Paulo, Ake and Giafranco

[Arthur_de_Wolf]

Hi!

PAULO:
Okay! So let me try to put it all together now. A large publishing 
empire that produces a lot of Spanish comics and uses a little box 
with a tree inside on the cover, has a lot of smaller publishers 
in Brazil itself, and other countries. (The ones from Colombia also
are from this company). 'Pato Donald' has two versions. One is published 
by Abril Jovem in Brazil. And the other is published by Editora Morumbi
in Portugal. The Editora Morumbi-comic is not as long running as
the 'Pato Donald' from Abril Jovem. That's because you said that
Pato Donald #119 was published in the 50s in Brazil. My Portuguese
PD#119 is from 1985. That means that in the past, Portugal got
their 'Pato Donald'-comics from Brazil, but only recently (maybe 
in 1980), they get 'Pato Donald'-comics from a publisher called 
Editora Morumbi. Other comics, like 'Margarida', are Brazilian comics 
from Abril Jovem, that are distributed in Portugal. 

Am I right?

AKE:
> In Arthur's letter on 26th August concerning the varities of Spanish I 
> note that he didn't mention Catalan.

You're right. Catalan Language is a language that originated in 
Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain. Catalan is spoken, in Spain, 
in the provinces of Gerona, Lerida, Barcelona, Tarragona, Castellon,
Valencia, Alicante, and the Balearic Islands; in France, in nearly the 
whole of the Pyrenees-Orientales; and in parts of Cuba and Argentina.

> There certainly appear both Castillian and Catalan translations when it
> comes to books

The Catalan language is a Romance language. For years some philologists 
held that it was merely a dialectal offshoot of Provencal and that during 
the Middle Ages it had raised itself for a time to the dignity of a 
literary language.

> Then there are languages spoken in Spain: Aragonese 
> (another dialect/language closely related to Castillian?)

I don't know. Aragon is an autonomous region and former kingdom in
northeastern Spain, bordering on the Pyrenees Mountains. It has a 
population of (1986) 1,214,729.

Do you think that there are special Disney comics for a population
of 1,200,000? But then again, I'd never thought of Faeroesian and
Laplandish Disney comics!

> ... and Basque (not related to *any* other language as far as I know).

Although Basque is one of the oldest historically documented languages, 
Basque literature is meager. The first Basque book on record was printed 
in 1545.

Following the Spanish civil war (1936-39), the regime of Francisco Franco 
in Spain suppressed the use of Basque. Many present-day Basques are 
attempting to revive the language.

So I don't think there are any Basque Disney comics.

GIAFRANCO (in a letter to me!):
> I supppose the copies of Topolino you have were ppublished by the old
> publisher "Arnoldo Mondadori". Now Topolino is published by The Walt 
> Disney Company Italy. So something is changed (maybe in worse, if 
> possible... ask to Don which is the real face of the Walt 
> Disney co.!...).

So, Don? Can you tell us which is the real face of the WD Company?

> Today I know "Topolino" is sold in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg,
> Grait Britain (distributeed by A.I.E, an Italian agency); in Switzerland
> (distributed by Egmont)

Thank you for all of this (and more) information you sent me. I can put
it all in my list!

--Arthur.