst prøve å overtale Egmont til også å bruke dem i en kalender (slike vi har sett før) og gjerne i en egen deluxe utgave i form av en slags stor kunstmappe.

Det er nok naturlig, noe ala "pengebingetegningen" som var vedlegg i Donald?

Sigvald skreiv:

Kalender for kva år? For slik Egmont fungerer, vil det iallfall vera 100 % umogleg å få laga ein 2007-kalender dersom berre 5 av 12 teikningar var ferdige den første veka i oktober. Og kall meg gamaldags, men når teikningane er laga for å feire Skrues 60-årsjubileum, må eg seie at eg ikkje kan sjå for meg å få dei i ein 2008-kalender heller.

Poster meg her og kalender meg der ... jeg vil ha nye Don Rosa-historier, jeg. Hm.

Ja, sjølv om det vel kan diskuterast korvidt den bør kallast vedlegg når den står trykt inne i bladet?

Olaf Moriarty Solstrand skreiv:

Det er altså tale om DD&Co 21/2001 med "B-Gjengen inntar bingen"?

If/when I do a new story, it will be a short gag-story.