vaillant

Love this, Andy. Unfortunately in Italy we have never had an issue of the Fantastic Four using the actual cover of #1. The first issue had this cover: The oversized reprint, a few years later, had this: which is better, but I’m still missing the #1… You have got to love the covers of those magazine-edition reprints, anyway. They allowed we italian readers to see for the first time – for example – the original Avengers covers: Other magazine-sized publications (of original material) included Il Corriere della Paura (with silver age horror titles like Dracula and Tales of the Zombie), and gli Eterni (including, besides the Eternals, Nova, Omega the Unknown, Deathlok, the Guardians of the Galaxy and others). A cover featuring Nova:

As far as I know Mortadelo y Filemon (a little masterpiece) have never been translated in English. I think the series is quite often reprinted in Spain, anyway. Besides the italian edition I have a hardback copy of an issue which is a late-1990s reprint.

These price fluctuations based on such ridiculous facts are embarassing.

You can bet on it, bro!

I consider Fantastic Four Annual #6, in its relative simplicity, one of the most deep and accomplished stories in the whole Lee/Kirby production. There is also a quite striking What If issue (#42) which imagines Susan had died by giving birth to Franklin. Nice one Steve I think this is the most overlooked early FF book of all (for good reason though). It's actually not a bad issue, story is OK, the art is classic Kirby, but it's just that the other "early" issues of the FF run are so GOOD, that this issue pales a little when compared to them. (thumbs u It’s among my favorites. Between the first I’ve read, and pretty unique among the early issues, it has a "sense of wonder" which you’d be more willing to find in some Edmond Hamilton or Murray Leinster novel, compared to the others. You have to love Kurrgo’s naive arrogance, nothing to do with the grandeur of Sub-Mariner or Doctor Doom… I still do not have a copy of most of these earlier issues, though.

@David: These photos look totally unreal to my italian eyes. I mean the 1970s ones, since the recent ones are similar to what you could see in Italy now as well. We did a similar thread in our italian "Vintage Comics" forum, where we started to collect photos of the earliest conventions (1965 marked the beginning, with Bordighera which became the Lucca salon later on). But culturally speaking, each country’s attitude to comics, and thus conventions, were really very, very different. Now it’s all way more homogeneous, it seems to me. All I could do would be to contribute with a few photos of John Buscema, Jim Steranko, John Romita, Joe Orlando, Stan Lee, and others which attended some italian conventions in the early 1990s. In fact, Steranko and Buscema had been quite a pair in Prato in 1992…

Besides being rare (it seems most of them are not easy to find, especially in great condition), I get it’s terribly sought after by rabid collectors.

Needless to say I count on you for the stories where the italian army was featured. I knew of very little.

@Mark: Old-dated question, but since our researches definitely tie-in, I can start with those two: Corporal Collins - Untitled story ["The Coming of Corporal Collins"] by Abner Sundell(?)/Charles Biro from Blue Ribbon Comics #2 (cover date: Dec. 1939, estimated newsstand appearance: Sep. 1939) John Steele - “Soldier of fortune” from Daring Mystery Comics #1 (cover date: Jan. 1940, estimated newsstand appearance: Oct. 1939) Now only Timely will be able to figure out if that is the earliest Timely story to feature nazists as villains or not. So he will break all his CGC cases and… ehm.

One of the reasons for which I wasn’t crazy about Rosa’s storyline is that we already had, in some occasions, nice "lineage" storylines developed by Disney italian authors, notably the pretty universal-centric Marco Rota (head of the art dept. at Mondadori, went away when Disney stepped in). Basically Rosa took to extremes what was underlying in Barks' vision: I like to draw and tell tales of ducks, that’s all. To me, this was a diminishment to the wonderful "universalist" vocation Walt had: it‘s true, Walt Disney strived for universality, but in some way his creations remained also genuinely american. But it’s what universality is also made of. Some italian stories have references which are unquestionably italian, but nonetheless grasp the universal dimension of "Disney goodness": the fact that in one of his early stories Pedrocchi drew a supposedly US city like the peripheral zones of Milan, doesn’t hinder this vocation. In fact, becoming "local", often productions manage to remain more authentic to their source. Important note: I learn right now, and thanks to you, that the story have been published by Gladstone in the USA. It’s been published in 1994, re-inked from the rather crude original drawings, in Donald Duck #286, here: http://coa.inducks.org/issue.php?c=us/DD++286#e See also this article (wow, I have to read it!): http://duckcomicsrevue.blogspot.it/2011/03/secret-of-mars.html

I must admit I am among few which did not like the overall concept of the "Life and times of Scrooge McDuck" storyline by Rosa (many reasons), but I appreciated many single stories he did in the early gladstone runs, especially "On stolen time" and "Return to plain awful".

