vaillant

My Favorite La Prensa FF book is 4 by...far, by very very very very far...I have a copy missing a few pages...I remember getting it, it's really a one of a kind for me. Of course, the first one is my personal grail, but i doubt I will ever own it, you know..price and all...

@Ches: I’d love a Los 4 Fantasticos #1 myself, also because we don’t have a proper #1 in italian. It seems it’s more rare than costly, as a VF copy sold for about 2000USD on Comiclink (where it had obviously a lot of exposure).

I guess I’ll had to go with a super-beaten US #1, should I decide…

I read that are some Italian collectors in this forum, where all others are from?

I think there are many non-americans, both of english language (Australia, UK, Canada), and not. I am italian, and I have always been in Italy.

@Gonza Araña: You need to upload them beforehand to some public web resource for hosting images.

Then, after you get the direct link to the image you uploaded, just copy and paste the URL in your post, between these two "tags":

[img=http://]

That Bullseye issue (great cover, BTW) has a cover image which is the same of the splash page from the Lady Satan story from Dynamic #3.

Does it contain a reprint of that story?

@jbcomicbox: Great original art. I like how titles and lettering are neatly executed or pasted on the artwork itself.

BTW, how would you feel re-interpreting some Son of Satan cover?

I am a big fan of Steve Gerber and I thought there has never been a full-paint illustration of Daimon Hellstrom.

Apologies for haching the Chesler thread. Maybe we should start one about these issues…

@Ryan: what you say is very interesting, especially considered Schomburg ended up doing full-paint pieces later on in his career.

In fact, I recalled mostly his work of the maturity, and had a sort of "epiphany" when I brought out the book "Chroma" I bought about 20 years ago, and I realized it was more than often Schomburg which did all the Timely covers of Captain America and the Human Torch.

I mean, there is probably something par of the artist's vocation, an element of "artistic coincidence", so to speak. Italian awesome artist Gianni De Luca (Frank Miller had been influenced by his late work) was among the few artists which did not write stories to insist that the artist, when taking his "vocation" seriously, was speaking a language, telling a tale at the same level as the comics' writer.

Not sure if I’ve been able to articulate this, but this is an example of his late work:

(this was an ambitious story, not entirely accomplished, where in a remote future a character found himself following the steps of St. Paul, a sort of ingenuous combination of a science-fiction setting reminescent of Jim Starlin's work with the breathe of a biblical landscape. the evil-looking character is a machine-like version of the devil).

This is by far the best copy I ever seen

Hi Matteo, this is not my copy, but mine is very nice, it’s the only collection I tried to complete in italian, after I decided to go for the originals (about 1991).

I have never liked so much the cover anyway, the Giganti reprint has a great cover.

 

@jaom: The La Prensa editions are wonderful (and very close in time to the originals). Plus, Fantastic Four #8 is my favorite issue. Really beautiful!

I wasn’t questioning whether they were spectacular, or good. I think you missed my point, but it’s not easy to explain.

When reintepreting something, the degree of inclusion of peculiar touches is up to the artist, anyway, but this has nothing to do with my observation about reinterpreting an existing image.

FF annual 6 is not the greatest story of the Kirby/Lee Fantastic Fours. It's just my favorite.

Don’t know. It’s a great story, for sure, and this goes beyond the element of personal taste. It may have flaws compared to others, it was also one of the earliest examples of such lenghty stories, so it was quite an experiment.

I'm planning on waiting at least 7-10 years before reselling the book. What do you seasoned Marvel or FF collectors think?

Besides this, I wonder what makes you wonder to sell, since you clearly seem to have started collecting the Fantastic Four because you enjoy them. (thumbs u

I am not longer a member of the IM # 55 club.

 

Sold mine for a cool $50.

(thumbs u

Although I know that you weren't being critical of Ryan's work, I have to say that, in some cases, I've found Ryan's recreations to be so good that they were even better than recreations by the original artists themselves.

Oh, yes, it may happen. I was mostly talking about the technique: it seems to me Ryan uses tempera paints, or the like. Of course there is also an element of taste involved, so it’s difficult to express properly.

For example, I recall some full-painted artwork with Kirby characters, which I found less evocative than the black & white (colored or not) art.

@walclark: What’s really top absurdity on that cover is the smuggler. I guess your first thought, should you found yourself reduced to test-tube size and in the process of being killed by melting you with some chemical, would be to mug women with a self-assured smile on your face.

From what I seem to recall, there were some which were also pretty enthustiastic to join the SS (with the Wehrmacht it hasn’t happened, I suppose). I think it’s a point worth of note.

(@adamstrange: The artist which did the comic I showed you in PM risked to be forcedly enrolled in the SS: afterwards he saw fascism for what it was, or better, implied).

I don’t want to sound annoying, but as much as Ryan’s paintings are A+ skillful, I don’t think they are entirely suited to the atmosphere of the Chesler covers (especially those by that other artist, Ricca, not Sultan).

This is not meant to make a negative criticism of any kind, just an observation about how the original mood is difficult to "recreate" with a different illustration technique.

Thanks so much, vaillant, for sharing the scans and history of these early Disney comics. I have not commented but I read every post, usually twice, as I have not seen this information elsewhere.

Ehi, you’re welcome, besides it’s a great joy for me as well to show these: most US readers haven’t had the opportunity to read both the US classics and the italian stories as we had (not to mention a good portion of other countries' productions).

Besides, thanks again for your nice offer via PM to my request! (thumbs u

And… wow, I’m glad because today I went to a convention and I bought another Albi d’Oro issue with the first comic book edition of "Donald Duck and the Philosopher‘s stone", one of the earliest Pedrocchi stories.

It was a copy from a bound volume, and thus trimmed, but really nice and I paid about a 50% of its value, since the seller is a friend.

I also realized that "Clarabelle between the claws of the Black Devil" (the cover I posted) is another Pedrocchi story!

Thanks to all of you for the interest shown.

P.S. Today I also met my friends Alberto Becattini and Leonardo Gori, which are working with David Gerstein on the Gottfredson‘s Mickey reprint from Fantagraphics.

@walclark: Thank you.

The only two stories featuring some italian army I have found so far are a pair of Corporal Collins stories from Blue Ribbon (1940) and a rather inconsistent story of Man'o'War from the Centaur title of the same name (if I recall correctly, it‘s issue #2).

In the Charles Biro story italians are reduced to a caricature of ineptitude, I would have expected from Biro a more in-depth approach, but I guess that if he treated the Japanese as he did in Daredevil, he had his weak spots even if he seemed to be always pretty up to date with the information and the war events in Europe.

At least, nazis are depicted often in a sinister and/or disturbing, if not realistic, way.

About the Junior Rangers: they seem to be fighting germans, but if the issue is around 1944-45, I wonder if it might be some italian division of the SS. I recall this thing of non-german divisions of the SS, but I am very ignorant in historical matters.

That’s why I am picking up through comics…

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:

Yes, even though I couldn't understand all of the words, the humor was obvious. Are you aware of any English translations of this series? I would love to find some.

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.

Very interesting thread.

You can bet on it, bro!

It's also the birth of Franklin Richards....the first actual birth in comics. First Anhihillus also. GOD BLESS...

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…

WOW!! Stellar group of Cheslers.I'm no expert on the publisher,but I have a feeling you're going to get a few pm's about the Dynamic 8.I've heard it's kinda rare..

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.

If anyone can identify the earliest Nazi story, please do!!!

@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

Some ducks, not GA but Ducks nonetheless, I picked up recently. I'm sure everyone has, but if you haven't read the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, you're missing something special.

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".