Van Horn has never been good, he just seemed decent compared to other modern American Disney writers (who?)
My personal opinion is that Van Horn was pretty good during the Gladstone I era, churning out inventive Barks-inspired Donald Duck shorts. surreal DuckTales stories, and quaint covers, but there was the beginning of a deterioration in the Disney Comics Inc. years (although Bob Foster spiritedly defended against the notion), and by the time he began working for Egmont, he seemed more often than not to be phoning it in. His apparent obsession with shoehorning Rumpus into every story didn't help matters much, either. I'm still hoping IDW will print all his remaining as-yet-unseen-in-the-US stories, but as I've said before, that's more out of completism than any illusion that they'll be good.
Van Horn has never been good, he just seemed decent compared to other modern American Disney writers (who?)
YMMV on Van Horn's talent aside (I don't really like his art, but the man can write!),… umm… Don Rosa?… Hello?… (And Garv Wolfman of course, but maybe you don't think he counts.)
Van Horn has never been good, he just seemed decent compared to other modern American Disney writers (who?)
My personal opinion is that Van Horn was pretty good during the Gladstone I era, churning out inventive Barks-inspired Donald Duck shorts. surreal DuckTales stories, and quaint covers, but there was the beginning of a deterioration in the Disney Comics Inc. years (although Bob Foster spiritedly defended against the notion), and by the time he began working for Egmont, he seemed more often than not to be phoning it in. His apparent obsession with shoehorning Rumpus into every story didn't help matters much, either. I'm still hoping IDW will print all his remaining as-yet-unseen-in-the-US stories, but as I've said before, that's more out of completism than any illusion that they'll be good.
I believe the comics Van Horn made for Egmont in the 90s are easily his best ones. I'm currently re-reading WVH's Disney comics in chronological order, started a few week ago and now I'm at 2000, and honestly, I find it baffling how anyone cound think his Gladstone comics are on average better than the comics he made during the 90s. Many (most?) of his Gladstone comics are very short, shorter than 10 pages, nowhere near as well drawn as his later work (you just don't see drawings this good in his comics from the 80s), and the writing is just not that good in those stories yet.
Van Horn has never been good, he just seemed decent compared to other modern American Disney writers (who?)
YMMV on Van Horn's talent aside (I don't really like his art, but the man can write!),… umm… Don Rosa?… Hello?… (And Garv Wolfman of course, but maybe you don't think he counts.)
I meant except Don Rosa who, unlike Van Horn, is universally accepted as one of the best ever.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Oct 9, 2017 21:06:48 GMT
Well, yes and no. Van Horn is decent writing plusa certain subtle irony in the dialogues, touched now and then by a shadow of melancholic and dreamy tone. Now, if for some reason your mind is tuned on the same frequencies of Van Horn, then you get that subtle irony and enjoy that dreamy tone. Even if in that 10-pagers not much really happens. If not, well, then I can understand that one can find him bad, even very bad. I find myself often on the first side, sometimes on the other.
So, yes, he is a dividing author. None has a final word, maybe we are all right. It is just a matter of perspective. (By the way, if one is very much into the Italian style of writing...then Van Horn can be even absolutely indigestible!)
As concerns his drawing style, I find it very attractive for the 80's and the 90's, but in the last fifteen years it has become too rigid, and the ducks have lost expressivity because of the curvy beaks/mouth lines. (Anyhow, the old man is 80 something, so we should give him a break! )
Bill Wright is another artist who deserves a "Disney Masters" volume. He drew some of the better comic book Mickey Mouse stories, but it sometimes seems to have gotten lost under the sheer volume of Paul Murry's work.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 14, 2018 22:12:28 GMT
The first versions of the covers posted above were pretty bad. These definitive ones looks sooooooo much better. (The one by Cavazzano on Bottaro's volume is very elegant, in particular.) Even if I found the choice of the drawn on Scarpa's volume not very appealing. With all due respect to Michael Nadorp, who I prefer on the ducks. Why not putting a drawn by Scarpa or making someone (Cavazzano?) create a new cover?
As I probably already said, the content of the volume on Scarpa shows that this series can finally bring to the US stories otherwise hard to publish on the usual comics books, because of old-time misportrayed figures, or characters holding guns. Which is good, right?
Great news, although I won't be buying any of the first 3 volumes, as Murry's work never interested me, and the same goes for Disney comics produced in Italy. Volumes I would definitely buy: Van Horn (a complete Van Horn Library would be even better, but it seems unlikely that such a series will ever get published), Rota, Branca. A volume featuring the few Disney comics of Pat Block would also be very welcome. I wonder how many volumes Fantagraphics is planning to release per year. Also, I'm hoping that the future of the series will be less focused on Disney comics produced in Italy.
I just ordered the Daan Jippes/Freddy Milton book. Based on Murray's book only having 95 pages of stories, I assume that some of The Oberon Jippes/Milton stories will NOT be included. Too bad. I would want a hardbound full colour volume of all Daan Jippes' and all Freddy Milton's stories. But, I'd settle for one of ALL the Jippes/Milton co-productions. Has anyone seen a list of which stories will be in the Jippes/Milton volume?
Based on Murray's book only having 95 pages of stories, I assume that some of The Oberon Jippes/Milton stories will NOT be included.
According to the list of stories in the second post in this thread the Paul Murry book will have 172 pages of comics. Inducks lists 16 Jippes/Milton 10-pagers (well three are only 9 pages), so I think they will all fit inside the planned book.
The European "Hall of Fame" books (Denmark,Norway,Germany) with Jippes/Milton had about the same page size as the planned Fantagraphics-books and had 16 stories inside. But two of the collaboration stories were missing in those books and replaced with a Jippes only 10-pager and a Milton only 10-pager.
Edit: I now see that you ment all the Oberon stories they did not co-produce. They won't fit in the book, thats right.