One series that I'd like to see collected in the original English is History According to Goofy. These were 39 full-length (44 p.) stories written for the Studio system by Western regulars Carl Fallberg, Cal Howard, Carson Van Osten, Greg Crosby, and Tom Yakutis, and illustrated by members of Jaime Diaz studio. Unlike other studio stories, these are decidely goofy, taking a liberal approach to panel sizes, real history, and any kind of logic really. Pretty much all of the major countries have had some stories published, however the only complete collections have been published in Germany (Goofy - Eine komische Historie, 2006-10) and in Brazil (Pateta faz História (softcover), 2011 and Pateta faz História (hardcover), 2017-18). Both clocked in at about 1840 pages. That's probably more than the American market could handle, but we've seen more obscure collections given a try in the past few years.
Not all of the History According to Goofy stories are great, but the best of them are wonderfully inspired nonsense. They could definitely warrant an American collection or two.
Revisiting this thread, I’m now collecting three library series: Fantagraphics Carl Barks, Swedish Daniel Branca and French Romano Scarpa (even though my French is… well, let’s say it’s improving).
My first choice for a new library would still be Manuel Gonzales Mickey Mouse strips, followed by Marco Rota and Daan Jippes. When it comes to Italian comics, it’s a bit too much, but would be interested in pairings, like Pezzin/Cavazzano as someone suggested, or Pezzin/De Vita.
- A book collecting all YF-coded Mickey Mouse and His Friends daily strips. These are pretty fun silent comics and with 3 strips per page, there are only 367 pages of these. - A one volume Sir Brian collection. This character started in the Winnie the Pooh strips, but it's pretty interesting how it became it's own thing. With 3 daily strips printed per page and 1 Sunday strip per page, there are around 170 pages of comics in which Sir Brian and/or "Sir Brian's dragon" appear but no tradtional Winnie the Pooh characters appear. They heve appeared on further 470 pages of strips together with the traditional Winnie the Pooh cast. So the book I would love to see would look like this: 170 pages of Sir Brian & his dragon strips + around 100 pages of the best strips with Sir Brian appearing together with the Winnie the Pooh cast.
Btw, what collections of the Disney strips have there been apart from the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Treasury of Classic Tales and the Christmas strips ones? There was a Merry Menagerie paint book published in 1953, a True Life adventures book in 1956 and a Winnie the Pooh collection in 2019. Any others? Has there never been a publication containing exclusively or mostly Br'er Rabbit or Gummi Bears or Scamp strips?
- A book collecting all YF-coded Mickey Mouse and His Friends daily strips. These are pretty fun silent comics and with 3 strips per page, there are only 367 pages of these. - A one volume Sir Brian collection. This character started in the Winnie the Pooh strips, but it's pretty interesting how it became it's own thing. With 3 daily strips printed per page and 1 Sunday strip per page, there are around 170 pages of comics in which Sir Brian and/or "Sir Brian's dragon" appear but no tradtional Winnie the Pooh characters appear. They heve appeared on further 470 pages of strips together with the traditional Winnie the Pooh cast. So the book I would love to see would look like this: 170 pages of Sir Brian & his dragon strips + around 100 pages of the best strips with Sir Brian appearing together with the Winnie the Pooh cast.
Btw, what collections of the Disney strips have there been apart from the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Treasury of Classic Tales and the Christmas strips ones? There was a Merry Menagerie paint book published in 1953, a True Life adventures book in 1956 and a Winnie the Pooh collection in 2019. Any others? Has there never been a publication containing exclusively or mostly Br'er Rabbit or Gummi Bears or Scamp strips?
Don't forget the Silly Symphonies strip collections; four volumes in total. Speaking for myself, it's the only Disney strip I've collected so far aside from the Gottfredson books.
I'd like to see the Floyd Norman Mickey strips from the 80s collected.
I'm guessing you mean the Floyd Norman Mickey strips from the 90s? His first Inducks credit is for January 1, 1990.
A book or two collecting the Mickey adventure serials that Norman and others wrote in 1990-95 (after Norman convinced King Features to let them do longer stories in the Mickey strip again) would be nice. The first of those stories was "Crossbone Island", running from January 15 to February 10, 1990.
Speaking of Mickey in the 80s, though: I've been reading some of the late-80s gag strips written by Del Connell (and apparently drawn by an unknown artist - maybe someone here knows who it is?), and they can be surprisingly good. Fun writing, often incorporating modern-day topics like new technology (as seen in the below sample from January 6, 1989); and much better art than the concurrent Donald Duck strip. In fact, I think I prefer this art style over Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse strips from the 60s and 70s.
Funny you should mention that, I've been going through a lot of late Gottfredson art recently and I've been thinking it looks much better that it's usually given credit for. I'm currently identifying a bunch of comics printed on bubblegum wrappers. They're all redrawn or traced or something, but in spite of that I can still tell a Gottfredson (YM) comic from a Julius Svendsen (YF) comic from that time. Gottfredson's characters are a lot more complex in build-up, and they look more solid and unique from panel to panel. Compare that to Minnie here, who has the exact same expression in two consecutive panels.
