digests 776-781

[Frank Stajano]

DON:

Thanks for your response on which editions of your comics you consider
original. That's an interesting question -- I wouldn't expect it to be
usual for an author to be first published in a language he doesn't
even read!  By the way, Jerry Siegel, the creator of Superman, wrote a
number of scripts for Italian Disney stories, many of which were
pretty good (while some others were relatively poor, I should add --
but let's only judge an author on his best work, that's my
philosophy!). I would be curious to find out if Siegel could read
Italian. His scripts were illustrated by Italian artists: Scarpa did a
number of these in the '70s, and there are many which I like a lot
like "Zio Paperone e la scorribanda nei secoli", TL 911 (1973) (lit.:
U$ and the ride through centuries); Cavazzano also did some good ones,
I remember "Paperino e la macchina dell'eroismo", TL 878 (1972) (lit.:
DD and the heroism machine). I have no idea if these have ever been
reprinted in the US and, if not, how/whether Siegel could see the
final result of his work.

>it's not until Gladstone prints them that they are
>lettered or colored well

What do you mean? Is Egmont's colour sub-standard?  I've seen
Gladstone's new computer colour, which is nice and, usually,
tastefully applied. How does the Egmont colour compare? Is it just
"flat" instead of 16 million colours? Is it dotty, like the US comics
of not-very-long-ago? Or is it technologically ok but artistically
"wrong"?


JACOB:

Thanks for translating "Lustiges Taschenbuch".  You asked how far the
Italian CWD got to, given that the Danish "Jumboboger" is at 170. I
think they must be around issue 220-230. Note that this is the new
monthly series (CWDNS) which restarted from issue 1 in 1977. The
original CWD series (1 to 71) wasn't monthly and ran from 1957 to
1977. Many of the CWDs were then reprinted in the CWDNSs: for a long
while, the odd-numbered CWDNSs were reprints of CWDs, whereas the
even-numbered ones had "new" reprints.  Note that there is no
guarantee that the Danish reprint follows the CWDNS issue by
issue. The LTs I saw which were exact replicas of CWDNS booklets did
not carry the same issue number as the corresponding Italian
originals. So it may be that they intersperse the CWDNS translations
with something else. The Danish edition may well do so too.


KNUT:

See response to Jacob :-)


HARRY:

I agree, Perego's art is ugly. Not only his glue, but his full-length
stories too. He could take beautiful scripts from, say, Rodolfo
Cimino, and turn them into something you wouldn't want to read :-( The
worst thing though is not his glue (you just skip it) or his stories,
but the panels he used to draw to join the episodes of the same story
by someone else!  The longer (>30 pages) stories were normally
published in two or three weekly installments in Topolino; when
reprinted in the CWDs, the editor (curse on him, whoever he was)
thought it was a good idea to pretend that the stories had never been
splitted in the first place, so they consistently removed the opening
page from the 2nd and subsequent installments, butchered the last few
panels of the 1st to n-1th installments and stitched the lot together
with some Perego junk... Arghhh!

Having said all this, I think it's hard to say that Perego is the
worst Disney comics artist ever. There's no lower bound, believe me,
and there are several I consider even worse (Giancarlo Gatti to name
one...)

By the way, congratulations for knowing Perego's name -- you do pretty
well for one who said he didn't know much about the Italian Disney
comics universe...


DAVID:

"[the Germans] ... keep all their pocketbooks in print"
What? Do you mean that, say, issue no 126 from 1983 is still reprinted
today so that people can find it in the newsagents? If so, this is a
wonderful and meritorious way to proceed (I wish the Italians did so)
but... how on Earth can the newsagents not run out of shelf space?

About Scarpa: Scarpa himself says he prefers Mickey to Donald, so
there you go! He did write the Legend of Donald Hood, although this is
not what he'll be remembered for.


KATHY:

Thanks for the info on "Cash Flow". Maybe when I have a few more US
comics I'll be able to read it!


DON:

You say Marco Rota is "the best Disney Duck artist of all right now"
-- what does the "right now" refer to? He sadly stopped doing Disney
stories when Walt Disney Company Italia took over from Mondadori in
1988... Is he doing new stories for the foreign markets? I knew they
recently agreed to have him do the covers for Zio Paperone, but
nothing more. I'd like to see him do new stuff. Perhaps
Gladstone/Egmont/whoever is reprinting some of his old classics, and
that's what you refer to?  I think Marco Rota is great, and he's the
most Barksian of the Italian artists; but Scarpa has such an
incredible creative and narrative power (look at his Atomino Bip Bip
stories) that I consider him even greater.  Who is "Ferolli"? Off the
top of my head I can't think of any name I know resembling this. Can
you describe the plot of some of his stories, to see if this brings
anything to mind? Or does he work for Egmont _directly_?

"Un guide ` la hauteur" literally means "A guide (who is) up to it". I
don't know the story so I can't say any more nor comment on the
appropriateness. I'll leave that to you and Dave...

      Frank      (Filologo Disneyano)