Keskustelujen arkisto

To Frank Stajano:
>GIANFRANCO:
> You've found a secret for expanding days to 48 hours?
I just work in the night on it... yawn!...
>Perhaps you might plan some form of non-graphical, easily searchable,
>single-page roadmap of your whole site.
Telepathy? I'm working on it, indeed!
Thank you Frank! ;-)
Gianfranco Goria, cartoonist and comics divulger: (Email removed)
president of Anonima Fumetti - Italian cartoonists society: (Email removed)
http://www.alpcom.it/fumetti/

Hi!

PER GRUBERT:
You said that the Egmont Group publishes magazines in around 25
different countries. Can you tell us more about the Egmont Group, EPS
and those countries?!?

Bye!

Arthur de Wolf --- Roosendaal, the Netherlands
email: <(Email removed)> or <(Email removed)>
homepage: http://www.pi.net/~wolfman/disney (still under construction)
"I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it."

This is to announce that the web page for Giorgio Cavazzano is
finished and available. I thought that what I posted last time,
i.e. the intro and the bibliography, was going to be the bulk of the
work -- instead, it's now dwarfed by all the new stuff I added on the
art periods! So here is the second installment. But if you have web
access, go see it at this URL instead -- I spent the whole day
scanning in pictures, and there are about 50 of them! No boring
delays, though: you only get the pictures that you ask for.

==============================================
http://www.cam-orl.co.uk/~fms/disney/cavazzano
==============================================

Per, you're welcome to suck it all into the Disney Comics site and
rearrange it as you see fit; or you can just add a pointer to my site
to make it easier to remain in step if I do any updates. Either way,
it's fine by me. Thanks in advance!

- - - - - - - - - - 8< - - - - - - - - -

Cavazzano's art periods

As I did with Scarpa some time ago, I'll go through Cavazzano's Disney
stories highlighting the different phases in his graphical
evolution. Cavazzano is a peculiar artist in that at various stages he
changed his style so much that it might be more appropriate to speak
of "revolution", or even "metamorphosis", instead of
"evolution". During my first ventures as a Disney philologist many
years ago, without the help of a chronological framework, I even
thought that "Bel Tratto Sottile" and "Techno" were two completely
different people! Thus a chronological analysis of Cavazzano's work is
particularly interesting and revealing, as it pinpoints those narrow
transitions between periods that highlight the continuity within the
metamorphosis.

Once again let me warn you that the names of these phases are of my
own invention and that, as with anything related to aesthetic
judgement, you might have wildly different opinions on the subject. I
based my study on the chronological index by Luigi Marcianr contained
in the Gulliver fanzine referred to above, which I consider to be the
most accurate so far.

The name after the story title is that of the author of the script. If
you know of any non-Italian versions of any of the stories mentioned,
let me know the exact title and I'll add it next to the original to
help those who speak your language recognize the story too. I am also
noting other Italian reprints of the story where I am aware of them,
although information on reprints is not intended to be complete.

1967 - 1969: Scarpa's apprentice

Scarpa's influence is very heavy on these first stories. And, although
sometimes the proportions of the main characters may look slightly odd
and give the game away, in many cases even an expert eye could be
forgiven for mistaking a Cavazzano page for a Scarpa one (see in
particular the "golf redditizio" and "casa gonfiabile" stories
below). The similarity is of course accentuated by the fact that in
this period Cavazzano was inking both Scarpa's stories and his own, so
the finishing stroke was the same.

As a curiosity we may note that the presence of a "golf club" in Zio
Paperone e il golf redditizio, Cavazzano's second story, gave our
artist the opportunity to embed his monogram (the interwoven G and C
letters) in some panels without asserting straight out that it was his
signature. He will play this trick again over the years, peppering
many of his stories either with this monogram (for which the golf
redditizio story is the first appearance), or with a cursive signature
or even something else. The classic fan game is to re-read a well
known story trying to spot some hidden Cavazzano trademark.