Yes, some of them have games, especially "Nel Regno di Topolino", they also had contexts to obtain four-color trading cards, and games and coupons are often cut-out. The majority of pages is comics, anyway. I simply mean’t such grades with the italian Disney books of the 1930s-1940s just don’t exist. It’s because of the paper used. Inside pages may be similar to US comic books, but the covers are in some half-cardboard uncoated paper, which was raw, porous, and thus it tended to get worn already off the press. In fact, I‘d like to submit some of them in the "spare a grade" section to see how they are valued by users used to the mostly coated US paper.

Il Duce loved Disney shorts, he used to hum the "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" tune – anecdote reported by his son Romano in an interview. His older son Vittorio was a movie enthousiast and used to think "this war will finish, so we’ll be able to watch and discuss films and listen to the music we love" (Romano became an appreciated jazz pianist, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Mussolini) Thank you, but in fact I constantly fall short of terms. My vocabulary is "patchy" and I have often to figure out how to translate certain words. Plus, english is maybe amongst the easiest languages to learn. I’d be a lot harder to learn italian or french for an englishperson. Well, some collectors prefer the original "giornali" runs, some others prefer to collect the "album"/comic book titles. It must be said that both contain the original US stories, translated, and then later on the original italian production, but the "albi" (comic books) are desirable to collectors, often in a higher degree. I started collecting these 1930s issues when I was 16, in the mid-1980s, but then stopped as I often collect various things. Have a look here: http://vintagecomics.forumcommunity.net/?t=41727414 Problem with these runs is the fact the later issues of both titles I have shown are virtually impossible to find outside complete collections, since late issues had probably a lower print run, they were published close to the war, and they were costly compared to giornali (a price of "2 lire" means an "Albo d’Oro" was priced at 4x the price of a "Nel Regno di Topolino", so parents were less likely to buy those to kids). Ah, with these you must forget, once for all, things like 9.2, 9.4, 9.6 etc…

I did not mean to stray from the original post intent, but as I’ve seen there was more than Donald Duck here, I guessed the italian school, for the woldwide importance by which it’s regarded, ranked side-by-side with the US classics. Scarpa and G.B. Carpi, two of the leading authors, picked up the magnificent long-story tradition of the Goddfredson syndicated classics and of Barks' ducks family development in comic books, and brought it to additional heights. Suffice to say Scarpa created various new characters, one of which has found the spotlight in US publications (Brigitta, a troublesome occasional wannabe-fiancée of Uncle Scrooge, after Glittering Goldie). So, to get back on the Duck track, an historically important issue, which features "Donald Duck and the mystery of Mars", the very first – still rather crude and very much mimicking Al Taliaferro – original italian story: The original edition has been published starting December 30, 1937, on the pages of "Paperino Giornale", but this is the first comic book edition. A "key" issue, so to speak.

Hi Duffman, thank you. Arnoldo Mondadori (which changed occasionally his publishing name from "Edizioni Walt-Disney Mondadori" to "A.P.I." – acronym for "Italian Anonymous Periodicals") has been the italian publisher for all Disney material uninterruptedly from August 11, 1935 up to 1988, when Disney took on directly the publishing founding "Walt Disney Company Italia". All Disney publications have always had huge print runs, so these are mostly rare because of the poor paper and the war events, which afflicted Italy and Europe a lot more than the USA. Mondadori, mostly thanks to leading figures like Federico Pedrocchi and later on Mario Gentilini, established the world-renowned italian "school", whose stories have been published worldwide, but unfortunately they started to appear in english merely around 1988, with this 1955 story: http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL++116-AP an early Guido Martina/Romano Scarpa key classic (which re-intoduced the Blot as an even more disturbing figure). Original splash page, side-by-side with the english edition (published in three parts on Gladstone’s "Mickey and Donald" #6-8, which I strongly recommend to Disney fans): No, no. Disney material was almost untouched by the restrictions imposed by the MinCulPop (the organism which looked over the press during fascism). They were cut simply because they did not fit the format or the scheduled number of pages. No, it’s with ballons. In these comic-book sized editions only some Mickey Mouse stories kept the "educational" format, probably mediated from french editions. It was most an educators issue, nothing to do with fascism policy.

