Trivia / Don Rosa

• The Creator Showoff: Don Rosa put his background in construction and training in technical drawing to use in "The Beagle Boys vs The Money Bin".
• Fandom Nod: The Quest for Kalevala is one for the Finnish fandom.
• God Never Said That: Don Rosa has debunked the often-referenced notion that he hates DuckTales, and has said that he actually regards it as one of the best animated series of the late eighties and early nineties. He, however, clarified that he just doesn't think of it as a definitive version of the characters it depicts and is annoyed when he is mistaken for a "DuckTales cartoonist" in conventions in America. This proved such a problem that at his convention booths he always puts up a sign to explain that "NO...SORRY! THIS IS NOT 'DUCKTALES'", with extra text elaborating that his art is based on Carl Barks' comics, not DuckTales.
• Milestone Celebration: "The Last Lord of El Dorado" was created in celebration of his tenth anniversary of writing Disney Comic stories, and had a similar premise to his first one.
• Missing Episode: "The Starstruck Duck", a comic by Don Rosa that didn't go beyond the sketch stage.
• Promoted Fanboy: He was a big fan of the Duck Universe comics, especially Carl Barks' stories, and has become the second most prominent artist. His love of the series is the main reason behind all the Continuity Porn between his stories and Carl Barks'.
• Running the Asylum: See Promoted Fanboy.
• Screwed by the Network: Due to the way Disney Comics distribute their revenue, he never got a single cent of royalties for any of his comics (nor did almost all the other Disney comics artist, Carl Barks being one of the very few exceptions). His work is incredibly popular and bestselling in Scandinavia, yet he only ever barely scraped by financially due to his wife, who earned a higher wage, supporting him. The only payments he got for his comics were one-time payments per page, which meant a very meager hourly wage due to how meticulous and slow he works on all the details. At some point he trademarked his name and asked the publishers for at least a small yearly fee to use it prominently on the covers of Don Rosa-only paperback books. He also got some money for signings he did, but those paid an even smaller hourly rate than his comics. This appalling treatment combined with his deteriorating eye health led to him eventually becoming depressed, losing all passion for his work and retiring as he explains in this epilogue to the Don Rosa Collection, which Disney refused to print, resulting in him putting it online for everyone to read. Nice Job Breaking Him, Disney!
• What Could Have Been:
  • When approached to write an anniversary comic about the triplets, Rosa originally wanted to the story about what happened to their mother. He found it a dark subject, though, and changed it to the origins of how they become Junior Woodchucks.
  • Don Rosa originally wanted Donald's mother Hortense to be the caretaker of Castle McDuck in "A Letter from Home", but that was overruled by the publisher and thus changed to Scrooge's other sister Matilda.

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