Keno Don Rosa
"The New D.u.c.k.man"

 - Considered by some people as the best alive Duck comics author -

( Born 1951 )
 



 
 
* List of the stories and drawings he appears in :
- D 96089 : "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff", from 1996, by Don Rosa (by name only) ;
- D 98202 : "The Dutchman's Secret", from 1999, by Don Rosa ;
- D 2000-191 : "The Beagle Boys Vs. The Money Bin", from 2001, by Dan Shane and Don Rosa (by name only) ;
- FC PM 333D : "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #3" (an illustration for "Dangerous Disguise"), from 1997, by Don Rosa ;
- FC PM 333D : "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #18" (an illustration for "The Coin"), from 1999, by Don Rosa ;
- Qus/DIEGO2001B : "Carl Barks's 100th Birthday / The Money Bin Blueprints", in an article from Comic-Con International - San Diego 2001 Souvenir Book, by Dan Shane and Don Rosa (by name only).

 

* His biography :
     Keno Don Rosa was born on June 29th, 1951, in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up reading his older sister Diana's collection of  Carl Barks comics, which made a great impression on him.
   In 1969, he started his studies at the University of Kentucky, where he eventually graduated civil engineer. During these college years he works on the school paper, The Kentucky Kernel, where his work consists of editorial cartoons, advertisements, graphics, and eventually a daily strip, the Pertwillaby Papers, which he eventually transitioned into Captain Kentucky for the Louisville Times.
   In 1980, he married to Ann Payne, a schoolteacher.
   In 1987, after he realized, while seeing a Gladstone comicbook, that drawing Ducks is what he had been waiting for, that he was born to write and draw Uncle Scrooge comics, his first Disney story "The Son of the Sun", an old Pertwillaby adventure transformed into a story about the Disney Ducks, was published in the USA.
   In almost all of his stories, she hides a D.U.C.K. dedication, whic means "Dedicated to Uncle Carl from Keno"
   It became a big hit and Gladstone asked for more... The next two years, he worked for Gladstone, and also did the art in a few Dutch stories for the Dutch company Oberon. In 1990, he started working for Danish Egmont, with "The Master Landscapist", and stopped working for Gladstone.
   In 1995, Don Rosa receives the Eisner Award - Best Continuing Series for "The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck", a 12 parts series about Scrooge's youth, and two years later, the Eisner Award - Best Writer/Artist, Humour.
   In 1998, he eventually met his great idol Carl Barks, at his home in Oregon
   In 1999, because of Egmont's lack of interest for certain of his stories and ideas Don Rosa starts working also for French Picsou Magazine. "The Coin", a story previously rejected by Egmont is thus eventually printed in Picsou Magazine.
   He uses to draw stories which take place in the same universe tha Barks' Ducks' one (he consider other authors as apocryphal), and so he often draws sequels or prequels to Barks' stories, or stories with tons of references to Barks' stories. The only exception is "The Three Caballeros Rides Again", in which he reintroduced two of his non-Barks Disney heroes José "Joe" Carioca and Panchito Pistoles.
   He is a member of the Disney Comics Mailing List. One of his good friends are Byron Erickson, his publisher and advisor,  and Dan Shane.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
    First, in The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff", we can see his e-mail address, in Scrooge's scrapbook : donrosa@iglou.com.
   In "The Dutchman's Secret", when Scrooge howls a very bad word, which sounds a little bit like "@ #*%¤!" (sorry about my awful French accent), we can see Don Rosa and his wife, sit on a rock nearby the Montains of the Superstition, who hear echos of the bad word, and tell they understand why some say that these Mountains are hauted, but that if these are ghosts, they're illmannered.
   In "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #3", an illustration for Barks' "Dangerous Disguise", he drew himself among the crowd of the arena.
   In "Les Inédits de Don Rosa #18", an illustration for Don Rosa's "The Coin", we can see many coins with Scrooge through his life on them (when he was a shoe shiner in 1877, when he was a grumpy old man in 1947, with the Crown of Genghis Khan in 1956, as a Cow-Boy in 1882,...), and on one coin is Don Rosa's head, dated 1999. It seems that the head of Don Rosa replaces his signature on the drawing.
   In an extra panel for "The Richest Duck in the World" (Lo$#12), on a wall in Scrooge's manor, we can see a trophy in $crooge's collection which would have been sorta impossible for 1947 : Don's 1995 Eisner Award. About this, Don Rosa told "I'm somewhat torn about the addition of this -- there's no denying that it's a cute gag, but it steps out of the realistic framework that I so carefully create around my stories. But perhaps my attitude is sorta like that scene in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT where Roger was unable to slip his "toon" hand out of some handcuffs until such time as it was funny to do so. Same with me, I guess; I take my Duck comics far too seriously and I will never, never, never compromise the realistic aspects of my $crooge stories, ever, not no time, not no how... until it's funny to do so. But the Eisner Award is hanging on a wall, right? And those background pictures hanging on the wall in Donald's home in the old Barks stories have frequently had impossible things happening in them, right? So, the precedent was already set! Yeah! "
   On "Carl Barks's 100th Birthday / The Money Bin Blueprints", and in a poster of the blueprints published in Sweden, the designer is said to be a "K.D. Rosa", while in the final version of the blueprints, in the story "The Beagle Boys Vs. The Money Bin", it has changed into "F.L. Drake", F.L. meaning Frank Lloyd, obviously a pun for the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In all of the versions, on the second blueprint is mentionned "Mosaic tile design to be supplied by Keno Rosa Co. of Louisville", except in the Polish version, in which it's translated "R. Obol" ("robol" is an unpleasant word for worker). In all of the versions, the drawer is said to be D. Shane.
 
 


Don's e-mail adress


In "The Dutchman's Secret"



In "Les Inédits de Don Rosa" #3
In "Les Inédits de Don Rosa" #18


The Eisner Award...


The blueprints

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