Welcome back Don!
I've been checking this thread at least 3 or 4 times a week to see if you're back from your Europe trip yet...
Thank you very much for filling us in about the background to
Return to Duckburg place! So underground comix
did have a certain influence upon you, at least at the start of your career...
However, I'm still curious about your replies to my more detailed questions on the matter that I've asked above!
It is the degree of SciFi in a Duck story that I don't like. My "Once and Future Duck" and "Universal Solvent" stories were far too SciFi-esque for proper BarksDuck stories. But my stories like "Incredible Shrinking Tightwad" and "Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints" (not "Monsters") were just right.
That's funny. Space exploration sci-fi, like in your
Attack of the hideous space varmints, is often much too "geeky", gimicky, and sci-fi for my tastes, whereas time travel stories hit right home with my fascination for history, sociology, and philosophy, where the attitudes and living conditions of the people of today may clash with the time period they're experiencing, and both world views may put each other into perspective (at least in the author's and reader's mind). It's all about the reader "broadening their horizon" and getting a bigger picture of what Western civilization is about, how it may be different today from what it once was like, and/or how it differs from other cultures (the latter of which we often see in Unca Carl's "adventures all around the globe" stories, I think). Pretty much like how you've once described your reason for going to college: "To learn all there is to know".
That's why, for me,
The Once and Future Duck is exactly the same kind of story as are
Guardians of the lost library,
The lost charts of Columbus,
The treasury of Croesus, or
The treasure of the Ten Avatars, for example. Not a tiny bit of overdone sci-fi, but lots of exciting and educating history and culture contrasted or complemented with the Ducks' Western, mid-20th century handle on things.
Of course, my livelong fascination with time travel and the fact that in the Italian stories, Mickey and Goofy regularly revisit history by means of a secret time machine in the Duckburg museum may also play a part in my preferring
The Once and Future Duck over
Attack of the hideous space varmints!
to liken the greatest crime in history
I'm sorry Don, but being German (as well as an avid reader of both Adorno, Marcuse, and Hannah Arendt), I beg to differ about 9/11 being the greatest crime in history, as much as a heinous and horrifying crime the plane hijacks were. Although it's likely the greatest crime directed against North American civillians, and it's probably also save to say it's the greatest crime in the name of Islam.
My point is, there's a reason why 9/11 isn't the only case of atrocities we should never forget. It's 20th century's most frightening lesson that the greatest of barbarianisms known to mankind was not planned and perpetrated by people living by standards devised at the remote outskirts of any civilization, but right in one of Western civilization's most-advanced centers.
This historical lesson is easily forgotten in our post-9/11 world of today where cultures that have fallen behind in technological progress may be regarded by the West (including the EU, I may emphasize) again as its rightful colonies that, in order to be "civilized", have to be subjected by both military and economical means and stripped of their natural resources either way just so that coffee, cars, and computers can be sold at dumping prices. It would be a flashback to a mindset belonging into the 18th and 19th centuries when, as the saying went, the British "stumbled into their Empire by sheer accident".
Next -- I believe someone had an idea to collect my answers to questions that have appeared on this forum thread and post them in some venue accessible to many more comics fans... but also someone wanted my permission to do so. That's very nice of you to ask (since I have no right to deny permission, as I have already posted my comments on a public forum). But obviously, si, you have my full permission! Thank you for asking, and I am sorry to be so slow to respond!
Yes, I tried collecting the questions and your answers for what would look like a more orderly, official press conference. After a few hours, I realized I had to break everything up into different "themes" or "chapters" due to the sheer amount of material.
I toiled on, and when I had amassed about 20 chapters, with circa 10 pages per chapter, I ran into problems with a series of questions and answers that either didn't fit any existing theme, or that would each include elements of a number of different themes, so I didn't know where to put them.
Combined with your not having returned for several weeks by then, the frustration became grave enough to quit when I had reached page no. 142 of this thread. But now that you're back, my energy is restored!