That said, I'd also love to see some of Norman's work reprinted!
Funny you should mention that, I've been going through a lot of late Gottfredson art recently and I've been thinking it looks much better that it's usually given credit for. I'm currently identifying a bunch of comics printed on bubblegum wrappers. They're all redrawn or traced or something, but in spite of that I can still tell a Gottfredson (YM) comic from a Julius Svendsen (YF) comic from that time. Gottfredson's characters are a lot more complex in build-up, and they look more solid and unique from panel to panel. Compare that to Minnie here, who has the exact same expression in two consecutive panels.
That said, I'd also love to see some of Norman's work reprinted!
I can see what you mean about the two faces in the 1989 strip being similar. I also agree that Gottfredson was still an accomplished artist in later years. But his art gradually evolved - or devolved - into this kind of weird stylization where I get the feeling he was more enthused by the notion of "how can I draw these nuances in Mickey's face differently today?" than with whether the total result was an appealing character drawing. To take an example: Mickey's face in the last panel of this December 1, 1969 daily is pretty off-putting to me.
Same with the face in panel 3 of this January 21, 1965 daily. Floyd used this overbearing oh-i-get-it face on Mickey WAY too much in later years. You even see it pop up in the late 40s.
And another weird-looking face in the last panel of the December 16, 1965 daily.
Obviously, this later rendition of Floyd's Mickey is inspired by the character's terrible redesign in the animated shorts of the early 50s. But I have to say I really don't think that was the best inspiration to settle on. That said, it's still interesting to study Floyd's stylization choices here in other respects.
My wish is a complete collection of all the Donald Duck short strips and Sunday stories created by Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp. A series called "Aku Ankka Päivästä päivään" (eng. Donald Duck To Day By Day) was previously published in Finland, but the series was interrupted due to the economic crisis that hit in the 1990s and it was no longer continued. However, a complete re-release of the series may be a problem today since a few stories are banned due to the native American characters and religious themes (such as praying) that they contain which is why not all stories could be published again. Or I would assume so, because the stories couldn’t be published before due of those. The "Aku Ankka Päivästä Päivään" album series already lacked 45 "sensored" comic strip lines due to a request from an American publishers and therefore it was incomplete collection (regardless of the suspension of its publication). But the complete collection that would include all the Donald Duck stories by Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp would still be really nice.
My wish is a complete collection of all the Donald Duck short strips and Sunday stories created by Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp. A series called "Aku Ankka Päivästä päivään" (eng. Donald Duck To Day By Day) was previously published in Finland, but the series was interrupted due to the economic crisis that hit in the 1990s and it was no longer continued. However, a complete re-release of the series may be a problem today since a few stories are banned due to the native American characters and religious themes (such as praying) that they contain which is why not all stories could be published again. Or I would assume so, because the stories couldn’t be published before due of those.
The early 40s strips that were left out in the Nordic From Day to Day book series you refer to (which also came out in Norway, where it lasted until the early 2000s) were actually included in IDW's American hardcover books.
I can see what you mean about the two faces in the 1989 strip being similar. I also agree that Gottfredson was still an accomplished artist in later years. But his art gradually evolved - or devolved - into this kind of weird stylization where I get the feeling he was more enthused by the notion of "how can I draw these nuances in Mickey's face differently today?" than with whether the total result was an appealing character drawing. To take an example: Mickey's face in the last panel of this December 1, 1969 daily is pretty off-putting to me.
I agree with you there --- late Gottfredson's style doesn't do it for me. I had actually been looking through strips from the late '50s and early '60s, where the effects aren't as extreme. (The contemporary YF-series ran between 1958 and 1962.)
I am happy for people that enjoy the masters library but id really wish we would get a dedicated Dean Jipps library or Van Horn because going the masters way it will take a long time the complete both their libraries that's assuming the masters line continue
going the masters way it will take a long time the complete both their libraries
You are being optimistic. Let’s be realistic: the “Van Horn Library” within the Disney Masters will never be completed. It would require at least 8 Van Horn books and with at least 2 years between books it will never happen. You are right, Fanta should have published a true Van Hirn Library separate from the Disney Masters. Alternatively, they should have done what I suggested and published a “best of Van Horn” Disney Masters volume instead of publishing his worst, earliest stuff.
In the end, 2 or 3 “best of Van Horn” volumes would have been way better than a pseudo Van Horn Library that is stopped after his earliest stories.
Al Hubbard's Lady and the Tramp adaptation and a selection of his Scamp stories would be one I'd like to see. He did a lot of good work with the various feature film characters. I think he also did an adaptation of the Silly Symphonies newspaper strip "Three Little Kittens" for a Christmas Parade issue.