Post by paulbrians on Jan 29, 2024 21:16:22 GMT
When I was a kid in the early 1950s living in the countryside far from comics vendors I used to subscribe to Walt Disney's Comics & Stories for $1 a year and fell in love with the adventures of Scrooge and Mickey, but nobody I knew collected comics. We traded them with each other and when mine had lost their trading value I donated them to the children's ward in the local hospital.
Traveling in Europe introduced me to the huge interest in the Disney characters and I began collecting them in as many languages as I could find. In 2006 I displayed a number of them in our local library. For years I had each American reprint issue held for me at Golden Age Collectibles in Seattle's Pike Place Market, whose owner was a huge fan. Eventually I filled 8 large boxes with issues bagged and boarded—mostly Scrooge and Mickey.
But in recent years I've concentrated on the elegant bound reprints of Italian comics featuring much longer and more complex stories than the average American ones. As a former professor of world literature I am particularly delighted by the parodies of classics such as "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde," (starring Mickey in the title roles) and Homer's Odyssey. I especially love the art in the Italian version of the classic silent film "Metropolis" which I used to show my students in my science fiction film class at Washington State University.
My wife and I read a few pages together each night. She's studied Italian and I've picked up enough to make out a lot, assisted by Google Translate. Only a tiny minority of these fabulous stories have been translated into English. I order them mostly from Amazon.it. Often the postage costs more than the books, but it's worth it. Just search for Topoiino and Paperino.
I'm happy to find a group online dedicated to the fabulous world of Duck and Mouse stories.
Traveling in Europe introduced me to the huge interest in the Disney characters and I began collecting them in as many languages as I could find. In 2006 I displayed a number of them in our local library. For years I had each American reprint issue held for me at Golden Age Collectibles in Seattle's Pike Place Market, whose owner was a huge fan. Eventually I filled 8 large boxes with issues bagged and boarded—mostly Scrooge and Mickey.
But in recent years I've concentrated on the elegant bound reprints of Italian comics featuring much longer and more complex stories than the average American ones. As a former professor of world literature I am particularly delighted by the parodies of classics such as "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde," (starring Mickey in the title roles) and Homer's Odyssey. I especially love the art in the Italian version of the classic silent film "Metropolis" which I used to show my students in my science fiction film class at Washington State University.
My wife and I read a few pages together each night. She's studied Italian and I've picked up enough to make out a lot, assisted by Google Translate. Only a tiny minority of these fabulous stories have been translated into English. I order them mostly from Amazon.it. Often the postage costs more than the books, but it's worth it. Just search for Topoiino and Paperino.
I'm happy to find a group online dedicated to the fabulous world of Duck and Mouse stories.