Mid-Ohio-Con Week: Don Rosa

By Gearalt Finlay

As part of our Mid-Ohio-Con coverage this week, Don Rosa, "The World's Best Writer and Artist of Disney Ducks" chatted with Silver Bullet's Gearalt Finlay about attending the convention.

Gearalt Finlay: What's it like being a pro and sitting behind the table as total strangers come and talk to you?

Don Rosa: When they are familiar with my work and the Barks characters I work with, usually intimately familiar, they are not like strangers but more like old friends. That sounds corny but it's quite accurate. We share that special knowledge, and since I only write & draw adventures of the characters I do because I was a lifelong devoted fan myself, we also have that in common. What's not so pleasant is speaking to the small percent of attendees want to talk to me, and the other guests, because they plan to eBayize whatever free drawings or books they get from them while posing as fans. But these are in a minority and easy to thwart. What I don't think you are asking, but which to me is the biggest problem, is how slightly uncomfortable it is to talk to nice, polite people who are standing while I am rudely sitting. But there's no solution to that. One can't bounce up each time someone stops by, because usually at the Mid-Ohio-Con there is a steady flow. It would be nice to have a chair available across the table for attendees, but that would get in the way and usually not be sufficient. I have always been intrigued by John Byrne's solution of carrying an elevated podium to shows and getting a tall stool so that he can speak to fans at the same elevation... but then that does look a bit like a "throne" and might not be the best image. So, I guess I just8 stay seated and feel rude.

Finlay: What do you do when the fan talking to you has terrible hygiene?

Rosa: I guess they have been a fixture at fantasy conventions since the earliest years. In fact, I wonder if I wasn't one of them at my first Seuling Cons in NYC in the late 60's when we high schoolers drove up there with too few changes of shirts and piled into single hotel rooms for a week. However, I never have "that sort" visit me at conventions in America since most American fans of my work are older collectors. The sorts of "geeks" you seem to refer to are usually the younger types mesmerized by whatever "hot" super-hero title WIZARD magazine is telling them to read, so they avoid me. Yes, my fans are lemony-fresh and sweet-smelling-as-all-outdoors.

Finlay: Are you currently doing any Duck comics for Disney?

Rosa: Actually, after I sent in my last story in July, I have been on a sort of hiatus getting caught up on mail and other personal projects, and actively helping publishers in Europe working on authorized Rosa-collections, and actively hindering publishers in South America working on Unauthorized Rosa-collections. I am also involved in the sales of about 15,000 "recent" comics from my personal collection (1970's & 80's issues) which were CGCed, pedigreed, and are being sold very successfully by a good friend in California named Steve Wyatt. But to clear up a common misconception -- I don't work "for Disney". Disney has nothing to do with the creation of the stories or art in "Disney" comic books. That work has all always been created by freelance writers and artists, like me, working for independent, licensed publishers, like America's Gemstone Comics.

Finlay: If so when you attend conventions how do you make up the lost time in you work schedule?

Rosa: I don't. Am I supposed to do that? Uh-oh...

Finlay: Do you get a chance to meet with other creators and plan new series and have you ever had this experience at the Mid-Ohio Con?

Rosa: No. Too short an answer? Since I write and draw all my own material, I have no collaborators. And even if I did work with someone else on these characters, they would not be at Mid-Ohio-Con since most of the other writers and all of the other artists on these comics are outside of the United States. But beyond that, I find that I still only hang out at conventions with the same people I have since the 60's, the dealers and other fans/collectors, not the other "professionals". The only "fellow professionals" I chum around much with are the ones I knew back in the early 70's when they were just fans like me, such as Roger Stern and John Byrne, who happily happen to both be regular guests there at Mid-Ohio-Con!. Notice that, even now, I still feel so much more like a fan than a "professional" that I can't even write the latter word without embarrassedly putting it into quotes. But I should also mention that the only other "professionals" (there I go again) whom I am chummy with are Neil Gaiman, Jeff Smith and Sergio Aragones since they are the only three other Americans I run into regularly as guests at European comics festivals.

Finlay: What is the best experience you have ever had at a convention?

Rosa: I'll try to think of something other than "the time in 1973 when I found the last issue I needed to complete my collection of SPACE WESTERN comics". Surely the BEST experiences at a convention would be when I won Eisners at San Diego. Let me think of something from Mid-Ohio-Con... Oh, I remember the time at the charity art auction at about the 8th or 9th Mid-Ohio-Con when Stan Lee was the auctioneer and announced a piece of my art as being by "the world's best writer and artist of Disney Ducks" -- that was fun, though he couldn't have known me, and I'm sure ol' Roger Price slipped him a note!.

Finlay: What's the worst thing that has ever happened to you at a convention?

Rosa: That would be the time I was in my robe and underwear, setting a room-service tray out in the hall, and the hotel door was on spring-hinges and closed behind me. It was early in the morning and I think I had to wait about an hour before the second person came by so I could send him to the lobby for help. The first person had been a bellhop who, apparently seeing I had no pockets for a tip, must have decided it would be a good joke if he didn't go for help like I asked him. It's hard to try to look nonchalant
standing in a hotel hallway for an hour in a robe. Let's say that did NOT happen at a Mid-Ohio-Con.

Finlay: Do you have anything new our readers should be looking out for soon?

Rosa: Um... maybe they'd want to watch for when Gemstone gets a chance to use the last story I sent to Europe, being a very special new episode of "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck" the series that's won awards around the world, including one of those Eisners. An ad line for this episode might read "at last -- the whole story of what happened between $crooge and Glittering Goldie during that lost month in 1897 alone in a cabin on White Agony Creek". Be there. Aloha.

Finlay: Why do you attend the Mid-Ohio Con?

Rosa: An annual chance to see my two favorite Rogers, Price and Stern, not necessarily in that order, my mid-west dealer friends & fellow comics/Barks fan-friends, have a long roundtrip drive with Ray Foushee, some years, and maybe be lucky enough to have the table the whole weekend right next to Sergio's and-slash-or right across from Jeff's, like last year!.

Finlay: Any advice that you have for a first time convention exhibitor?

Rosa: Yes! Need a cheap backdrop for displaying art, etc.? Collapsing 3X5 ft. garment rack. With extra bungee cords between uprights. Wal-Mart. $19.95.

Finlay: Aside from the promotion of your works...

Rosa: Promoting my works does not benefit me, so it has no relation to the reasons I enjoy attending comic cons. If I did such a GREAT job at a con of promoting my own work that I caused an extra TRILLION copies of my comics to be sold, that only makes more money for Disney and the publisher. No royalties in this system. But, still, I'm always happy if I can help Gemstone!

Finlay:...conventions are a great opportunity to get out and see what other people have going for them, any neat things you've stumbled upon at conventions?

Rosa: The guy at the show last year with the collapsing 3X5 ft. garment rack! Wal-Mart! $19.95!