Since I started being invested in the online fan community of Disney comics...
I have been quite surprised to read quite a few comments by Disney comics fans who have expressed they dislike the Italian Disney comics.
"I don't like the Italian stories","I don't like the Italian style of art" and so on...
I am NOT saying it is a bad opinion. Everyone has their taste, and that's perfectly okay.
Just that I am a bit surprised by this, and I still don't understand why. For me, Italians being so productive in Disney comics have helped keep the industry and Duck/Mouse universe rich and active.
Of course, nobody HAS to explain why they don't or do like something... sometimes it's just natural taste...
But I am curious to hear some specific reasons why someone would dislike the Italian-made works.
Or just what makes them different from the USA-made, Danish-made or Dutch-made stories... differences that could make something a love-it or hate-it affair.
What are your thoughts?
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The reason why I dislike many of the italian disney comics is: The drawings! The drawings often show very distorted , out-of-shape charakters. Their body and facial expression language often are not convincing, not authentic or too much exaggerated, like in a slapstick movie. And even more: The pictures, the panels often do not have a focus. Look at Barks drawings: They lead your eye to the focus of the action. They show only what is necessary. Look at many italian drawings: The picture ist overcrowded with unnecessary drawing-lines that steal the focus. To me they seem chaotic. And this makes it exhausting for me to "read".
I love Italian stories. ...Yes, I DON'T love also stories by Carlo Panaro in the end of quite-every Topolino, but I mostly like all's both Disney and Italian.
I don't think Italian art style is "confused"- also because they don't have a main art style, there are many, and much different. For instance, Giorgio Cavazzano, Casty, Andrea Freccero, Luca Usai, they've all different and "simple" styles, and I like 'em. Then there are also "confused" drawers, like Francesco D'Ippolito, Paolo Mottura, Fabio Celoni, Alberto Lavoradori and others. I like them too, but I understand they may not be liked.
I would have been in the "I don't like Italian stories" camp back in the Gladstone Comics days, as I was really into the classic style then. But the more I read of IDW's selection of Italian material, the more I appreciate the energy and creativity that they put into them, rather than just slavishly imitating Carl Barks' style.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Dec 8, 2016 18:50:55 GMT
Frankly, I understand this opinion, but I don't love Barks's art all that much. The lines always seem a little too thin, and the backgrounds are often lacking in the kind of funny or artistic details you find in Don Rosa's, Luciano Bottaro's or Paolo Mottura's art. I recognize that he had an enormous artistic talent, but I still don't love him. I could say the same thing about Hergé.
I *love* the exaggerated expressions and the slapstick style. The embodiment of that part of the "Italian style" would be Sylvia Ziche, and I find her stories hilarious.
There's good and bad from every Disney outpost. I'm certainly not big on a lot of what Disney Italy does today, but I wouldn't dismiss an entire country's output out of hand, save maybe the non-Barks Western Publishing hackwork that damaged the Disney comics brand in America beyond repair.
The reason why I dislike many of the Italian Disney comics is: The drawings! The drawings often show very distorted , out-of-shape characters. Their body and facial expression language often are not convincing, not authentic or too much exaggerated, like in a slapstick movie. And even more: The pictures, the panels often do not have a focus. Look at Barks drawings: They lead your eye to the focus of the action. They show only what is necessary. Look at many italian drawings: The picture is overcrowded with unnecessary drawing-lines that steal the focus. To me they seem chaotic. And this makes it exhausting for me to "read".
THIS is very close to what I would have written. I do like some of the Italian stories, and some artists, like Marco Rota's early art for Mondadori, and alsoRomano Scarpa's '50s and early '60s Mouse stories.
I do dig Italian Disney comics from the mid-1950s to ca. the mid-1990s, but can't say I care a lot for what's been produced within the last twenty years or so. It's because these days you rather get caricatures than actual characters you can sympathize with.
Also, the Italian faible for putting the characters into subseries has gotten way out of control since about roughly the same time, imho. I'd rather read a conventional story with Donald than see him in one of his umpteen superhero incarnations.
I find the drawing mostly not particularly good and some even extremely bad. This is because I do not like these crazy facial expressions. In my opinion the Italians are all the same, with the Danish, American, Dutch, German and French drafts, there is a great deal of variation of the drawing styles! Also the stories are now mostly unidentified. Above all the Italian Duck Avenger comics often have the same basic idea.
In my opinion the Italians are all the same, with the Danish, American, Dutch, German and French drafts, there is a great deal of variation of the drawing styles!
The truth is the exact opposite of what you wrote.
Note: aside from Casty/Cavazzano's Mouse stories with new female characters, this post will concentrate on Duck stories, since that's mostly what I care about.
There aren't many Italian stories that have made it onto my favorites list (stories I keep and re-read), but there are some. I often really enjoy Cavazzano's art, and I like Casty's Mouse stories with his new female characters: Eurasia Toft, Estrella Marina, Commander Iris-One. If I had to pick one artist to draw Huey, Dewey and Louie, it would be Cavazzano. I like Silvia Ziche's art, but don't often like the stories she draws (for one thing, too many of them include Brigitta, see below!). I love Rota's art, and I like a few of the stories he wrote and a bunch that he co-wrote. I like some of the older non-Scarpa Italian stuff, most often Cimino's writing, with a Chendi and a Martina thrown in.
What immediately comes to mind when I try to identify why I don't like a lot of Italian stuff is three things: (1) I don't like Scarpa's take on Scrooge's world. I detest Brigitta and can't like any story that includes her. I know she is sometimes treated with respect as a businesswoman, but I can't dissociate her from the lovelorn stalker, and I just hate-hate-hate that trope. Jubal Pomp is OK, I guess, if Brigitta isn't around. But none of the characters Scarpa created has become "real" in my headcanon. Dickie might possibly attain reality in my personal Duckburg, depending on my reaction to the stories I have yet to see.
This doesn't mean, by the way, that I only accept as "real" characters created or used by Barks and Rosa. There are a slew of characters created by other writers/artists who have become real in my headcanon Duckiverse, including: Belle Duck, Fethry, Tabby, Garvey Gull, Minima De Spell, Granny De Spell, Mercedes Pujol, Stella Curfew, Melvin X. Nickelby, and most recently, Brenda from Scrooge's childhood in Scotland.
(2) The fact that many of the stories were written to be published in weekly segments made for a very different approach to plotting and pacing, and one I find hard to adjust to. LOTS of meandering around to no particular purpose. I am astonished, for instance, that Scarpa's "The Flying Scot" is now rated #14 of all Disney comics stories ever on Inducks. It takes FOREVER to even get to the Flying Scot! I could understand rating some of Scarpa's Mickey stories very highly, but this just mystifies me.
(3) Subseries: Like sirredknee I prefer to read about the Donald I know in the Duckburg I know, as opposed to Donald-as-superhero or Donald-as-spy. Also, the whole "Donny Duckling" view of Donald's childhood is one that doesn't work for me. In my headcanon, Donald and Della were raised by their parents, who were alive at least until D&D's adolescence, possibly into their early adulthood. Donald may have spent summers on Grandma Duck’s farm while Della was at Chickadees camp or whatever (the Little Booneheads not being organized enough to have their own summer camp), but Elvira did not raise him.