Sample stories:

Paperino e il singhiozzo a martello, Pavese, TL 611 (1967), CWDNS 211
Zio Paperone e il golf redditizio, Chendi, TL 623 (1967), CWDNS 219
Pluto e l'incarico di fiducia, Pavese, TL 708 (1969), CWDNS 215
Paperino e la casa gonfiabile, Chendi, TL 719 (1969)

1969 - 1973: Bel Tratto Sottile

In just a couple of years after drawing his first stories Cavazzano
graduates from apprentice to master, reaching maturity (or rather his
first maturity, I should perhaps say) and his own personal
style. There is still a noticeable Scarpa influence, but the work is
easily recognisable as original. Compared to Scarpa, he shows a
tendency to draw very thin or very fat characters, something he'll do
even more in later years. His stroke is beautiful  thin and very
elegant; in fact this is what Bel Tratto Sottile means. I've called
him that for so long, before realising he was the same as "the
well-known Cavazzano" (i.e. the Techno one) that I couldn't persuade
myself to change this name even for this English-language
description. During this phase his most fruitful collaborations are
those with the great Rodolfo Cimino, who writes for him many
fascinating plots of Duck adventures in faraway locales with elements
of wisdom from ancient people.

Sample stories:

Zio Paperone e la fiamma fredda, Cimino, TL 754 (1970), CWDNS 131
Zio Paperone e la polvere di stelle, Cimino, TL 784 (1970), CWDNS 82
Zio Paperone e il tesoro del faraone, Cimino, TL 798 (1971), PF 5
Zio Paperone e le montagne trasparenti, Cimino, TL 831 (1971)
Zio Paperone e il muschio del moloch, Cimino, TL 867 (1972), CWD 71
Paperino e l'avventura sottomarina, Cimino, TL 873 (1972), CWDNS 2
A wonderful romantic story in which Donald falls in love with
Reginella, a beautiful underwater queen coming from another
world. This story left a deep mark in many readers as Donald
had at last found a true love, unlike the superficial and
ever-incomplete relationship with the voluble Daisy
Duck. Cimino and Cavazzano came back to it several times,
probably encouraged by fans, adding an episode every few
years, always making it look like it would really be the last
possible meeting, well aware of course that this love story
could not have a happy end within the Disney continuity.
Paperino e la macchina dell'eroismo, Siegel, TL 878 (1972), GC 91

I said that Bel Tratto Sottile was Cavazzano's first maturity. In
fact, for anyone else, it might very well have been the apogee of an
excellent career: splendid art and good teamwork with imaginative
script writers. But our author went on. 1973 was the transition period
of this dramatic change of style, from a thin and elegant stroke to a
nervous and powerfully dynamic one which mixed thin pen lines with
heavy brush strokes and breathed fresh new life into the Disney cast.

Paperino e la matematica filatelica, Martina, TL 915 (1973), GC 1, GC 49
Zio Paperone e l'invasione dei Ki-Kongi, Cimino, TL 934-935 (1973),
CWDNS 16
Zio Paperone e l'operazione galeone, Pavese, TL 937-938 (1973)
In an interview appearing in the Yellow book (p. 147),
Cavazzano himself mentions this story as a turning
point. "...One morning I noticed a change in my style: I was
drawing a page with the ducks swimming towards the bottom of
the sea, wearing black wet suits, and I suddenly felt I
discovered something very important, seeing that I could move
them in a way that was different from the usual one. Even now
I experience some emotion when talking about it, because
everything started from there. It's from that moment on that I
started to modify the characters and study them in a personal
way."

