Don Rosa (born in 1951) launched his Duckburg career in 1987, with US Gladstone Comics, following in the footsteps of his hero, Carl Barks. He grew up like I did, reading hand-me-down comic books from the 1940s and buying his own from the near the start of the 1950s, and liking humour driven comics, mixed with adventure, best. He liked and read a full variety of comics genres, and has amassed one of the finest comic book collections in The World.
Although we both worked for the same publisher, Gutenberghus/Egmont Serie Forleget (Danish Disney Comics) at the same time for over 15 years, and he visited Denmark each year, I met Don only once (at the one US comic event I ever attended, The San Diego Comic Con in 1995). I didn't get a good first impression. He seemed to me to be a bit arrogant. That trait showed itself in a long sustained argument (so-called "feud") he had with our hero, who I consider a friend, Carl Barks. That, alone, taints my view of him. But, in his favour, Don has always had a great reputation of catering to his fans' desires, in tirelessly drawing personal drawings for as many as possible, and answering ALL his fan letters, and posting regularly on Disney Comics fan fora (even those conducted in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, and Italian).
Don is best known for his Eisner Award-winning series, "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck". In it, he tells Scrooge McDuck's long history, which is, interestingly enough, is something I, myself, wanted, and had planned to do in my own comics production. I had a few such historical stories, for which I wrote and drew sketches during my early teen years, which I started re-drawing for Gutenberghus in the early 1990s, the first of which was rejected by them, because Don had already sold his "History of Scrooge McDuck's Life" idea to them, and had started on his first volumes' stories, and our editors didn't want the timing and/or events in my stories to clash (cause discrepancies) with his. So, I took my stories to my other publisher, Oberon (Dutch Disney Comics), who also rejected them, mostly because they had a policy of printing very few long stories (which had to be chopped into episodes in "Donald Duck Weekly", and also because, on a limited production budget, they could get Rosa's stories for the cost of photocopying, and my stories cost them the storywriting/storyboard art fee, penciler and inker fee, and editorial time cost. So, I never got to pursue the plans I had to write and draw so many stories about Scrooge's past. So, in a perverse way, I am a bit jealous of Don.
Rosa has spent his comics writing and drawing career trying to continue on from the legacy of Barks, writing and drawing several sequels to Barks' stories, and many more stories using new ideas, but trying to stay in The Master's general style. Some of his most popular Barks sequels are those to: "The Land Beneath The Ground", "Lost In The Andes", "Tra-La-La" (Lost Horizons), "The Treasure of The Incas", and "The Land of The Peeweegahs"(Pigmy Indians).
It is interesting that Don has never had any formal training in drawing, and he admits that that is the reason his artwork doesn't have the springiness and life that of an artist trained in animation or life drawing. Personally, I dislike his drawing style. It looks as if Robert Crumb is drawing "The Ducks". I don't like his use of all that hatched shading, and find his characters stiff and lifeless. His staging is too geometric, and I don't like his staging. Also, he is constantly trying to fill his panels with references to Barks, or other famous artists, or historical facts. He tries to put too much information for the reader in his panels. His panels and pages look too cluttered for my taste. I have a similar feeling towards most of his "historical" stories and sequels of Barks stories. I prefer his few stories that are gag-driven, or single-idea driven, such as his short story which has The Ducks walking sideways on building walls (I can't remember much about it), but it was clever and funny). I find it interesting that Don and I both came up with the same science fiction idea for a story, independently, about a "Universal Solvent". I wrote, drew and sold mine to Gutenberhus/Egmont in 1992. It was a Gyro Gearloose one-page gag. Don wrote and drew his in 1994 ( a 10-page Donald story), probably not having known about mine, as mine hadn't been published yet.
Don started drawing comics for his high school newspaper, and continued doing that during the early 1970s, for his university newspaper, with his "Captain Kentucky" adventure series, emulated the Worldwide adventures of Scrooge McDuck. Those stories are now also collectors' items, and have been reprinted in a collection format. He adapted one of those long adventures in his first professional Disney comic book story, "The Sun of The Sun" (a South American treasure saga using Barks' Flintheart Glomgold) done for US Gladstone Comics during the late 1980s. Don is known by a small group of hardcore Disney Comics fans in USA, but is a megastar in Europe, with large fan bases in many countries there, especially Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Germany. Interestingly, his work was not liked much by longtime Dutch Disney Comics chief editor Thom Roep, so his stories were mainly placed in auxiliary books, and kept out of the showcase "Donald Duck Weekblad". So, he has never been all that popular in The Netherlands. Same is true for Italy, where northern European-produced Disney comics aren't very well known, as they have a massive domestic production.
Don lives on a ranch in rural Kentucky, where he and his wife are enjoying retirement. Sadly, Don has had to stop drawing because of his deteriorating eyesight. But, I'm told, he still attends a few comics events.
