Scattered remarcks...

Fabio Gadducci gadducci at DI.UniPi.IT
Tue Apr 12 19:22:26 CEST 1994


Some time ago, David wrote, about "In search of Jungle Treasure"

>        A few years ago this story was reprinted in an oblong comic in
>Germany, three strips to the page in original format (albeit with
>color added).  That version apparently had an Italian origin,
>according to Fabio.  My guess is that you European readers may have
>gotten your own local editions at that time -- it was a supplement
>with the weekly 26/1991, so maybe you have it.

Well, the newstands edition came out in the late-Eighties, but the whole
1930-1945 run first appeared as a collector's edition some years before,
around mid-Eighties.
Besides that, there was another edition of FG's stories during the years
1970-1972 (almost all the 1930-1945 stuff), in an series of oblong comics
(just two strips per page) called "Topolino d'Oro", even if this edition
was b&w: does anybody know if this edition was reprinted anywhere? Just
curious...

>        As Don suggested regarding some story (perhaps the story in
>which DD kills an eagle for Thanksgiving), there are some that are
>just better left to "complete library" sets, and should not appear
>elsewhere.  What is the view in Europe when the more offensive stories
>("Darkest Africa" in Barks, or this one for FG) are reprinted OUTSIDE
>of such library sets?  I understand that there was a protest when "An
>Education for Thursday" appeared, and I'd be interested to hear
>something about that...

Well, even if Disney Italy is more politically correct than Mondadori (I
remember a nice article in The Barks Collector, talking about the
unfairness of the Italian $crooge of the late Seventies), we still feel a
lot more free in dealing with certain topics. The only exception is the
vegetarian issue: now every character is pro-WWF and vegetarian in the
(Italian) ducks and mouses universes, since so is Elisa Penna, one of the
most influential editors...

>        Jas. Williams said, "David, you are our resident Mickey Mouse
>expert.  What did you think of [Disney Adventures comic strip 'Return
>to Blaggard Castle']?"


{Well, I'm not the resident MM expert ;-), but I think the story is quite
silly...)

[...]

>        "Second, as usual the Phantom Blot was totally out of
>character.  The Phantom Blot's speciality is espionage.  Having him
>spend a fortune to rebuild the castle made no sense."
>        The Blot was a spy in the very first story made about him.
>Romano Scarpa did the second one -- "The Blot's Double Mystery" in
>1954 (first printed here, 1988).  In that excellent tale, the Blot's
>main goal was to get revenge against Mickey.  Other Italian stories
>may have followed the same tack (I don't know).

Well, in almost ALL the Italian stories with the Blot (and Macchia Nera has
been used quite a lot of times after "Double Mistery", expecially in 60's
and 70's), he mainly seeks revenge against Mickey. Much more than Pete,
whose main interest is still getting money...
(Btw, the writer of "Double Mistery" is Guido Martina, I remember...)

>
>        *** HAVE THE EARLY BUCKY SUNDAY STRIPS BEEN REPRINTED BY
>OBERON... AND IF SO, WHERE AND WHEN? ***

Yes, in Italy. Comic Art is reprinting all the Thirties MM sunday pages in
full colors and in their original format: this means that they have the MM
sunday page below the Silly Symphonies strip (including Bucky -Buci in
Italian).

And now, it is up to Fredrick

>But then, about a week ago when I was out shopping, my eyes fell on
>a brand new comic book. Standard Italian digest format, 100 pages,
>cover featuring Mickey and Minnie being attacked by horrible
>zombies and the title "Musses mysterier" (Mickey's Mysteries).
>Acting on impulse (something I rarely do) I picked this up and,
>later at home, read it. To my utter surprise, it was very good!
>
>There are no codes for the stories, but format and style both
>indicate Italian origin. The two stories it contains seem to feature
>Mickey in yet another of these universes that are perfectly
>consistent within themselves, but not necessarily so with other
>Disney comics (like DuckTales). Mickey is a detective with his own
>agency. Minnie hosts a popular TV show.


I do not remeber of having read those stories you talk about, but actually
there is a monthly called "I misteri di Topolino", i.e., "Mickey's
Misteries", devoted, as it is obvious, to misteries involving MM. It is
mainly devoted (I'd say only, but I miss three issues) to Italian artists,
and till now 27 issues are out.
Last year a similar series (called "Paperinik and other suoperheroes") was
out, reprinting msainly Italian stories with Paperinik, and a few classical
American stories with SuperGoofy.

>To the point, I guess: This story made me remember that there are in
>fact quite a few good Italian long stories.

Ah, how kind of you...

>Perhaps my favourite
>(that has been mentioned as a favourite by both Per and Harry
>previously) is "The Flying Scotsman". Another good (certainly
>Scarpa) story is one where Mickey gets to meet intelligent penguins
>from the North Pole. There are others as well, but coming to think
>of it, they are probably by Scarpa almost all of them...

Yes, even the story with the penguins is by Scarpa. It was reprinted in a
"classico" (I do not remember how you call those big pockets) in the early
seventies. But I must confess that it is not one of my favourite...

And now, something completely different...
I'm leaving for a week. I'll be in Munich for a workshop from 14 to 20 of
this month. Is there any German duck fan out there?


Bye,

Fabio




================================================================
Fabio Gadducci            Dip. di Informatica
Home: +39-50-541725       Universita` di Pisa
Off.: +39-50-887268       Corso Italia 40, 56100 PISA (ITALY)
FAX:  +39-50-887226       E-mail:gadducci at di.unipi.it
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