I mainly read Italian stories. I like that many of them take their time to develope a story and they are more complex. I also like how they tend to more often make the villians (or ruder characters like Gladstone) more sympathethic and by so somewhat more 3-dimentional.
Know as Maciej Kur, Mr. M., Maik, Maiki, Pan, Pan Miluś and many other names.
It's also possible that they didn't want to directly contradict the theory that Donald was raised by Grandma Duck ("This Is Your Life, Donald Duck" and the Donny Duckling stories). Though it's true that those stories are somewhat contradicted even by the introduction of Della as Donald's sister who grew up with him!
I came across this 1964 story drawn by Tony Strobl (writer unknown) that features flashbacks from Donald's childhood. I haven't read the whole story, but it seems to imply that Donald grew up on Grandma's farm, and there are scenes with Grandpa Duck as well. The story appears never to have been reprinted in the USA (maybe IDW can change that!). Has anyone read this story? Does it indeed suggest that Grandma and Grandpa Duck raised Donald?
It's also possible that they didn't want to directly contradict the theory that Donald was raised by Grandma Duck ("This Is Your Life, Donald Duck" and the Donny Duckling stories). Though it's true that those stories are somewhat contradicted even by the introduction of Della as Donald's sister who grew up with him!
I came across this 1964 story drawn by Tony Strobl (writer unknown) that features flashbacks from Donald's childhood. I haven't read the whole story, but it seems to imply that Donald grew up on Grandma's farm, and there are scenes with Grandpa Duck as well. The story appears never to have been reprinted in the USA (maybe IDW can change that!). Has anyone read this story? Does it indeed suggest that Grandma and Grandpa Duck raised Donald?
I also haven't read this story, but I knew it by fame as one of the (at least) three American sources to use this idea of Donald being raised by Grandma Duck, the first two being the animated version and the comic version of This is Your Life, Donald Duck. Though now that I rewatched a few scenes of the former, it seems they can be interpreted both ways, and it's not 100% obvious she raised him (she's introduced as a person who helped him in his younger years), so one may argue the idea started with the Lockman/Strobl comic adaptation of it.
Anyway, all I know of the story you linked is what I read in Gilles Maurice's page about the various versions of Grandpa Duck:
"In Strobl's "The Good Old Daze", from 1964, we can see a bit of Donald's youth, and we see he has been raised at the farm with his grandparents, and this is the first official appearance of a Grandpa Duck..."
If Gilles is right, then yes, the story also implies he grew at Grandma Duck's farm. Not an idea I like, but at least it was a good idea to use the flashback to explore the character of Grandma Duck's deceased husband. His absence (combined with the absences of Quackmore, Hortense and Della) is one of the things I dislike from young Donald stories.
Anyway, in the recent Dutch series of 1-pagers Della was allowed to appear (and she already has), while Quackmore and Hortense are not allowed for some reason. When I asked the author about Grandpa Duck, he told me that "Grandpa Duck would be funny to do in a story, but I’d have to check with the editors first!"
About Italian stories, I can't at the moment check many older comics to see how many of them used this idea in addition to the ones that have already been mentioned, that is Rota's From Egg to Duck (1984) and the Donny Duckling series (1998-present). Anyway, there is at least this story from 1990, which is really weird as a long-lost twin brother of Donald explains his story this way: "Grandma Duck at the market bought not only you, as an omelet egg, but also me. Two twin egges, if we can say that... and she raised us with great love!" Creepy. Anyway, it's all a dream and the brother doesn't exist.
The Italian Wikipedia about Donny Duckling has been claiming since 22 June 2006 that the "egg bought at the market" idea appears sometimes in the series, but the line has been unsourced for more than ten years and so one week ago I added a "citation needed" tag.
On the other hand, this Italian story from 1997 shows young Donald and Gladstone in a "gita" (an Italian word meaning trip, excursion, outing or jaunt) at Grandma Duck's farm, so the implication seems to be that young Donald doesn't normally lives there.
Last Edit: Jan 11, 2017 13:06:32 GMT by drakeborough
Some fans are obsessed with continuities, canons, "headcanons" etc and they can't enjoy italian stories that don't follow canon.
That's one of the main reasons?
Honestly, that's not limited to Italian stories. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Danish, Dutch and other-whatever stories also don't care much about "canon" or "continuity".
--- Gaucelm de Villaret gaucelm@gmail.com --- gaucelm.blogspot.fr twitter.com/GothHelm --- facebook.com/gaucelm
Even Carl Barks himself wasn't invested in continuity as much as some readers now are. To him each book was a different story, and he didn't feel that his readers should have to have read every issue to get the one they just bought. This sense of "floating continuity" is what many stories are built on.
Even Carl Barks himself wasn't invested in continuity as much as some readers now are. To him each book was a different story, and he didn't feel that his readers should have to have read every issue to get the one they just bought. This sense of "floating continuity" is what many stories are built on.
