current production

[Fluks, H.W.]

Petri:

> I thought an introducktion would be nice.

Indeed! Welcome here!

> The thing that really rocked my world where the
> pocket books. [...] Italian comics. As I grew with them they have the
> splendor in my eyes that can overcome the 
> not-the-best-possible quality.

I think this is a general thing. In my youth, I had the opposite: I grew up
with the weeklies (in Holland), and considered the pocket books crap stuff.
Even a few years ago, when we started Inducks, I didn't think it was
necessary to index all the Italian junk! 8-)

I also think I have found a way to cope with this: I am now reading all
Dutch pocket books *without any expectations*. Like a child, so to speak. I
don't expect Barks quality or Gottfredson quality. I expect nothing. And
guess what: I'm really *enjoying* the good stories in the pocket books
(about 50% of the stories turn out to be "fair" to "good", some 10% is
"excellent").

Since then, I became a fan of Scarpa (or a "ventilator of Shoe"), and I fell
in love with the artwork of Cavazzano. I'm in the process of recognising
(and enjoying) Bottaro, Carpi, and Massimo de Vita.
(And I'm still hating the work of Perego and P.L. De Vita...)

Maybe (just maybe) the same *can* happen to you (and others) if you read
Egmont stories with a blank mind. Worth a try?
A good place to start could be Kari Korhonen's stories. They usually are
very good!

> And Egmont's Mickey stories... I don't know where
> the idea to put his red shorts back on came but I don't like 
> it one bit.

I think the origin was a reader's investigation, which showed that readers
didn't like the "boring" Mickey stories where he is a detective, in the
Murry/Tello style.
I think it was Byron Erickson, one of the big Gottfredson fans, who proposed
to re-introduce Mickey in his shorts. David Gerstein, another big
Gottfredson fan, helped a lot in developing this new Mickey universe.
Egmont was smart enough to use the *best* artists for these stories, like
Ferioli!

> It's not the Mickey I grew with.

Same problem again! 8-)
Did you ever read the good Gottfredson stories from the mid- to late 1930s?
They should give you the atmosphere and characters that Egmont is re-using
(or trying to). I see that same atmosphere in the Tintin comics.

> Finally we get to the bottom of things with S-coded and 
> Westerns non-Barks comics.
> I can't say much of Brasilian ja French comics

I guess you can't say much about Dutch comics either. 8-)
There are some very good Hiawatha stories from the 1960s. At least *I* think
they are very good - I grew up with them... 8-)

--Harry.