1973 - 1977: Techno

This is where Cavazzano takes the Disney comic world by storm,
electrifying the characters and breaking the canons of conventional
Disney-style art. This is when people start to recognise that there
are Cavazzano stories in Topolino, even at a time when the publisher
didn't print any credits, because most readers can recognise this very
personal and dynamic style and relate it to other non-Disney comics by
Cavazzano. While his characters tend more and more towards
caricatures, either slim and tall or round and fat, the machinery is
rendered with accurate and realistic detail. Page layout and viewing
angles are also new fields for bold experimentation. During this
nervous, dynamic and exciting graphical phase his best works are based
on frantic plots by Giorgio Pezzin, who has an excellent sense of
rythm and punctuates the stories with frequent hilarious gags. Their
Fethry Duck / Donald Duck stories are absolute masterpieces. Note
that, at the same time, the Pezzin / Cavazzano duo was also working on
other similar comic character pairs: Walkie e Talkie, Oscar e Tango
and most notably Smalto e Jonny.

Sample stories:

Paperino e la visita distruttiva, Pezzin, TL 947 (1974), GC 93
Paperino e il motocross della sierra, Pavese, TL 985 (1974), GC 6
Paperino e il ritorno di Reginella, Cimino, AT 213 (1974), SAPNS 30
Second installment of Donald's special love story, and perhaps
the most romantic.
Paperino e l'errore del paperzucum, Cimino, TL 997 (1975), GC 92
Paperoga e il peso della gloria, Pezzin, TL 1007 (1975)
Perhaps the most famous of the Fethry/Donald stories, this is
the one with the atomic submarine.
Paperoga e l'isola a motore, Pezzin, TL 1050 (1976), CWDNS ESTATE '87
Paperino e l'eroico smemorato, Pezzin, TL 1059 (1976)
Zio Paperone e le rapine ecologiche, Pezzin, TL 1070 (1976)
Archimede e ...l'illogica vittoria, Pezzin, TL 1106 (1977), GC 51
Paperino e il croccante al diamante, Pezzin, TL 1108 (1977)
As Ole R. Nielsen reported to the disney-comics list on 1996
03 21, this story has recently been published by Gladstone in
Walt Disney Giant #5 as "Snacking Sleuths", though sadly in
heavily butchered form, so you're strongly advised to get a
reprint from a better source. I can't understand how an
otherwise serious and respectable publisher like Gladstone
could afford to censor out 11 pages from a story! Sigh...
Zio Paperone e l'acqua concentrata, Pezzin, TL 1113 (1977)

1977 - 1990: The Model

We could have called Techno a second maturity, again in the sense that
Cavazzano was then a complete and accomplished author and would have
got his place in the history books even if he had done nothing
different after that. Instead, when viewed in the wider context of
his actual evolution, Techno itself appears to be a transition phase,
an extended experiment that allows Cavazzano to sharpen new tools for
what becomes his later, true maturity. He tones down the wildest
graphical extremes and lets his previously restless characters cool
down a bit. He is still definitely master of his art, only no longer
an unrestrained crazy genius. I called this phase The Model because
most of the new artists joining the ranks of the Italian Disney
publisher look at him, at this Cavazzano, for inspiration. Up to a
point, this is very flattering; but after that it becomes slightly
annoying. Cavazzano gets back to this very modern (but now within the
canons) style after a long personal journey through the other phases
we've seen, so he "earns" this modernity through his distilled
experience. But many of the new authors pick up this style not as the
result of a personal growth but simply because Cavazzano is the most
popular and modern artist, thus achieving only superficial results.
Among the best things of this long period are the stories with the
alien duck OK Quack and the private detective Umperio Bogarto, two new
characters created by Carlo Chendi.

Sample stories:

Zio Paperone e il deposito roulotte, Pezzin, TL 1174 (1978)
Paperino e il turista spaziale, Chendi, TL 1353 (1981)
First story with OK Quack.
Zio Paperone e il ponte di Messina, Pezzin, TL 1401 (1982), CWDNS 215
Topolino e Minni in "Casablanca", Cavazzano, TL 1657 (1987)
One of the very few stories scripted by Cavazzano himself,
this parody of the Humphrey Bogart film is uniquely rendered
in painted black and white.

