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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What is the good size for a comic
story? Taking some examples from the french comics throughout the
time, an intimate story seems to require the (small) size of an old Mickey
Parade, the most part of the stories were coming from the topolino stories of
the sixties, these ones fitted very well with the small size of the magazine
because these stories used to be both vaudevillesque and intimate (that was the
sense of my word 'ludicrous' when i applied it in different earlier comments);
and that was just the problem for printing the stories of C.Barks in these
issues, stories wich are on a more larger, huge scale than the
italian ones with an imposing setting, nature and world described in a lot
of stories (a lot of things are huge in the stories of Barks : the money bin,
the world, nature, the center of the earth, the space ; so, a small size of
magazine doesn't fit well with such a landscape; i remember reading one of the
rare (the only? i don't remember) stories of Carl Barks, in a old Mickey
Parade, called 'The Micro Ducks of Outer-Space' - an another nostalgia of
the old trading? i will come back on this point in a next comment if i can
because this not the matter here - (Mickey Parade 1121 bis Picsou le magnifique)
and this story didn't fit with the small size of the comic, it is more
adequate to read C.Barks in a bigger size; one thing which lacks
in the currently Picsou magazine is a certain continuity, fluidity and link
between the stories; in the Mickey Parade of the 60's, 70's and early 80's there
was, between the stories, some small interludes, prologues which
constituted somewhat a link between the main stories, so the magazine was being
able to be read as a whole, in Picsou there is a discontinuity between the
stories, because they are really differents, in nature, age and personalities of
the authors, there is no links between these stories, links which were providing
sometimes an insight about the main stories (the prologue of Donald Paladin de
Picsou VI Mickey Parade 951 bis is an example amongst numerous ones); i
think that must have been the same mechanism in Topolino but i have not so much
clues about that, i have never had the possibility of reading an issue of this
magazine; so, what we get in definitive at the end for Picsou magazine is
a motley mix of different stories; however apart from the lack of
continuity between the stories, this magazine has
released good ones from time to time, besides on a material level,
both the quality of the printing and the paper are good currently.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mickey : some considerations about a few stories,
mostly detective ones : the noise : a lot of elements makes noise
and unbearable noise in the stories of Scarpa: the musical instrument of a
freshly liberated convict in Mickey et l'évade d'altacraz (topolino e l'uomo di
Altacraz 1963), the noise of a Mickey entering the wrong room of a popular music
radio station in 'dimensione Delta', the noise of the records in unglia di Kali.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Elements of vaudeville : implies
strong connections between several characters who know each others
very well, these connections provide some surprisingly meetings at some
unexpected places and moments (Donald à l'école des ennuis, paperino e la scuola
dei guai 1958, excellent story between vaudeville and adventure); the vaudeville
implies characters with a definite personality, providing the source of the
situations; this is not the case in general for Mickey, where the intrigues are
predominant over his personality, the characterization being weak, but this is
the case for the characters of Duckburg; that leads to the consideration,
verified in some Scarpa stories (l'évadé d'altacraz, Kalhoa) but also in
Gottfredson (the phantom blot): Mickey can act alone and stand the story by
himself, this is harder for the characters of Duckburg to do so, they are so
connected each others, so dependent, that they can hardly act alone in a story
without being connected again soon together as if they only were a part of a
bigger thing, as a whole (Donald à l'école des ennuis).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The law over Mickey : Just a bizarre consideration
after reading some Scarpa's and Gottfredson's stories recently : i think the
relationship between Chief O'Hara and Mickey is more a professionnal one
(with some hint of frienship) rather than a real friendship because obviously,
in some stories chief O'Hara puts the law over Mickey; in The Gleam
1942 he threatens Mickey to have troubles if he doesn't give away what he knows
about this affair (but Mickey doesn't want, thinking Minnie is involved in the
robbery); in Topolino imperatore della Calidornia, some witnesses believe to
have recognized the robber as Mickey, the proofs are against him,
Chief O'Hara puts him in jail (he is sorry but he puts him in
jail).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The dangerous couple appears in two fundamental
plots: the Gleam and the unglia di kali, but a difference exists
between the two : in the gleam the woman-housewife is implicated in the
robberies, this isn't the case in the unglia de kali where the woman is unaware
of her husband's tricks.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The sense of the masquerade : l'évadé d'altacraz
takes a new start in the sense of the Masquerade, in the ambiguity of the
personalities (with a hint of psychological element already present in Mickey et
la flamme éternelle de Kalhoa topolino e la fiamma eterna di Kalhoa (the dream
at the beginning of the story where Goofy introduces a dangerous female
character to Mickey), 'Chirikawa' with his freudian psychology of a child
traumatism; this sense of the Masquerade (less present than in Duckburg)
is reinforced and helped by the simple traits (drawing) of the faces of the
characters.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>