$crooge's butlers

[Marco Barlotti]

Just my 2 cents in the discussion on $crooge's butlers, introduced by Rich 
Bellacera (hi, Rich!).

The butler introduced by Barks in the "Bear Mountain" story (and in a few 
others, if I remember well) was used by Guido Martina in the first Italian 
stories, and Giuseppe Perego, in particular, drew him with a vague resemblance.
He was called "Alberto" in those stories, and as such he is indexed in the FSB
http://www.cce.unifi.it/~marcobar/DisneyIndex
and should appear also in Inducks. Try I TL 179-B, I TL 204-B, I TL 246-A 
etc. etc.. This character was used quite consistently, but never played a 
relevant role.

Then, about 5 years later, the very prolific scripter Rodolfo Cimino 
introduced a butler, called Battista, and gave him an ever increasing role 
in the stories. If you consider the Italian stories in the '60s and '70s, 
you will notice that Battista is ALWAYS a character used by Cimino, 
although the different artists drew him in largely different ways.
All of this until Giorgio Cavazzano decided to give Battista a definite 
look, perhaps noticing the steady and consistent use of the character by 
Cimino. Little by little, also the other artists came to draw Battista in 
the "Cavazzano look" (a notable exception being Luciano Gatto, who adhered 
to this look only very recently, presumably under strong pressures by Disney).

In my vision, Alberto (by Martina-Perego) and Battista (by 
Cimino-Cavazzano) are different characters. Alberto was probably fired some 
day, and who knows if someone will tell us how and why?

Please note that now Battista is currently being used as a regular 
character, living in the money bin with Scrooge, by many scripters, not 
only by Cimino.

Meanwhile Cimino has introduced a new character, Camillino, a robot working 
for $crooge in the money bin. But, alas, the story introducing him was 
rejected by Disney, so we possibly will never know how he came to work for 
$crooge... Camillino even appears in I TL 2494-5, in the issue of 
"Topolino" currently for sale at the news-stands!


     Marco


http://www.cce.unifi.it/~marcobar/Comics