Great Italian creators

[Stefan Persson]

Sigvald Grøsfjeld jr. wrote:

> Lately there have been a focus on Italian creators, specially on Luciano
> Gatto – a name still unfamiliar to me, and I guess most Norwegians. That
> doesn't mean that he is a lousy creator in any way. It just mean that his
> name has not been presented very well by our national weekly Donald Duck &
> Co or in other Disney publications in Norway. I guess that's because those
> magazines and books are mainly intended for kids – not for Donaldists.

Italian stories are usually written in a 3-tierd format, while 4-tierd 
stories are preferred in the weeklies.  This could be a reason to that 
most of Gatto's stories make it into the pockets rather than into the 
weeklies.

> Even so the Italian story I do remember best was published in Norwegian
> DD&Co 32-35/1975 – "Den store Ballongferden" (The Great Ballonrace), 28
> pages. According to COA this story is written and drawn by Guido Martina and
> Giorgio Cavazzano – and it seems that several pages were cut in the
> Scandinavian publication in 1975. Can anyone here tell me more about this
> story and these creators?

The story was remounted from 4-tierd to 3-tierd layout, this resulting 
in a smaller amount of pages.  Also, removing pages was very common at 
that time.  The publishers often removed some pages from a longer story 
instead of trying to find a shorter story that already had the correct 
page count.

Stefan