Don Rosa retires

Don Rosa recently announced reasons behind his retirement here.  I have to admit, his retirement and all the reasons surrounding it are gut-wrenching, to say the least.

Back in the 90's, comics sucked. I don't care what ANYBODY says,

90's
COMICS
SUCKED

And I had two boys that were around 10 years old and I was wanting to share comics with them. BUT, comics in the 90's fell into one of two categories that I labeled Jugs and Demons, neither of which I felt was good reading material for young ones.

Then I stumbled upon a Scrooge McDuck comic and I thought it would be great to introduce my kids to Carl Barks. I flipped it open and it was not a Barks but had fantastic artwork! I finally realized that this was a NEW McDuck story. I had stumbled upon The Son of the Sun, a sequel of sorts to Lost in the Andes (well, it had a passing reference to it) and it contained Flintheart Glomgold!

Me and the boys read this book over and over and over again, laughing at every frame, gasping at the scope of the story and the attention to detail. Over the years we managed to grab a ton of stuff that Don Rosa did and Gladstone was one of our favorite publishers. Just a few weeks ago I texted Eldest Son "Zounds! It's the Law of Apex!" just for the heck of it.

Once I even emailed Mr. Rosa with a story idea concerning the Spyro Mounds and the Heavener Runestone and he politely replied that he had in fact researched both of those Oklahoma sights for possible inclusion in a story and decided against it.

I don't think there was any story of Mr. Rosa's that I felt let down by. A short story of Donald doing car maintenance made me laugh until I almost vomited, the Christmas story with the Gyro Gearloose ornaments had me in tears, and all of the stories with Glittering Goldie almost made me cry for real.

Don Rosa took a character he loved and built upon everything that Carl Barks had created. He took us back to the 1950's in Duckburg and made my family laugh when comics were designed to titillate and shock.

I wish him well and I hope he can rest somewhat knowing how much joy he brought not just comic readers in the 90's, and 00's but readers that will be discovering his stuff decades from now, just like some many have rediscovered Carl Barks.

Mr. Rosa, we thank you for all your time and energy. Once again, Thank you.