Puns&Tastes&...

[gadducci@di.unipi.it]

Hi, boys!! (Btw, is there any girl out there?)

I'm writing late, as usual. 

Anyway, just some news about the Duck Family tree.
There is in Italy a book quite famous betweeen Dinaldists.
"An introduction to Donald: the social phenomenology in Barks'comics".
It was written in the mid-Seventies as a degree thesis by Marovelli,
Paolini and Saccomano, and published by Sansoni in the late seventies.
There I found a nice Duck Family Tree, constructed, according to the
authors, following the Barks'mithology, and it would be nice to make some
confrontation (hey, Per, you have the book, and you can get also the DFT by
Don-which I cannot: what are you waiting for??)

Gigi wrote:
>- to Fabio Gadducci:
>
>  Fabio! Do you want to help me to keep Cavazzano's material up?
>  Also:
>  Are there more info about Cavazzano in "Italian Disney" by
>  Granata Press? Have you got that book?
>  Or maybe we'll find something in "Cavazzano" volume by Comic Art
>  in few days?
>
>  Do you know if something by Rosa is been printed in Italy?

Sadly, nothing by Don Rosa has been published in Italy. 
And about Cavazzano: the book on Italian Disney is a very interesting one
(the writers are very well known Donaldists here in Italy), with some
original sketches and art, too, but lacks of any information about
stories-code. There exists a complete index of Disney stories by Italian
artists from the mid-Thirties till the late Seventies, done by Franco
Fossati (a poor essaysts, but at that period he was the subeditor of Disney
Comics for Mondadori).
Maybe I could find a copy, is someone is interested (or xerox-copy mine,
eventually, as soon as I rescue that).
Or maybe you should simply wait: next spring will be out issue n.2000 of
the weekly Topolino. There will be a lot of interesting thing: according to
Luca Boschi (to whom I phoned some day ago) the Zecca di Stato will coin a
gold 'first dime', and a bronze version of that will be given away with
issue 2000, which will probably have a hologram cover (wheeeeee). But most
important, starting next December, there will be an exhibition of 3 months
in Rome at the Palaeur building, devoted to Disney comics in the world, but
with a special focus on Italy. The catologue should be a huge one, with,
probably, ALL the codes of the stories published so far in Italy, and some
never printed stories of the Thirties by Pedrocchi e Pinochi.

And then, Harry (Btw, I'll send you the updates to Italian Disney'stuff on
archive asap). I wrote about Giottfredson
>
> And about Mickey: Gottfredson himself told that his best drawn material was
> from the Sixties... Let's just say that I prefer the third way, a god mix
> of drawning and plotting: in this sense, his stuff from the Forties is
> maybe his best...
>
And you replied
>
>Can you mention a particular story? I wonder which story you possibly can
>prefer to "Medioka", "Foreign Legion" or "Phantom Blot"...
>
As usual, there is some non-logical reason, but as an example I really
enjoy more the Eega Beeva stuff than Medioka or Phantom Blot - even if
maybe Foreign Legion is an exception: lemme think more about it!!

Then, about Rota 
>I have some, as far as they appeared in Holland. The next is a result of
>a 'grep' from my Dutch index. I edited it a bit, but I kept the Dutch
>descriptions (and the Italian entries).
>
>12  D 92120   DD  vliegtuiggevecht met bolderbast
>44  D  9434   DD  en de tijdmachine (1st time machine story, with vikings)
>32  I         DD  van ei tot eend (DD origin story)
>36  I  215    US  in: de geldzee (appeared in Disney Comics' U$)
>17  D  5480   US  op jacht naar onderzeese schatten
>45  I  228-A  DD  en kleine krack (one of the two Viking stories)
>32  I         DD  in de nacht van de saraceen
>36  I  277-A  DD  geroosterd vlees als redding (another Viking story)
>36  I  245-A  DD  als forens
>14  D 92444   US  inbraak in opdracht
>
>These happen to be ALL the Rota stories I know of. Are there any more
>Italian stories?
>
Yes, there are some others, even if its work has been mainly for Egomont
(besides, he was for a lot the editor of the writers for Disney comics, and
I think he spent on that work most of his time...). I'll try to send you
some information...

Only a note on Cavazzano. Topi wrote 
>
> Actually I have no problem with his drawing... my problem is his plots
> - or should I say the lack thereof.
>
> Long stories without any original ideas, very little humour (even lessened
> by the translation, of course), and pretty often the setting/story idea is
> extremely *dull*. Lots of pointless scenes too almost too boring to read.
>
> There are two elements to a good comic story: good art AND good plot, the
> latter being IMHO at least as important as the former. Take Barks' classical
> duck stories - not *only* he can draw - his plots are brilliant too! (Granted,
> he has a habit of repeating himself, but considering the mere quantity of
> his artistic output, that needs no excusing).
>
[...]
>
> The importance of plot/art can of course be different for different persons,
> but when the stories are as bad as Cavazzo's non-plots, *everyybody* should
> note there is something wrong. (For me, btw, I think I appreciate 2/3(!) plot
> and only 1/3 art. Or even 80% plot, 20% art! That may be because I also 
> read a lot of books. So, estimation of Cavazzano's comic books would be some-
> thing like "17%" - his drawing is still far from ideal. His non-plots earn
> him no points on my scale. Maybe I should have given him an even poorer rate
> because I think "stories" that bad should be given a negative value...)
>
> I know there are other Italian artists drawing pretty much the same way as
> Cavazzano. Fortunately, their stories are not nearly as bad! They even seem
> to have *plots* pretty often.
>
Sorry, Topi, but I think you are missing the point. For me his art
(depending on the period you are talking of: I prefer late Seventies-first
Eighties) is very good: more dynamic and cinematic then all the other
Disney artists, and often strikingly different from all the other Disney
stuff. But this is my opinion, after all (and ask Harry about that :-).
But, despite my tastes, you have to know that Cavazzano, as most of the
Italian Disneys, is an artist, not a writer. He works (worked) on scripts
by people very talented as Martina, Pezzin, Chendi etc., the same that gave
plots to ALL the others Italian Disneys.
So I do not really understand your remark about plots!! (Not a flame,
though :-).

About puns, Per wrote:
>
>I know that the translator has had problems with puns in Italian
>stories.  I don't think most Egmont stories (Rosa excluded!) contain
>any puns at all.  (After all, they know the stories will be translated
>anyway.)
>
The problem, I think, is not on puns, but in the kind of (more or less)
aulic and involute Italian language that was used from Forties to
Seventies, very reminiscent of the Thirties'way of speaking (the same used
by the translators back then, and that I associate to Barks stories, too).
However, the characters used always a grammatically correct Italian, the
same thing Mattias says about Swedish duck-comics. 
Now things are changed, after that Disney Italy took directly control of
comics production, and characters and transaltors) use a more modern
language. Which I
think happens (differently from what Geir says) mainly because 
>
>* The Disney corporation regard comics as being a commercial product for
>children. 
>
and all 'difficult' and aulic words
>
>are consequently natural enemies to the series. The
>children whom the series are intended for are not considered literate
>enough to understand and enjoy them.
>
So now we have a more updated language, even if less lively...

oh, for gosh'sake...
We are still talking about comics, isn'it ?!? ;-)

Bye
Fabio

================================================================
Fabio Gadducci           Dip. di Informatica
                         Universita` di Pisa
Tel. +39-50-510268       Corso Italia 40, 56100 PISA (ITALY)
FAX: +39-50-510226       E-mail:gadducci at di.unipi.it
================================================================