Gawsh... (Re: Fabio)

[gadducci@di.unipi.it]

As usual, I'm sending out a "digest" with my 2 cents coins...



A lot of time ago, Harry wrote


>> Now about my favourite stories... Well, I do not think I can list only TEN
>> stories... Maybe my Barks' favourite one is the full version of "Back to
>> the Klondike" (if I HAD to decide), and that is probably my favourite duck
>> story, too, even if there are at least a couple of Italian (which are
>> linked to my childhood) by Romano Scarpa (Zio Paperone e le lenticchie di
>> Babilonia) and Pezzin-Cavazzano (Paperino e l'isola vulcano) which are
>> close enough...
>> (ok, go on: flame me :-)
>
>I remember a LOT of VERY BAD Italian stories, and a few good ones:
>Scrooge in search of a fish for a 'kaibi' bird, featuring something like
>  'the Flying Dutchman';
>Scrooge and Donald on a butterfly hunt, featuring Brigitta MacBridge
>
>I think those two were early Scarpa stories; they were printed in Holland 
>in the early 70s.
>
>> And for Gottfredson... well, surely Island in the Sky from the Thirties,
>> but his best stuff is maybe from the Forties (even if I do not remember the
>> English titles...). More on this next time... :-)
>
>I disagree: the best stuff is from the 30s! In the 40s, you get the stories
>with Eega Beeva, which are quite OK (but not the best), and after that, well..
>
>> [Scrooge has a] Scottish accent? I was absolutely sure he talked in a plain
>> Italian... :-)
>
>But if I remember well, the Italian Disney characters do GRUNT, SNORT and 
>make other noises in English! And Scrooge has dollars in his money bin.
>Does that mean that Duckburg is in the USA, even in the Italian translations?
>(In Holland, Duckburg is in some undefined country, but they pay in
>guilders.)
>


Mmmmm, I think I got an enemy, here...

First of all, remember the Sturgeon Law: more than 90% of the [science
fiction] published stuff is crap!! I think that it can applied to the comic
medium as a whole, and as a particular case to Disney books...
Then, about the stories. Both of them by Scarpa, as already Per pointed
out: the first one is "Zio Paperone e lo Scozzese Volante" and the second
one is "Paperino e la farfalla di Colombo". Both of them wonderful stories
(obviously :-), but not my favourite from Scarpa that is "Paperone e le
lenticchie di Babilonia" (it  appeared in a thick digest: it involves
$crooge trying to became the king in the ... trading. Besides, Scarpa is
maybe better as a Mickey artist...

And about Mickey: Gottfredson himself told that his best drawn material was
from the Sixties... Let's just say that I prefer the third way, a god mix
of drawning and plotting: in this sense, his stuff from the Forties is
maybe his best...

Was I was VERY young, it was obvious to me that the only language of the
world was Italian, and I've got at that time my 'mental voices' of all the
ducks...
Actually, the characters grunt and snort, and they use dollars: it is
always clear that Duckburg (Paperopoli) is somewhere in the USA, most
likely California... and not so far from Mouseville (Topolinia), too!
Actually, in the last years there were many team-ups between Mickey and
$crooge in the Italian stories, even if, now that I think about it, they
disappeared after that the Italian Disney took over Mondadori...


Now David, about vegetarian ducks (and mice): in the last issue of Minnie &
Co., Minnie officially stated that she is a vegetarian... The story was
really bad, and besides the statement about the vegetarianism was
absolutely out of context, completely unrelated to the story itself...
And about underused characters: in the first years of the Seventies,
Mondadori (back then the publisher in Italy of Disney material) decided to
reprint almost all of the Thirties stuff by Gottfredson in a low price
series called "Nel Regno di Topolino". After that, during the Seventies
many authors used characters as Sylvester Shyster, Eli Squinch and *Butch*:
almost all of them got a little restyling, so it could be nice (and maybe
useful) if you give a look at them!!

And now, a very sad note: Topi wrote, about Disney worst stories...

> Anything by Cavazzano.
>

And then, Harry:

>Who is that? One of the Italian artists? How can I recognize him? Any USA
>reprints?
>

Again,, Per:

>I also wonder who this Cavazzano is.  How come Luigi lists him as
>his favourite author next to Barks and Topi says that anything by
>Cavazzano is the worst?

Finally, 'OLE':

>Fredrik:
>>My favorite authors are: Barks (?!), Giorgio Cavazzano and Don Rosa.
>Topi:
>>Subject: Re: Worst Disney Stories
>>Anything by Cavazzano.
>Fabio:
>> Now about my favourite stories...[deleted]...and Pezzin-Cavazzano (Paperino
>> e l'isola vulcano) which are close enough...
>> (ok, go on: flame me :-)
>
>So, who *is* this Cavazzano? He's not listed in the CREATORS file...
>
>A Bop, Bop theory: Maybe that comma is a tired bug?
>

Gosh, I am so sad...
Cavazzano IS surely the best Italian Disney artists since the
mid-Seventies: his work was seminal for all the other Italian Disney
artists of the last ten years, and it is heavily copied, sometimes with
very good results (as for Massimo de Vita).
It is a pity that noone of his stories has been published in the USA, since
IMHO he is one of the best Disney artists ever.
 
A proposal for David: you wrote
>	I think the major reason that Fethry died out here is that he
>was linked to a culture -- 1960s hippies -- which went out of style,
>and the type of story done for the foreign market -- in which he was
>an interesting character, not a stereotype -- was never seen here.
>
>	Oh yes, in Germany:  Cousin Fethry = Vetter Dussel
>
>	Maybe I can offer to dialogue an Italian story with Fethry for
>Gladstone to use.  I wouldn't use the beatnik speech however.

Well, the story "Paperoga e l'isola a elica" by Pezzin-Cavazzano is a very
good one, and the main characters are Donald and Fethry: you could give
that a try, for publication... (and I can send you the code, or a copy of
that issue...:-)

(And about the Italian section of your list of characters, David: there is
some minor mistake in the chronological order of the name: tell me if you
are interested (and if you'd like to know why Paperinik got that name...)!
I should add some more information to the archive about Mondadori and the
Italian codes, and I'll do that as soon as I have some time to devote to
that: gawsh, it is already a problem to read all the letters... :-)


Bye for now,

Fabio
================================================================
Fabio Gadducci           Dip. di Informatica
                         Universita` di Pisa
Tel. +39-50-510268       Corso Italia 40, 56100 PISA (ITALY)
FAX: +39-50-510226       E-mail:gadducci at di.unipi.it
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