While I was at it, a cover from the "senior", magazine-sized publication, which printed the longer, mostly Mickey Mouse stories, "Gli Albi d’Oro" (pre-war, "golden age" series), issue No. 39, from April 1939. As americans would say… "bondage cover"!

Isn’t also "War with the flies" a Silly Symphony adaptation? Surely the InDucks database has indexed the story and its whereabouts. Here’s the italian edition (insides are in two-color), from antological publication "Nel Regno di Topolino" (the very first italian Disney publication in "comic-book" format). Issue is from December, 1936. I guess the story is heavily cut here as well, since it starts with the cannon fight on page 4. 50 cent first edition (a "well-loved" copy… ): 60 cent second edition: Both covers should be by renowned italian cartoonist Antonio Rubino.

Ah, I have seen the "If bombs fall". But is the other one "It’s the difference that counts" actually a comic?

@Bo_Hogg: Is that a comic?

As far as I seem to get, George Pflaum gave his name to the publishing house at some point, but the Catechetical Guild was his own publishing house (maybe with associates, don’t know). as well. The later issues of Treasure Chest where "This Godless Communism" was published are indeed published by "Geo A. Pflaum", but at that point the Catechetical Guild no longer existed as a publisher. Correct me if I am wrong.

(Thanks, BTW )

I know 0.5, but for me it’s always the same problem. Being in Italy, returning a 70-100USD book is more expensive than other. I’ve seen a seller has a coverless copy for 15USD, so I rather may be going for that. At least, I will have just a brittle cover… Besides, the book was bought to cash a discount on a previous purchase, where another book wasn’t adequately described (Good, but with a missing centerfold and a half-torn out page ), so I guess for me it’s just curtains with that seller. Now, an easiest question would be: how many golden age collectors there are in Italy? I would like to meet some other, but while there are people collecting silver age in original edition, I know of none collecting GA. (Biggest reason is the 98% of the production has never been published here). Hmm… I think it’s "paisan". Should be some northern dialect. But, hey… thanks, indeed.

Hi Bo, if it was the copy auctioned on eBay I thought about bidding on it, but then I gave up, I’m glad I didn’t, otherwise I would have uselessly raised your price… I think these books are rare, but less rare than what one might think. Simple reason is that people very likely looks for comics-related things along comics' venues, while those are books, and thus more likely to be found in bookstores or antiquary book portals. I started my interest in golden age thanks to Lev Gleason and Charles Biro’s Daredevil. Would you mind, just in case, describe the booklet's content for me in case I deepen the research with the Crime books (not in my current plans, now I am more on the war-related things)? Nice pickup, anyway!

Oh, yes I’m italian. I understand your advice about using CGC as a warranty, but to me it’s a hassle, plus the shipping cost is more. My question was slightly bitter, but more humorous than tragic, I have already focused a roster of sellers I see I can trust, I was just heavily disappointed to see a known seller grading so poorly that he does not even mention brittleness. I never think badly, but since I already had problems with this sellers, and since it simply seems he’s unable to grade (I think I would grade better than him, and this speaks a lot, considered my small experience) I will stop buying from him. Thanks, o'mighty G.A.tor!

Oh G.A.tor, I have my first question for your oracle: how do I get rid of the brittleness plague paranoia which has started to grow on me? I just received a book which was advertised as a VG: it‘s solid but is so brittle I am fearful even to look at it. As a veeery new (and broke) golden age collector this is not only an unpleasant surprise, but a thing which worries me. How can you trust sellers you have not done business previously with, as long as brittleness is not disclosed?