Italian Mouse stories [and Scarpa]

Ole R Nielsen oleroc at tdcspace.dk
Fri Aug 15 19:24:10 CEST 2003


Michael Prior wrote:
>The other, 'new' Italian artwork often looks totally
>different and imho more exciting. Judging from the stories
>in "Topolino Noir", Giorgio Cavazzano or Corrado
>Mastantonuo could do great things on a project like
>"Life-of-Pete", with proper respect to, for example,
>classic Gottfredson or Scarpa stories.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on this view on the modern Italian artists.
I have no difficulty in mentioning a dozen classic Italian artists, who I
appreciate in spite of - or rather because of - very varied art styles. But
after a long period of decline, culminating in a darkest hour in the 80es
and then a new dawn, the originality and artistic freedom has been ever on
the increase. Incredibly enough, Walt Disney Company's taking over after
Mondadori, has been much more successful in Italy than it was in the USA.
It is noteworthy that Disney Italia has a school for Disney artists, the
"Academy", but after earlier attempts at 'house-breaking' artists into
drawing either in the style of Al Taliaferro or Giorgio Cavazzano, they are
now allowed and encouraged to develop their own style. This has resulted in
a wide array of very easily recognizable of artists technically much more
skilled than their predecessors, but not necessarily less artistically
ambitious, responsible for producing in the range of a 500 new pages every
month for the weekly Topolino and as much for other titles.

Speaking of Topolino Noir, it is noteworthy to mention that the writer of
all the stories in the book, Tito Faraci, pretty much started out as an
editorial staffer, writing introductions to the reprints of Gottfredsons
serials on "the yellow pages" of Topomistery. If any, he would be one to
consider as both respectful and informed enough to write a
'Gottfredsonically correct' Life of Pete. He may even know as much about the
subject as David Gerstein, impossible as it sounds, and also as a writer has
a more adult-oriented approach. Having read several of the stories in the
book, I would say that his scripts are not meant for children. Even his
dialogue is too hard for me to read in the original Italian with my limited
skills, and this perhaps corresponds to the Life of Scrooge, which was never
intended for a childrens book.

On a last note I must express my disappointment with you for forgetting to
mention Paolo Mottura, considering that it is his story which leads the
book. I'll leave it to Silvia Sizche's fans to urge you to try harder to
apprecate her art style, which reminds me a little of Sergio Aragones, and
is a far cry from the elegant brush strokes of the other artists mentioned
in your posts. But that is fine too, because there is not just one proper
way to draw, by which every artist must be measured. Not even in Disney art.

-- Ole







More information about the DCML mailing list