A SNOOZY BUSINESS

Some time ago, I went through my old files and I came up with things I had forgotten all about. One of the things was my sketch work for yet another attempt by Gorm Transgaard and me from almost three decades ago, where we tried to cooperate as a team for Gutenberghus. This venture failed, and I have mentioned that elsewhere on this site.

Now I thought it to be a shame this story was lying around in clean-ups only, so I decided to finish it to be able to present it here as a historic document. Some of the story elements were reused by Gorm later in another scribble, he says, but I haven’t seen that version. Gorm forgot the code number and he could not relocate his photocopies for the original last page, where I had to reconstruct some of the text.

However the alternate version can hardly be as funny as this original venture with the Wienersänger Knaben trying to lull the billionaire to sleep at the Nap Inn Hotel resting his ass on a see-through waterbed filled with Icelandic geyser water and exotic coral fish swimming around inside. I seldom had a funnier situation to draw, and for that situation alone, it was well worth the effort to complete the ten pager in inks.

Gorm had a general weakness for archaic details. When a kid consults Donald on his problem of dozing off, he has a slingshot in the back pocket of his trousers. This could have been appropriate in the good old Barks days, if Barks had dared to add that detail, but some kids nowadays unfortunately do not stick to arm themselves with that kind of fearful hand weapons.

Another indication that the scribble was old was the fact that the office staff clerks in the opening panel were snoozing off over their typewriters. I could have left them continue doing so in my inks, but shrewdly I decided to upgrade that detail. No kids today would know what typewriters were...