Long Disney stories

Fredrik Ekman d91fe at telesto.pt.hk-r.se
Tue Mar 1 03:01:51 CET 1994


Hi again! (I'm awfully active today considering how little time I
always claim to have, ain't I?)

A couple of weeks ago someone (I think it was David, constantly in
search for new comics to dialogue, eh, David?) asked for opinions
on long "foreign" Disney stories. When I read the mail, I tried to
remember all the long Egmont stories I have read, and found that,
save for Don's and a handful of Marco Rota's stories, there ARE
none. I formulated a theory that this is becuase making a good long
story requires a good script (while you may have luck once in a
while and manage a short slapstick-like story with some good puns)
and that Egmont's writers simply weren't up to that.

But then, about a week ago when I was out shopping, my eyes fell on
a brand new comic book. Standard Italian digest format, 100 pages,
cover featuring Mickey and Minnie being attacked by horrible
zombies and the title "Musses mysterier" (Mickey's Mysteries).
Acting on impulse (something I rarely do) I picked this up and,
later at home, read it. To my utter surprise, it was very good!

There are no codes for the stories, but format and style both
indicate Italian origin. The two stories it contains seem to feature
Mickey in yet another of these universes that are perfectly
consistent within themselves, but not necessarily so with other
Disney comics (like DuckTales). Mickey is a detective with his own
agency. Minnie hosts a popular TV show.

The first story is the one with the zombies. The script is good, but
nothing special. The art on the other hand is brilliant! I don't
think I've ever seen a Disney comic with such a spooky feeling as
this one. The villain is Phantom Blot, and even though I have not
read Gottfredsons original PB stories, I dare say that he has never
been so scary as here. The artist makes him look like a very
successful cross between The Shadow and Spiderman's black costume.
The second story is only special because it features a standard
puzzle detective story, something I have never seen in a Disney
comic. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as good as the first story,
even though it fares quite well compared to the standard Egmont
story. All in all, for the rather low price of SEK 14, I recommend
this to anyone who happens to have access to it, if only for the
unusual art of the first story. And as you may know, I'm not the one
to easily get excited over good art.

To the point, I guess: This story made me remember that there are in
fact quite a few good Italian long stories. Perhaps my favourite
(that has been mentioned as a favourite by both Per and Harry
previously) is "The Flying Scotsman". Another good (certainly
Scarpa) story is one where Mickey gets to meet intelligent penguins
from the North Pole. There are others as well, but coming to think
of it, they are probably by Scarpa almost all of them...

  /F

PS. David wrote:
>Harry said:  "Yourch! Of all the bad Disney comic artists..."

Nonono! Harry has a good Dutch upbringing and would never say a thing
like "yourch". It was me who wrote that. The entire paragraph, even.
DS.





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