At last!

Fabio Gadducci gadducci at DI.UniPi.IT
Fri Dec 30 15:34:21 CET 1994


Oh my,

I think I have to write back to at least 2 months of digests.

So, I'm gonna use this mail just to offer some scattered remarks on the
threads of the last months, and obviously to wish all of you a a Happy New
Year.

First of all, the dialect: All Disney characters speak a very good Italian,
without any accent or dialect. Sometimes their Italian may be a little old
fashioned, but that's all.

Then, about the intersection between the Disney movie universe and the Duck
universe: It was an almost common practice in Italian stories of the
Fifties and late Sixties. As an example the story 'Paperin Fracassa'
(beatifully drawn by Scarpa: I own a page of the original art!) has many,
many movie characters in it (Snow White, Pinocchio, the Seven Dwarfs,
etc...).
Now, it is limited to just a few, very special occasion, as the recent
isuue #2000 of Topolino!

About Fethry. Yes, it is not a beatnik anymore, but he still has a very
particular style, so to say. And, depending on the artists, it can be a
very good characters to use. As an example, 'Tre paperi in barca (per tacer
del gatto)' is a very silly Italian parody of the famous book by Jerome K.
Jerome (with Scrooge, Fethry, Donald and Malachia-Mons-Tobber, the cat),
while 'Paperoga e il peso della gloria' is a very nice story written by
Pezzin and drawn by Cavazzano (Fethry goofs up in a submarine).

Anyway, the story where Scrooge is an editor have been rarely produced in
Italy, and all of them in the worst period for Mondadori, the late
Seventies-early Eighties.

And what about Gancio? The raven Elmer (it first appeared in a September
1949 Sunday Page, drawn by Manuel Gonzales, if I remeber correctly) is
quite a well known character in Italy. The merit is (almost obviously) due
to Scarpa, who used him in some of hia Sixties stories as a kind of
alter-ego for himself. It has been used by many other authors, anyway, and
some time ago (15 years, maybe: I'm getting old...) he acquired a 'son'!!!
Well, almost: Gancetto is a child-raven that Elmer found when he was
serving in the Foreign Legion (according to Scarpa: but it was not such a
nice story...). In early Eighties Gancetto spent some time with Mickey (for
a brief period, Scarpa's stories got again a continuity. As it happend
during the first years in which Scarpa wrote and drew Mickey stories: this
period ended with 'Topolino e la fiamma della regina Loana'). Also the
story in Seoul for the Olimpic games is written and drawn by scarpa, btw: a
really bad show-off of his later years...

About Italian output: well, almost all of the current artists are
freelancer, even if some of them can make ink their pencils by another
artist (as an example, Cavazzano was the inker of Scarpa in the mid
Sixties: You can guess my opinion on those stories... :-)
There is only one Italian studio, 'Staff di If', contributing to the weekly
'Topolino': Their work is not so bad (there are some nice artists) but
their contribution is not quantitatively relevant.

Human characters in comic book stories: they have been used a lot in the
previous decades in Italian stories, but now they are a 'no-no'.

White books: their origin is definitely Italian. The strips have been cut
and reformatted. Rarely 'censored', and always for the sake of space and
format.

No e-mail for Alberto Becattini, sorry, Bob. But I can give you his
snail-mail address, if you want. Or just tell me: I meet him quite
frequently.
Again, Bob, sorry but no US cookie jar. But there are a lot of merchandise
here in Italy with Disney charcaters, really a lot: If some of you is
interested... (Note to all: Yes, I'm always VERY, VERY late in writing back
and sending stuff. Estote parati)

Intermezzos. Well, this is a strange story. 'Classici di walt Disney' has
two volumes. The first one was published from 1957 to 1976, 71 issues in
all, and with almost the intermezzos written and drawn by G####### P#####
(he was an employee at Mondadori, while most of the artists were
freelancers. He worked for Mondadori during the day, and worked freelance
for Bianconi, publisher of Trottolino, Cucciolo&Beppe, Tirammolla etc. in
'60-'70, during the night). In 1976 started volume 2 of 'Classici'.
Monthly. The odd numbers were reprints of the first volume, while the even
numbers were new ones. This was the way till issue 40. Then till issue 67
only original anthologies with intermezzos; after that just anthologies
without intermezzos. The latest issue is 217.

Mickey Myster. Harry, it seems that in France they are reprinting the
Italian edition of the series (it is different from the danish one), mixing
the stories with those taken from the monthly 'Paperinik'. Both the Italian
monthlies mainly use reprints of classical stories from the Sixties and
Seventies. The Scarpa's story is great!! One of my Scarpa's favourite with
Mickey. The story with Paperinik is... well... You can skip that without
any problem. Martina was already an old guy, and De Vita Jr still had his
previous style, reminiscent of Scarpa and not so interesting: today he is
very cavazzanesque, and very nice.

About Uderzo's inspiration. The first Italian stories with Pippo are from
the Thirties (Pippo viaggiatore di Commercio, Paperino e il vaso cinese,
Paperino chiromante: the latter two with Donald). The first Mickey stories
are from the  Forties (Divina Commedia, Topolino e il Cobra Bianco, Pippo e
i grilli atomici, all of them by Martina-Bioletto). But I do not know if
they have ever been reprinted in France. Anyway, I think it is very
difficult they could have been the inspiration for Uderzo, even if I really
like most of them.

I recently wrote an article about Don for the magazine 'If'. It is six
pages long, and is very nicely illustrated. All this just to say that I put
a plug   to disney-comics@ in that article. It should appear in February,
premiering at the comic convention in Angouleme: I hope ot will bring us
new subscribers!!

And what about Tony Dinero in 'Oscar and the Ostrich', David?
Well, he speaks a very good Italian, as every other character. Moreover,
Dinero sounds much more like a Spanish family name, than as an Italian
one...

About the super-extra-magnificent edition of 'Horsing around...'
Well, the edition, despite the best efforts by Luca Boschi, has been edited
by Elisa Penna: she's not  bad woman, but her knowledge of Ducks Comics is
not so good. And it shows in completely wrong bibliographic references
about the first Italian editions of the stories (she mistook 'Albi Tacabili
di Topolino', a series of the Fifties, with 'Tascabilone', its reprint of
the Eighties).
And as it is obvious, she did not know anything about the other European
editions, even if the statement of 'first edition ever' is quite ambiguous
and could be intepreted as 'first English edition ever': but I know for
sure she didn't know anything about the other European editions.
Anyway, the book is quite nice, it is limited to 3.000 (maybe 5.000)
copies, and it will surely become a collectible in the Italian market:
despite its price (15.000 Liras, i.e. 10 dollars), it is already sold out.

Don! You are absolutely right about the infamous explitation of
'comics+signing+frame' for just 285 dollars. It is not advertised anymore
even in the Barks quicklist distributed by the Bear Mountain Enterprises.
So maybe it went bad: it would be terrible to think it sold out!
And about that: what can you tell me about the owner of Bear Mountain
Enterprises. Did he have any part in this 'framing'? You know, I sometimes
buy stuff from him...
About your family. Sorry, but I do not know anything about 'Lema'. I'll try
to get some information, but I think likely that it is not a
'"multi-million dollar" printing / publishing company'. But who knows...


That's all for now, boys.


As I was telling before, I hope you spent a nice Xmas, and I wish to all of
you a very, very Happy new year.


Fabio


PS Per, thanks again for this list!!

================================================================
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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