Mickey's buddies 4 : size of the comics - Scarpa § Gottfredson again

jeanmarcbano jean-marc.bano at wanadoo.fr
Mon Oct 4 00:30:09 CEST 2004


What is the good size for a comic story?  Taking some examples from the french comics throughout the time, an intimate story seems to require the (small) size of an old Mickey Parade, the most part of the stories were coming from the topolino stories of the sixties, these ones fitted very well with the small size of the magazine because these stories used to be both vaudevillesque and intimate (that was the sense of my word 'ludicrous' when i applied it in different earlier comments); and that was just the problem for printing the stories of C.Barks in these issues, stories wich are on a more larger, huge scale than the italian ones with an imposing setting, nature and world described in a lot of stories (a lot of things are huge in the stories of Barks : the money bin, the world, nature, the center of the earth, the space ; so, a small size of magazine doesn't fit well with such a landscape; i remember reading one of the rare (the only? i don't remember) stories of Carl Barks, in a old Mickey Parade, called 'The Micro Ducks of Outer-Space'  - an another nostalgia of the old trading? i will come back on this point in a next comment if i can because this not the matter here - (Mickey Parade 1121 bis Picsou le magnifique) and this story didn't fit with the small size of the comic, it is more adequate to read C.Barks in a bigger size; one thing which lacks in the currently Picsou magazine is a certain continuity, fluidity and link between the stories; in the Mickey Parade of the 60's, 70's and early 80's there was, between the stories, some small interludes, prologues which constituted somewhat a link between the main stories, so the magazine was being able to be read as a whole, in Picsou there is a discontinuity between the stories, because they are really differents, in nature, age and personalities of the authors, there is no links between these stories, links which were providing sometimes an insight about the main stories (the prologue of Donald Paladin de Picsou VI Mickey Parade 951 bis is an example amongst numerous ones); i think that must have been the same mechanism in Topolino but i have not so much clues about that, i have never had the possibility of reading an issue of this magazine; so, what we get in definitive at the end for Picsou magazine is a motley mix of different stories; however apart from the lack of continuity between the stories, this magazine has released good ones from time to time, besides on a material level, both the quality of the printing and the paper are good currently.
Mickey : some considerations about a few stories, mostly detective ones : the noise : a lot of elements makes noise and unbearable noise in the stories of Scarpa: the musical instrument of a freshly liberated convict in Mickey et l'évade d'altacraz (topolino e l'uomo di Altacraz 1963), the noise of a Mickey entering the wrong room of a popular music radio station in 'dimensione Delta', the noise of the records in unglia di Kali. 
Elements of vaudeville : implies strong connections between several characters who know each others very well, these connections provide some surprisingly meetings at some unexpected places and moments (Donald à l'école des ennuis, paperino e la scuola dei guai 1958, excellent story between vaudeville and adventure); the vaudeville implies characters with a definite personality, providing the source of the situations; this is not the case in general for Mickey, where the intrigues are predominant over his personality, the characterization being weak, but this is the case for the characters of Duckburg; that leads to the consideration, verified in some Scarpa stories (l'évadé d'altacraz, Kalhoa) but also in Gottfredson (the phantom blot): Mickey can act alone and stand the story by himself, this is harder for the characters of Duckburg to do so, they are so connected each others, so dependent, that they can hardly act alone in a story without being connected again soon together as if they only were a part of a bigger thing, as a whole (Donald à l'école des ennuis).
The law over Mickey : Just a bizarre consideration after reading some Scarpa's and Gottfredson's stories recently : i think the relationship between Chief O'Hara and Mickey is more a professionnal one (with some hint of frienship) rather than a real friendship because obviously, in some stories chief O'Hara puts the law over Mickey; in The Gleam 1942 he threatens Mickey to have troubles if he doesn't give away what he knows about this affair (but Mickey doesn't want, thinking Minnie is involved in the robbery); in Topolino imperatore della Calidornia, some witnesses believe to have recognized the robber as Mickey, the proofs are against him, Chief O'Hara puts him in jail (he is sorry but he puts him in jail).
The dangerous couple appears in two fundamental plots: the Gleam and  the unglia di kali, but a difference exists between the two : in the gleam the woman-housewife is implicated in the robberies, this isn't the case in the unglia de kali where the woman is unaware of her husband's tricks.
The sense of the masquerade : l'évadé d'altacraz takes a new start in the sense of the Masquerade, in the ambiguity of the personalities (with a hint of psychological element already present in Mickey et la flamme éternelle de Kalhoa topolino e la fiamma eterna di Kalhoa (the dream at the beginning of the story where Goofy introduces a dangerous female character to Mickey), 'Chirikawa' with his freudian psychology of a child traumatism;  this sense of the Masquerade (less present than in Duckburg) is reinforced and helped by the simple traits (drawing) of the faces of the characters.
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