a forwarded message from Fabio

[Larry Gerstein]

Dear Folks,
Fabio sent this to me, saying he couldn't get it onto the Digest.  Per,
maybe you can make sure he's still hooked up properly.
                                David
gerstein at math.ucsb.edu

The subject is 'Sorry, folks...'

Dear friends,

I'm sorry for all the problems my e-mail address could have caused to you...

My system was down for a while: so I lost a lot of messages of the list
(last two weeks of August, even if I just read the digests in the archive),
and all the e-mails you sent me... expecially from you, Don, who wrote on
August, 17...

FABIO:
        Did I get your mail? I got an E-Mail from you -- didn't you get
a response? I hate to have you send it (and me pay for it) again if I
already received it -- what were the general contents? Maybe you just
didn't get my response, whatever it was.

...and on August, 27...

FABIO:
        Doggonnit, fella, where do you keep disappearing to? I'd like to
make sure you received the looooong answer I sent to your previous
message, but we can't seem to maintain contact on here.

That's all. I'm sorry for the problems, and I hope all of you who sent me
their e-mail could send it again... :-)

But let me put my 2 cents on the most recent threads!

>David Gerstein wrote:
>
>>         ROC announced that "the hillbilly character - a.k.a.
>> 'Urtigao'/'Skogs-Ola' and 'Jesper Skauen' - in Denmark is (or should I say
>> 'was'?) called 'Habakuk', which could be his, although misspelt, original
>> name.  A Strobl story in AA&Co. #27/1969 also mentions his friend Amos -
>> not a very common name in Danish."
>>
>>         So it was a STROBL story?  An S-coded story, then?  This means that
>> it was originally made in English!  So this tramp DOES have an English
>> name.  If someone can give me the code for the SHORTEST GOOD S-story with
>> this tramp, I can see if Gladstone wants to order it and find out the name
>> -- and then presumably use it.
>

The Italian name of the character is Dinamite Bla' (from dynamite and blam,
the onomatopoeic sound for a shot). It is well remembered by all those guys
(like me) who were children in the mid-Seventies: as far as I remember, all
these stories were coded S. The best ones had as main characters Feathry
and all the others journalists working for 'Papersera' (that is, Feathry,
Donald and U$ :-).
I can try to found out more information about the original name (maybe
asking to that crazy guy of Alberto Becattini: I'll meet him in a few
days...) and send you some of the S-codes...

And about Feathry: yes, it is quite popular in Italy (as I already told you
many times before, some of his stories of the mid-late Seventies with
Donald and U$, written by Pezzin and drawn by Cavazzano, are my favourite
ducks stories ever), even if I think that few Italian stories with him
appeared during the Sixties. So when Lars wrote

>Harry Fluks writes:
>> They say they don't use "Popop" (Fethry) much because all his stories
>> are Italian, and they can't translate them.Apparently, they don't know there
>> are quite a lot of English stories with
>> Fethry, even by Strobl.
>
>Yes, and the funniest ones are drawn in a style very similar to
>Al Hubbard. Are these the italian ones, ore are they actually Hubbards work?
>(In Norway in the sixties I believe their codes started with x, xtra or extra.)

I'm quite sure the stories he is referring to, are not Italian.
Could you maybe tell me something more about the plot, the characters and so on?


Now, about the credits (a most recurring thread, I see... ;-): Don wrote

>NEWS:
>        Speaking of Sweden, Egmont mentioned to me today that some
>Swedish comic fans are suing the editor of the Egmont Disney weekly on
>the basis that it is against Swedish law NOT to give artist and writer
>credits and it's the editor's responsibility to obey the law. This is a
>very noble and selfless thing for someone to be doing and paying for
>themselves; and I think Egmont is interested in the outcome. It's DISNEY
>that is preventing Egmont from putting those credits in while Egmont
>WANTS to do so, and this will be interesting to watch. I wonder what
>Swedish law says about denying the "creators" royalties off the use of
>their work?

and Mikko replied

>    This is not true at least here in Finland. Finnish editors have
>    complete credits for new Egmont stories but they have decided
>    not to print 'em. They say that part of the reason to do that
>    is that they don't get the credits for Dutch (and propably
>    Italian) stories. And they don't want to treat various artists
>    differently....
>
>    I asked this from Byron also when he was in Finland, but
>    he didn't give answer.

Even if it does not make any difference from a $$-oriented point of view
(no royaltes at all), in Italy writers and artists get FULL credits for
their work. Usually, only Egmont stories get no credits, simply because (as
they told me) they are not sent with the stories. It could be so, even if
all of you know the kind of disagreement existing betwenn Disney Italy and
Egmont. And I'm sure Finnish artists get the credits for Italian stories:
Disney Italy would like to sell the work of its artists all around
Europe...

