Disney-comics digest #757.

[Frank Stajano]

ARTHUR:

>Just like Don said, it's ALL European Disney comics, that 'refuse' to
>print the entire credits.

Not completely true: In Italy they started printing the names of
writer and artist in 1988 (whopee!), shortly after the newly-formed
Walt Disney Company Italia took over from Mondadori. In 1995 they
started to occasionally mention the inker when different from the
penciller. They only do this for Italian stories though, which is a
shame: I look forward to the day when, maybe with the help of the
Boschi, Sani, Gori, Becattini quartet, they start to print credits for
stories from other publishers.



HARRY:

Thanks for the welcoming!

> > childish passion for comics, and all that sort of rubbish (sounds
>
> VERY familiar.

Sigh...


[Massimo De Vita] 
> If I remember well, this artist made awful drawings in th 60s or 70s.

I have a feeling that you may be confusing him with his father, the
late Pier Lorenzo, who had a completely different style (he didn't
really use perspective and he used to "bend" straight lines -- like
the trajectory of a bullet from a gun over a few metres!) His drawings
look awful at first sight, although can be seen as a historical author
in a sense.

IMHO Massimo De Vita did splendid drawings in the 70s (though you can
see a slight influence from his father in his very early stories which
I think are from the 60s) so I am strongly inclined to believe that
you are referring to P.L.


> How come some Italians change their drawing style so drastically? For
> instance, Romano Scarpa was very good in the 50s, and then he started
> drawing VERY ugly Ducks in the 60s!

WHAT? Well that must be a matter of personal preferences... I think
Scarpa's best _scripts_ are from the 50s, but that his best _art_ is
actually from the 60s and early 70s! I should actually give precise
references to stories, but I am at the office right now so I can't
check on the dates of the actual comics.  However I agree with you
that there have been great changes in his style.

Another artist that changed significantly over the years is Giovan
Battista Carpi. And look at Giorgio Cavazzano! More on that later
on...

> Does the Italian editor demand style changes from time to time?

I don't think so. I think it's a personal evolution of the individual artists.

> This is very typical. There seem to be two Disney comics worlds: the
> Italian/French/Brazilian world, and the USA/Danish/Dutch world. People
> from one world seem to know very little about the other. I for instance
> know almost nothing about French or Brazilian comics.

I agree with your "isolated worlds" perspective, though I wouldn't
lump the Italian world together with the French and Brazilian -- to me
they have very little in common. It is probably more accurate to keep
them separate. The B's, especially, even use their own sets of
characters. The I's tend on average to have much longer stories than
the F's, B's, D's, H's.


DON:

>         I'm glad to have another Italian in the group. That was an excellent
> introDUCKtion. 

Thanks.

> It sounds like you've really seen very few of my stories -- I
> hope they'll grow on you a bit when you see more.

You may be right, actually. I think it's a bit like the rock group
Genesis: the first time I heard them, I didn't like them at all; but
as I listened to them more and more I started to like them a bit, then
a lot. And I've noticed this happening (with Genesis) to several
friends.

At this point as you say I've only read a few of your stories (4 or 5
stand-alone ones and half a dozen episodes of the Lo$) and I am at a
point where I really like you as a writer. I wouldn't say you are my
preferred artist, yet, but this may come later... :-)

>         Where was this self-proclaimed Disney comics expert that you
> mentioned getting into a tiff with on some BBS? Why isn't he here? 

I don't remember his name, it was 3 or 4 years ago on an inter-BBS
Italian echo area (read: newsgroup) on comics. 90% of the traffic was
evenly split between superheroes and manga, so it was rare to find
someone who would talk Disney.

Why is he not here? Well I think that Internet access isn't yet
widespread in Italy. Reasonably priced providers have only started to
appear in 1995 and the market isn't really mature yet. Maybe 1996 will
be the year where the majority of people with a modem will be
connected to the net instead of just an amateur BBS network like Fido
(which I'm not denigrating in any way, btw-- there's lots of good
things to be said for Fido IMHO).

> How many more friends would we have here if people knew where to
> find us? And I don't know what else Per can do to spread the
> word. 

I think the web will be the thing that makes us known. As some of us
put up interesting pages and the sites become well-known, people will
find the pointer to the list much more easily.

If I had known that the list existed in 1992 I would have subscribed
right away! The only thing I did was checking the *disney* newsgroups,
but I quickly discovered that none of the traffic was about
comics. It's amazing how long it took me to find out...



LUTZ:

> Barks without the verbal wit of Dr. Erika Fuchs - unthinkable!"  This
> is a mean and tasteless statement. 

Surely is!  On the other hand I must note that when I first read the
American originals of some Barks and Gottfredson stories I knew well,
I was surprised to see the characters (even "respectable" ones like
Mickey) use slang and misspellings. I was used to the Italian versions
which made a point of always use grammatically and orthographically
correct language. So, I was fascinated to note this difference-- but
others might have been shocked!


DANIEL:

> I think that is a reason to put her on that list. But... maybe then I 
> should also place "Rockerduck" on it? He seems to be used very often 
> in Italy. I should know it, but was Rockerduck really a creation of 
> Barks? Why did Barks create the character? (I ask this because I 
> vaguely remember that I red something about this.)            

I think I read a similar discussion in one of the previous monthly
digests-- try grepping for Rockerduck in 1995-02, which is what I was
reading the other day. Anyway, in short: Barks invented the character
but only used it for one story (the one about a super-fuel for racing
boats, if I were at home I'd give you a more precise reference). The
Italians, most notably Guido Martina, have rescued him from oblivion
and turned him into Scrooge's regular opponent, in a role reminiscent
of that of Flintheart Glomgold (except that Rockerduck lives in
Duckburg like Scrooge, so they get to see each other a lot more).


ALL:

Bye for now-- I'm on hols for 10 days, so I'll answer your replies
when I'm back.




      Frank      (Filologo Disneyano)