Mickey the detective

[Søren Krarup Olesen]

LARS + CHRIS:

> Maybe you've confused the setting and structure of these stories
> with the characterization. Sure, there is great *atmosphere* in some
> stories, but take a good look at the Mickey Mouse of that period. He
> *is*, to quote myself, "boring, bland, and smug" when acting like he
> always has the answers (which he usually does). And Disney's
> conversion of Mickey into a "corporate icon", as you write, was only
> helped by that approach.

With all respect I think that what really made Mickey "boring..." was
that Tello "took over" the way of story telling that previously was
carried out by Murry--at least in Europe.

This happened from the late 70s continuing through the 80s. It was like
Egmont tried to homogenise (very "popular" in Europe these days)
everything and only recently it seems they've given up that strategy.

In most Tello-drawn stories, Goofy was reduced to some kind of
anonymous helper of Mickey's. Not that he *was* any help, he would only
add a few comments sporadically, following his master like Terry
following Tintin in the later stories. The original crazyness/wild ideas
of Goofy was utterly killed in those stories. Of course this was not
the Tello Studio's fault only, perhaps they just got the wrong scripts,
who can tell...?!

Anyway, things have losen up significantly with great stories by
Petrucha, art by Ferioli etc. Even Horace seems to have found a solid
place behind the Egmont portals, and I certainly hope this "pattern"
continues. However, if anyone is interested in the real Goofyness, they
better read the Italian stories... (dare I say this goes for the duck
stories as well, hmmm...)

Søren