MM Best Comics

[David Gerstein]

    Rodney and others,

> Be warned though if you're buying it for the strips.  They took Italian
> translations and translated them back to English instead of doing what made
> good sense (using the original English).  Still, the stories read pretty well,
> and some of them have never been reprinted elsewhere.

    The books stack up like this:

    Mickey: all stories use some of original dialogue, but it's heavily
trimmed down in most cases and occasionally completely rewritten (parts of
"Death Valley", where I guess they didn't have the originals handy). Some
stories had strips cut out in Italy, so the same strips are missing here
("Death Valley" and "Tanglefoot" are especially butchered).
    For some reason, as has already been noted, "MM in the Foreign Legion"
uses almost all of the original dialogue. It's a good presentation of that
one story.
    There are two editions of this book. The first is white with a 1930s MM
on the cover. The second is yellow with a 1940s MM.

    Goofy: all stories use ALL of the original dialogue, albeit relettered
to match the Italian voice balloons. The editor was Horst Schroeder, who
obviously gave a damn. Great job, and the only place to read several of the
key early 1940s Gottfredson stories in a licensed American reprint.

    Donald: all stories use most of the original dialogue, with new text
added occasionally to fill extra-big balloons. "Lost in the Andes" and "Luck
of the North" had sequences cut out in Italy, so the same stuff is missing
here.
    There are two editions of this book. The first is white with a cover
illustrating "The Magic Hourglass". The second is yellow with a cover image
taken from "Voodoo Hoodoo" (which isn't in our edition of the book!).

    Donald Duck and His Nephews: stories are a haphazard mix of original and
new dialogue with no rhyme or reason. "The Mummy's Ring" has 1938 Taliaferro
panels added to it to fill out the reformatted pages‹ yes, the result is as
bad as it sounds.
    There are two editions of this book. The first is a red book with a
white dustcover and a Whitman cover design of the ducks at the beach. The
second edition is retitled "Huey, Dewey and Louie" and shows big images of
the nephews' heads. The second edition is very rare: I've only ever seen it
once, and don't remember what color it is! But someone is selling one:
    http://www.booksandcollectibles.com.au/bookfinder.php?book_id=72979079

    Uncle Scrooge: similar to HDL, stories are a haphazard mix of original
and new dialogue with no rhyme or reason.

    Animated Features and Silly Symphonies: stories (from ZS and ZT) have
their original dialogue and original lettering too, as they're reproduced
from original newspaper pages. A very nice collection. Unfortunately "Bucky
Bug" is only an excerpt of the much longer continuity, though the book
claims (wrongly) to be presenting the whole thing.
    Most of these books originated in Italy, but this one seems to be an
Abbeville original.

    David