1989 - now: Essential

This is not really a separate phase from The Model; we're still in the
same basic period, with the same distinguishing features. But I opened
a new section (the boundaries of which are actually rather fuzzy) to
remark that lately Cavazzano has evolved towards a more essential
style, almost spartan. Elegant as always, but with fewer, heavier
strokes. Even if the inflation of would-be Cavazzanos has almost
stolen his own style from him, he still is the only one who really
owns it because it comes out of his personal journey. Proof of it is,
he is the only one who can render the Cavazzano style with just hints,
instead of all the intricate detail that used to characterise it.
Absolute masterpieces from this phase are the sword stories by Marconi
(especially the first one, "Topolino e la spada invincibile") and the
new romantic series by the poet Cimino, "Nonna Papera e i racconti
intorno al fuoco", where Grandma Duck becomes the storyteller of
stories that don't involve Donald or Mickey.

Sample stories:

Topolino e la spada invincibile, Marconi, TL 1728 (1989)
Nonna Papera e i racconti intorno al fuoco: il bel cavaliere
e la regina del lago perduto, Cimino, TL 1782 (1990)
Paperino telecronista sportivo, Concina, TL1820 (1990)
Gambadilegno e il ritorno a Legcity, Mezzavilla, TL1862 (1991)
Buon compleanno, Paperino!, Foster, TL 2011 (1994)
This story is unusual from several points of view: it was done
originally for Egmont instead of Disney Italia and it features
electronic colours (by Leopoldo Barbarini), still not too
common on Italian stories. The letterer, too (Diego Ceresa of
Zio Paperone fame), is not the usual one for Topolino.
Paperino e Paperoga allenatori... super allenati,
Salvagnini, TL 2016 (1994)

Frank (Filologo Disneyano) http://www.cam-orl.co.uk/~fms

Arthur,

I don't think it is just you, I sure those two Van Horn stories intrigueing.
The plots were more developed than the norm for Van Horn. They are stories
I know I will reread several times over the years.

Kathy

> Is it just me, or are Van Horn's stories really getting
>better lately? I must say I really liked "The Hauntland Treasure"
>and "The Pauper's Glass".

Some Barney Bear comic stories have been reprinted in the Tom & Jerry comics
Harvey puts out, along with some Droopy Dog stories by Carl Barks. I am not
sure how they came to print the stories unless they are owned by Disney.

-Kathy

ALL:
This came as a surprise to me, too -- but we just saw a visitation here from
PER GRUBERT! They don't use the same titles as we do in American comics, but
Per Grubert would be the equivalent of what would be the *publisher* for all
the Egmont Disney comics. Byron Erickson (who I deal with)would be the
editor-in-chief, and the editors would be in the various branches in the
various countries. So apparently Egmont is now ON-LINE and we might hear
from them from time to time! (Also, perhaps any opinions or ideas expressed
here will go directly to the "home office".)

BILL:
I'll let Todd Klein post the lyrics for LYDIA here -- he just did the same
thing over on COMPUSERVE when the subject came up.

MARCO:
"The Baggage Coach Ahead" was the tune mentioned (in the context I used it)
in "The City of Golden Roofs". I never tried to ascertain whether it's some
actual, if obscure, 1904 tune. But that Barks story is the only place I'd
ever heard of it.
It's not a matter of whether Disney allows the gun-pointing in these comics,
That's the decision made by Egmont, and in your ZIO PAPERONE by your Italian
editors. Disney oversees only Gladstone. And Disney DID allow the
gun-pointing in those panels in the Gladstone editions (if not in the third
chapter). I think by the 11th chapter they began to realize this series was
aimed at older readers and they were more lenient? I dunno.
And it wasn't J.J. "Abstor", it was J.J.(John Jacob) ASTOR. He was the
multi-multi-millionare who was the most famous person to sink with the
Titanic. I didn't know why the "overseers" wouldn't use his name, but didn't
mind using Hearst. Maybe because I depicted Astor as a character and only
mentioned Hearst's name? As I said, I am not in contact with the people who
make these decisions, that's why they seem so inscrutable to me. So, did
they use "Astor" in the Italian edition, or change it to this "Abstor"?

