Transplant Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 (edited) Those covers are fun, vaillant. Thanks for posting the links. Do these books have puzzles, text stories etc. like the US do? Did the contents evolve over time to become more focused on comics, like Mickey Mouse Magazine turned into Walt Disney's Comics and Stories? 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. The US market is so focused on CGC grades today, and one downside of assembling a super high grade complete run is that one purple label or "incomplete"/"brittle pages" 0.5 sticks out like a sore thumb if you have beautiful blue label copies of the other 59 issues. So, I felt like I had to buy every nice copy that came up for sale. To me, the substance of collecting high grade will always be the thrill that I feel when I look at a beautiful book, regardless of the CGC score. 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. Edited May 21, 2012 by vaillant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 (edited) 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". Edited May 21, 2012 by vaillant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Just in - my first under 20 (although watch this space for another next week). This one was liberated from a plastic tomb with a '5.0' on the top left. These early ones are wide! This doesn't fit my regular mylars. When did the shrink to normal GA size? I have #20 and it's the 'regular' width, so it was either 17, 18 or 19 that was the last 'fat' ones. Pretty copy. (thumbs u I just picked up a #17 as well ... not half as nice though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 It's a good week at the mailbox. These just turned up: As far as I'm concerned, these are perfect books for a run the length of the 1 - 100, midgrade but really solid and presenting well. And how cute is the Kelly cover on #87? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duffman_Comics Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Great stuff Andrew!! I agree, the "lil critters" on the 87 are as "cute as the dickens". As for grade, well I think you should consider improvement. All of them. Soon. As an aside, I think the Pogos are calling me once I finish two other runs . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) 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. Lovely books and I wholeheartedly agree with you - that's one great series. I'm surprised to see that vaillant doesn't like it. I can guess that Rosa's sometimes 'scuzzy' art and overly dense explanations are the cause, but I think you have to admire the scope and cohesion of the work. And there are times where it's very funny. I re-read it every year - more than I re-read Barks these days. Edited May 22, 2012 by AJD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duffman_Comics Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I think it's a vaillant observation regarding distaste for some Don Rosa efforts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I think it's a vaillant observation regarding distaste for some Don Rosa efforts Fixed, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) 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 Edited May 26, 2012 by vaillant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yellow Kid Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 I recently had the opportunity to visit tb and see his collection in person. While it may be hard to believe, it is even more beautiful in person than on the monitor. Plus, he showed me his Barks original art collection which was superb, especially the splash for Donald Duck #26, which absolutely blew me away! Thanks again, tb, for a great visit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 26, 2012 Share Posted May 26, 2012 (edited) 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. Edited May 26, 2012 by vaillant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJD Posted May 28, 2012 Share Posted May 28, 2012 Picked up on eBay at a pretty good price: My earliest so far. I think we can safely assume that Disney will never reprint this cover... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted May 29, 2012 Share Posted May 29, 2012 Picked up on eBay at a pretty good price: My earliest so far. I think we can safely assume that Disney will never reprint this cover... Great pickup. The cover gag is so dumb and so borderline-offensive, I can't help but like it. As you say, it's a product of a very different time and a very different Disney company ... and clearly, it was a time before strict editorial supervision. Which, come to think of it, is kind of what I enjoy about 1938-1941 comics in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 @Point Five: I guess it’s mostly offensive depending on how you look at its supposed "humour". It has quite a weirdness. Is that Walt Kelly drawing? I have recently completed a 1949 run of the "Topolino giornale" (the journal sized publicaton which preceeded the renowned pocket-book leading Disney publication here in Italy) where there is one of the first, most weird, tales by writer Guido Martina. It mixes Mickey & Goofy, Peg-leg-Pete (partner of a brand new villain), horror, tortures, and with a taste for the surreal which would have later become the hallmark of Martina as a writer, even in his more mature, Disney-correct stories. Martina ranks among my favorite Disney comics artists, after Gottfredson and Barks. Here’s an image of the first page of the story, from 1948: And here an article (unfortunately in italian only) on Angelo Bioletto, the artist: http://www.papersera.net/inducks/creatori_ita/ABi.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Also worth checking is Mickey’s Inferno (I just see it’s been published in english, with slight editing, on Walt Disney Comics & Stories #666): http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL++++7-AP The story is a weird "back to school" adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, where Disney characters (Mickey is Dante, Goofy is Virgil) play the role of various protagonists of the poem. In this panel, the Big Bad Wolf is tormented by chickens which he used to eat, which in return are eating his flesh out: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 And here an article (unfortunately in italian only) on Angelo Bioletto, the artist: http://www.papersera.net/inducks/creatori_ita/ABi.php The English translation is here: Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaillant Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Thanks BZ. (thumbs u Be very careful with the translation, 'though. It translates "Cinico Angelici" (an artist and musician which passed on his drawing passion to Bioletto) as "Cynic Angelic", as it was a common name… Translation is not entirely bad, anyway, gives a good idea. I need to pick up all these US editions of those classics, most of them I wasn’t aware of, as I stopped buying Disney comic books in the early 1990s, as the publishing chores passed to Disney, then to Gladstone's second tenure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Point Five Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Like Andrew, I just got in a WDCS #17, albeit lower-grade. Scan is not real forgiving of the dirt, but it's a cheap, solid early one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
50YrsCollctngCmcs Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 @Point Five: I guess it’s mostly offensive depending on how you look at its supposed "humour". It has quite a weirdness. Is that Walt Kelly drawing? I have recently completed a 1949 run of the "Topolino giornale" (the journal sized publicaton which preceeded the renowned pocket-book leading Disney publication here in Italy) where there is one of the first, most weird, tales by writer Guido Martina. It mixes Mickey & Goofy, Peg-leg-Pete (partner of a brand new villain), horror, tortures, and with a taste for the surreal which would have later become the hallmark of Martina as a writer, even in his more mature, Disney-correct stories. Martina ranks among my favorite Disney comics artists, after Gottfredson and Barks. Here’s an image of the first page of the story, from 1948: And here an article (unfortunately in italian only) on Angelo Bioletto, the artist: http://www.papersera.net/inducks/creatori_ita/ABi.php I wish I could read Italian as he looks like quite an interesting storyteller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
