Don Rosa

Keno Don Hugo Rosa, better known as Don Rosa, was born on June 29, 1951. He is an American comic book writer and illustrator, most famous for his work on Scrooge McDuck and other Disney characters. His stories frequently build upon the characters and settings first developed by Carl Barks. Between 1987 and 2006, Rosa produced roughly 90 stories. In 1995, his 12-chapter series *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck* received the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story.

Rosa’s first published comic was *The Pertwillaby Papers*, an adventure strip he created for his college newspaper, *The Kentucky Kernel*, in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Kentucky in 1973, by which point the strip had run for 127 chapters. While working on *The Pertwillaby Papers*, Rosa also contributed art and articles to comic fanzines. One such piece was *An Index of Uncle Scrooge Comics*, where he noted that Scrooge was his favorite comic character and Barks his favorite cartoonist. In 1970, he drew a dark, dystopian Donald Duck fancomic called *Return to Duckburg Place*, but it was rejected by a fanzine.

After graduating, Rosa treated comics as a hobby. His only income came from the Keno Rosa Tile and Terrazzo Company, founded by his paternal grandfather. From 1974 to 1979, he wrote and illustrated the monthly *Information Center* column for the fanzine *Rocket's Blast Comicollector*, answering reader questions about comics, TV, and movies. He also revived *The Pertwillaby Papers* in that fanzine from 1976 to 1978, this time as a comic book story rather than a newspaper strip.

Rosa then accepted an offer from a local newspaper editor to create a weekly comic strip. This became *Captain Kentucky*, featuring the superhero alter ego of Lancelot Pertwillaby, which ran in the *Louisville Times* starting October 6, 1979. The pay was $25 per week, not worth the 12-plus hours each strip required, but Rosa considered it a hobby. The strip ended on August 15, 1982, after 150 episodes. After three years, Rosa decided the effort wasn’t worthwhile and retired from cartooning, drawing nothing for the next four years. Years later, his non-Disney work was collected by Norwegian publisher Gazette Bok in 2001, in two hardcover volumes: *The Pertwillaby Papers* and *The Adventures of Captain Kentucky*.

In 1986, Rosa came across a Gladstone Comics comic book—the first American comic featuring Disney characters since Western Publishing’s Whitman Comics ended in the 1970s. Fascinated by Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories since childhood, Rosa immediately called editor Byron Erickson, claiming he was the only American born to write and draw a Scrooge McDuck adventure. Erickson agreed to let him submit a story, and Rosa began drawing his first Duck story, “The Son of the Sun,” the next day. That story was a success, earning a Harvey Award nomination for Best Story of the Year. Its plot reused an earlier story of his, *Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes*, which Rosa described as turning an old *Pertwillaby Papers* adventure back into the story he had originally imagined, starring Scrooge, Donald, the nephews, and Flintheart Glomgold.

Rosa created a few more comics for Gladstone until 1989, then stopped because Disney’s policies prevented creators from getting their original art back. After making some stories for Dutch publisher Oberon, Rosa was hired by the publishers of the American Disney children’s magazine *DuckTales*, who offered higher page rates than Gladstone. He wrote only one script, “Back in Time for a Dime,” but the publishers never asked for more, and Rosa didn’t pursue it due to payment issues.

In 1990, Rosa joined the Denmark-based international publisher Egmont (then called Gutenberghus), which had been reprinting his stories and wanted new ones. At Rosa’s suggestion, former Gladstone editor Byron Erickson also went to work for Egmont in 1992, eventually becoming a freelancer. In 1991, Rosa began *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*, a 12-chapter series about his favorite character. It was a success, winning an Eisner Award in 1995 for best continuing series. After the original series ended, Rosa occasionally produced additional “missing” chapters. Some were rejected by Egmont, but the French magazine *Picsou* was eager to publish them. From 1999, Rosa worked freelance for *Picsou* as well. All these chapters were later compiled as *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion*.

In early summer 2002, Rosa stopped working. He felt he could not live on the terms Egmont offered, but he did not want to give up making Scrooge McDuck comics. His only option was to go on hiatus and try to reach an agreement.