MARCO and HARRY:

Sorry to be holding the project up, guys! As I've told Marco, I
haven't even started with the OCRing because the packages I have are
unsuitable and don't drive my hardware properly. Fed up with Corel and
Calera I have just ordered (today) a new OCR from Xerox which seems to
be excellent (it comes with a 30 day money back guarantee so I'm safe)
and if this works ok it'll be a pleasure to digitise the index from IF
and whatever else we want to throw at this cute little machine.

ALESSANDRA:

You're very welcome on the list! As an Italian expatriate I am
familiar with the Grandi Parodie and interested in your work. (By the
way, how could you get away with such a thesis if you were graduating
in PHILOSOPHY? I could have understood more easily if it had been
literature or something... Anyway, good for you! :-)) Any chance of
you making the thesis available in electronic form like people tend to
do in the scientific community? I'd be delighted to read it!

RICH:

> I think Wilmer's point was that, even at their worst, Huey, Dewey and
> Louie wouldn't have seriously injured anyone, any more than Donald would

Agreed -- though to be fair they were much worse in the early days
than later on... From Taliaferro to Barks they gradually evolved from
little devils to wise advisers.

> Wile E. Coyote can suffer through innumerable explosions [...] but
> Donald most definitely couldn't.

True. I think it's because Donald & co are more real, closer to real
people than the obviously "invented" Coyote & co.

GIANFRANCO:

[index/roadmap of your web site]
> Telepathy? I'm working on it, indeed!

Good! I look forward to it!

Frank (Filologo Disneyano) http://www.cam-orl.co.uk/~fms

SEVERAL PEOPLE:
I'm impressed with the accuracy and swiftness and breadth
of the replies from members of this list on several innocuous remarks
and questions of mine [Lydia, Greek spelling contest, Our Gang].
The information from the several "song publication line" people
is appreciated; now even the Euro-people know the tattooed lady
a little better. Yes, Todd Klein/Harald Havas: please provide us
with the full Lydian/Mixo-Lydian Marxian lyrics. Then we shall only
miss the tune itself [anyone out there doing MusicTeX-scoring?].

DON ROSA/TODD KLEIN:
<< I'll let Todd Klein post the lyrics for LYDIA here -- he
just did the same thing over on COMPUSERVE when the subject came up. >>
Please inform us, someone, briefly, about whether there is something
we on this list should know about COMPUSERVE discussion groups.
Is there a parallel universe out there? Have _they_ received
_our_ radio signals? Is there a point in merging, somehow?

HARRY FLUKS:
you answered the philological Greek spelling contest questions
better than I could have, thanks. I think I agree with your little
"table" with KRWISOS, KIRKH, MIDAS. Referring to (partly unknown) rules
of Lydian spelling is the best and natural way out, indeed [which I
have no intention of spoiling by digging up this Oxford University
fellow I know who would be the one to actually know written Lydian...].
Again, Don, a beautiful story, which is the main thing.

DON ROSA:
I expressed my "angst of losing Donald" [there should be a Freudian-Latin-
psychological term for this affliction, of course] in the expanding
Rosaic universe, and this triggered this from Don:
<< And for my stumbling efforts at a proper use of Donald Duck, try
looking at the "Once and Future Duck" story in the current Egmont weeklies.
Is that any better? >>
I don't know!, is this out in Scandinavia now?, I haven't seen it!,
when will it appear in the U.S.?, help! But simply the tone of your remark
puts me at ease. You are the writer and artist, go ahead & do your stuff,
I was only a litte bit worried that you would overemphasise Scrooge
and ignore the emotional-behavioural complexities of his nephew!

You are coming to "Tusenfryd", I take it, the theme park a bus-length away
from Oslo, in late June. Any more details? Other places in which to
show your face? Paleet/Tanum? Late June is a dead season for University
and student life, otherwise I guess "Realistforeningen" (the association
for math & sciences students here) would have made a "show" of you
(as they have done before, I understand).

Best wishes, Nils Lid Hjort