Floating continuity is exactly the concept that I was trying to explain here. Thanks for passing me the expression!
A little anecdote (that may sound OT or not, depending of your ears). After Barks retired from drawing in '66, his younger colleagues in Italy were finally allowed to discover the name of the Master. The writer Carlo Chendi sent him a mail that started with something like "Hi, you don't know me, but I am a pupil of yours...". Since then the two of them became pen-friends (and eventually met only once thirty years later, when Barks visited Europe). Over the years Chendi sent plenty of issues of Topolino to Carl, to show him his own work. It seems that Carl used to go to a pizzeria and ask the Italian family running the place to translate him those Topolino stories. So learn from Barks himself. Enjoy these comics without caring too much about consistency issues (which does not mean that you must not take them seriously...see once again my aforementioned post on this point). The only consistence that matters is the one inside the given story.
There are more interesting reasons to dislike (hate is a bad word) many Italian stories. One day maybe I'll try and write about that...
Even Carl Barks himself wasn't invested in continuity as much as some readers now are. To him each book was a different story, and he didn't feel that his readers should have to have read every issue to get the one they just bought. This sense of "floating continuity" is what many stories are built on.
Floating continuity is exactly the concept that I was trying to explain here. Thanks for passing me the expression!
A little anecdote (that may sound OT or not, depending of your ears). After Barks retired from drawing in '66, his younger colleagues in Italy were finally allowed to discover the name of the Master. The writer Carlo Chendi sent him a mail that started with something like "Hi, you don't know me, but I am a pupil of yours...". Since then the two of them become pen-friends (and eventually met only once thirty years later, when Barks visited Europe). Over the years Chendi sent plenty of issues of Topolino to Carl, to show him his own work. It seems that Carl used to go to a pizzeria and ask the Italian family running the place to translate him those Topolino stories. So learn from Barks himself. Enjoy these comics without caring too much about consistency issues (which does not mean that you must not take them seriously...see once again my aforementioned post on this point). The only consistence that matters is the one inside the given story.
There are more interesting reasons to dislike (hate is a bad word) many Italian stories. One day maybe I'll try and write about that...
Exactly! Even as a kid, I knew that this kind of children media didn't need continuity. After seeing all those wacky cartoons on TV (such as Tom & Jerry), I assumed that every story started things anew. Which is why, among other things, Donald is still a nobody despite having become a successful celebrity many times, Mickey is still surprised magic or aliens exist despite meeting that dozens of times and Gyro Gearloose still doesn't make millions despite creating world-breaking inventions.
I would be curious to read your reasons!
Nice story about Carl Barks, by the way! Has he been more in touch with the Italian side of things?
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Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 23, 2017 21:49:08 GMT
Jan 23, 2017 20:46:03 GMT 1 Orora said: Nice story about Carl Barks, by the way! Has he been more in touch with the Italian side of things?
Just to add a reference, Chendi told this story in a book interview to him. I do not have that book, but once I found on the internet the little segment of the book where he talks about his interaction with Barks. I think that at least a couple of their letters were published in the Italian and French libraries of Barks (the French one is just a translation of the Italian one).
As concerns Barks being in touch with the Italians, here's all I know. Firstly, I think he exchanged letters with some authors other than Chendi, but I do not remember who. Maybe Scarpa or Carpi, most probably the first one. Someone more expert can probably tell us. Another sure thing is that in the 70's a little delegation of Topolino went to the US to visit the Disney headquarters. The only authors taking part in that visit were Scarpa and Rota (at that age Rota was young and not yet working for the Danish editor). They met both Barks and Gottfredson. It seems that they had to gently insist to be introduced to Gottfredson (probably only the meeting with Barks was in the planning of who organized the visit). At the opening of a recent exhibition about Scarpa, Marco Rota stated that they were a little bit disappointed to discover that Gottfredson was relegated to a tiny sad workplace. You know, they considered him as the genius who started the Disney comics world, so maybe they expected to find him in a more dignified working position. At the age Gottfredson was still working, so it must have been before the year 1975. Barks visited Europe at the age of 93. Basically he ended his tour having a lunch with Chendi and various other Disney artists in a lovely place in Liguria. That's all I know.
As for Barks' connection to the Italian stories--here's an interesting one (though I think most of you already know it): (read more here: www.cbarks.dk/theitalianconnection.htm )
Last Edit: Jan 24, 2017 21:45:50 GMT by Scroogerello
As for Barks' connection to the Italian stories--here's an interesting one (though I think most of you already know it): (read more here: www.cbarks.dk/theitalianconnection.htm)
Hey! A thing to note here seems to be that Barks himself considered that Brigitta's logical English name would be Brigitte. Rather than, you know, Brigitta. Why didn't the localizations use this?
