Stay strong, fishpillow. My colleagues and I, at various publishers, have been working hard for years to make more and better Disney Comics available in our market. While I can't speak FOR Jonathan Gray, Joe Torcivia, Gary Leach, Amy Mebberson, Thad Komorowski, Maura McManus, Gary Groth, and Sarah Gaydos—just to name a few of those whom I work with most often—I can speak OF them with some confidence. We're not giving up!
Glad to hear it! Or as Mickey might say, "When th' goin' gets tough, y'can't throw in th' towel! Y'gotta keep goin', f'r gosh sakes!" (Reading that back, I can just about hear Mickey's voice in my head... Yeeks...)
(**yeah, I know that Rosa, the Van Horn family , the McGreal family, the Shaw family are US citizens, and that many artists come from South America, but you get the point...)
Wait, I forgot Robert (Klein) and David (Gerstein). Sorry! And Byron Erickson! Well, ok, many folks. But my point still holds. I hope
And Bob Foster, The Gilberts, and Dave Rawson, as well (and there are some others we must be forgetting).
Well, I've been spending a good portion of the year in Europe since the 1960s, and lived there all year during the 1980s and early 1990s. Byron and David lived there for many years (Byron still does). But, I assume that none of that refutes your point that Disney Comics are a big part of the culture in many European countries, especially The Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. When I was a kid in the early 1950s, and we spent summers in The Netherlands 9visiting family), EVERY young boy that I met read "Donald Duck Weekblad" (Weekly), and most families with children had a subscription to the magazine. Most girls read it, too. Almost ALL parents knew who Donald Duck, and Oom Dagobert, and Kwik, Kwek and Kwak were, and even who Willie Wortel was! ( It wasn't even as big a part of American culture, in the early 1950s when Walt Disney's Comics & Stories was The World's highest circulating magazine at over 3 million. It was the same in Germany, Italy and Scandinavia. After The War (World War II) there was little extra money for entertainment for most families. So, comic books were a big thing. So, now there is a 65-70 year tradition of worshiping Disney Comics in Western Europe, except for Italy, which had and added 15 years or so of Disney newspaper comics before The War. So, one might consider that Disney Comics probably mean more and have meant more, for a longer number of years, to Western Europeans, than they have to Americans. But, for me, they've been one of my major interests, on both sides of The Atlantic Ocean, since I can remember. I've read them, or been read to, from them in USA and Canada since age 2, 1950, and in The Netherlands since 1952, and collected the books in all three of those places, plus in Denmark, too.
There was also Joel Katz, an American expatriate, who moved to Denmark in the late 1960s, and later (1970s-1990s) became a storywriter/scriptor for Guttenberghus (Egmont). I think The various European Disney offices welcomed all of us, because we all learned to love Disney Comics from Carl Barks, in his native language.
Since we are doing this, there are also John Lustig, Pat & Shelly Block, Rick Marschall, Doug Gray, Stefan Petrucha and the late Don Markstein. And of course Jerry Siegel who did work for the Italian publisher in the 70's.
Since we are doing this, there are also John Lustig, Pat & Shelly Block, Rick Marschall, Doug Gray, Stefan Petrucha and the late Don Markstein. And of course Jerry Siegel who did work for the Italian publisher in the 70's.
Yes, sorry. It was not my intention to start a list of American authors.
Never heard of the authors in blue.
(The inducks says that Sarah Kinney is the wife of Stefan Petrucha)
Some might not expect it of a Gottfredson, Fethry, and Zeke Wolf junkie like myself—but PKNA (our Duck Avenger) is one of my favorite Disney comics; and even so, my fandom isn't a patch on that of Jonathan Gray, who has done—in my opinion—a first-rate job of translating and Americanizing the series.
Jon had long wanted to bring PKNA here. The main reason it hadn't happened sooner is that first, it was necessary to establish the original 1960s Duck Avenger continuity. IDW was glad to oblige us both.
When handled right, PKNA can be at once futuristic, dramatic, thoughtful, and crazy without losing the ambience of a "real" Donald Duck adventure. Speaking for myself, I'd like to see more of the stories done Jon's way if another opportunity should come.
I agree with you that PKNA is a great series (we've had our own problems here in Germany as well, since the first two attempts ended after not that many issues...) but my favourite Duck Avenger period is actually the one between the first adventures and PKNA, including the ones involving my favourite criminal Spectrus (hence my username). IMO, the balance between the Duckburgish-ness and the superhero stance (not to mention the humour - I could laugh tears watching Donald DA trying to make his supercar visible again) is best here. Jumping from the 70s to the 90s without any of the I PK comics can be quite jarring...
Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine and X-Mickey are similarly good, actually.