Then, a curious thread started by Sigurdur:

>I was reading a 3 year old Italian Disney pocket comic book just yesterday
>and I came upon a most pecculiar story. Very unDisneylike in fact.
>The plot was about Mickey's two nephews meeting a new friend and finding
>out that he was being abused at home, that is, he shows up with a bruise on
>his face and claims his father did it. The nephews contact the local
>phoneline for abused children and ask for help. The phone agency then
>contacts one of their top agents who, incidentally, is Mickey Mouse.
>In the end everything works out. The father promises never to do this again,
>he was under a lot of strain etc.
>Anyway, this is something I never ever saw in a Disney comic.
>Stories that address real social problems? Never seen those in a Disney comic.
>Maybe this was the only time, but I wonder how it got past the editors.
>Could it be that the italian comics are more serious in this matter?

Then Don

>        The "odd" story in that Italian Disney digest was surely not
>something that "slipped by the editors". Wouldn't you suppose it was
>something that the editors planned carefully?
>        I think I'd rather not see such sordid things dealt with in a
>Disney comic, even though I know exactly what the editors would say and
>the good that they were hoping to accomplish. And for all I know, it
>might have DONE some good somewhere. I just hate to think that it's the
>responsibility of a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck story to deal with this
>sort of thing when it should be dealt with in some other manner or
>agency. Oh, well, I guess if I get away with the weird stuff I am
>allowed to put into "Disney comics" simply as entertainment, other
>people can use their stories to save mankind.

and Bror

>Well, I have seen this story and a few similar. In a couple of stories MM
>is an agent for WWF flying around the world and saves animals.
>
>I think that the Italians have more liberty and don't need to be PC.

These stories are not obviously 'slipped by the editors'. Usually, they are
created with the help of some organization.
In the case of the abused child, there was the support of the Italian
phoneline, 'Telefono Azzurro'; in the other case mentioned by Bror, it was
supported by the WWF itself. Moreover, in both cases there was a very lerge
article inside 'Topolino' devoted to the argument, and explaining what
these organizations are working for.
Not a bad thing to do, in my opinion...

Then our never-forgotten ;-) David

>        First, the long-awaited Scarpa story "Colossus of the Nile" has
>been received by Gladstone and will appear in late 1995.  They just got the
>proofs in recently.

Great! Maybe you could send me some more information, to find out if they
sent you the mutilated version (but I do not think so) or the original
one...

Could you tell us something more about the panel. A friend of mine who was
at the San Diego Con told me only very old people attended it... ;-0

And about Fatherland :-), Don wrote

>        I certainly don't mean to suggest there's a need for a Rosa
>index for every country, but Fabio just sent me a copy of the Italian
>PAPERINO #168, the DD 60th birthday issue, with my "The Duck Who Never
>Was" as the lead feature (including a short text where I see my name
>mentioned and some comments about the Lo$ series which the Italians will
>also soon see). This is the first time one of my stories has appeared in
>my father's country; the reason is, as we've said, they only have
>digest-sized comics in Italy, and my Birthday story was cut apart and
>reassembled in digest shape -- this meant they needed to add lots of art
>to all the panels to make them larger or squarer, and that didn't do my
>already lopsided art much good. I'm sure Italian readers wondered why
>this story, which I assume the opening text was praising (?), seemed so
>cockeyed looking. They also used Marco Rota's "Life of DD" story in the
>same issue, and they ran it in its original form -- I don't know why
>they treated the two stories differently. But I see that the opening
>mentioned that my grandparents came from Maniago and Venice, and perhaps
>that either pleased or embarrassed the readership.

Obviously, the opening text was praising you (I mean, the author was Luca
Boschi, he likes your work, and besides that all the information came from
this list :-), and the mentioning of your grandparents' origins was a kind
of 'captatio benevolentiae': something which was intended to please the
readers, 'for the work of this great author' (somewhere in the
introduction). It has been well accepted, even if some friends of mine
(die-hard disney fans) think that your art is quite un-disney... But alas,
a really good first appearence, after all.
I'll tell you more after I get your lost e-mail... :-)

That's all for now, folks. A last thought, Don. I understand why you are so
angry with Jippes, Grandey and so on. But we like your stories, and we like
your being so #$%$#@ proud. Keep up the good work!

Fabio

PS Harry wrote:
>    "The Secret of Mars" was very entertaining. I expected a quite bad
>story, that's only reprinted because it is the "first". But it was quite
>fun reading it! And I liked the name of Fabio Gadducci in the credits.
>This mailing list is really accomplishing things!

Thank you, my friend!! (I'll send you the money in a little while... :-)

================================================================
Fabio Gadducci            Dip. di Informatica
Home: +39-50-541725       Universita` di Pisa
Off.: +39-50-887268       Corso Italia 40, 56100 PISA (ITALY)
FAX:  +39-50-887226       E-mail:gadducci at di.unipi.it
================================================================




gerstein at math.ucsb.edu