History of Disney comics in Europe

[Niels Houlberg Hansen]

Kai:
>I know the history (broadly) of Disney comics in U.S., 
>but I was wondering how they came to be in Europe. 
>Was Egmont's predecessor the first (name escapes me just now)
>European distributor? When did this happen exactly?

Egmont's original name was Gutenberghus. The director of Gutenberghus's
magazine division was called Dan Folke (a very creative and artistic person
who also wrote many hit songs). In the late 1930s he planned to publish a
Disney comic book in Denmark, but World War II prevented it.
Shortly after the War he went to Hollywood, negotiated with Walt Disney
personally and got the publishing rights for Scandinavia and Germany (the
story goes that Disney was so impressed by Folke's singing/piano-playing
that he made a deal with him instead of a bigger Swedish publisher).
Because of paper shortage, Folke had to wait until 1948/1949 before he could
launch a Donald Duck book in Norway/Sweden/Denmark. A few years later he
founded a German subsidiary (EHAPA) and entered an agreement with the Finish
publisher Sanoma. So the Germans and Finns had to wait until 1951 for their
books.
(By the way: EHAPA was named after the initial letters of Gutenberghus's
founder, Egmont H. Petersen. This is also why Gutenberghus later changed
their name to Egmont.)

Kind regards
Niels


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End of DCML Digest, Vol 37, Issue 4
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