History of Disney Comics outside Italy and Brazil

[The KKM]

I've recently had to give a general primer on the history of Disney Comics to a m8. It was fun, and it got me thinking on making a video about it. But this made me realise that I'm not nearly as familiar with the history of Disney Comics in the States compared to Italy or Brazil, and I know basically nothing regarding the rest of Europe other than some very tiny tidbits like Fuchs' localisations or that a lot of the US talent went to Egmont (or Sanoma? What's the difference?) in the 90s.

Anyone know any reading I can do online on this stuff?

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

As concerns the history of these two editors, I guess there must be much material on Egmont in Danish, but I do not think in English. Anyhow others here are qualified to help you on this, and I am sure they will. As regards Sanoma, there is at least this blog telling (even in English) the history of Donald Duck in the Netherlands: dd50.inducks.org/xindexeng.html


Maybe I am going to write things that you already know, anyhow here is something about the difference between Sanoma and Egmont.

Sanoma is a (little?) Dutch editor.
It produces some of the brief stories appearing on the weekly Dutch Donald Duck (the others are imported from Denmark).
If I am not mistaken, Sanoma has the right to distribute Disney comics only in the Netherlands. [CORRECTION: as RobbK pointed out below, also in other places where Dutch, Flemish or Afrikaans is spoken.]
Its few writers and artists are mostly Dutch persons. [CORRECTION: as RobbK pointed out below, actually many artists are from the Spanish Comic Up studio.]

Egmont is a giant Danish editor.
Actually it does not produce so much more original material than the Dutch. But it exports that material much more.
More importantly, Egmont has the (exclusive) license to sell Disney comics in all country in North Europe and some in Central Europe (Germany for instance) and even China! In the end only the Americas, France and the mediterranean countries are out of Egmont's "jurisdiction" (and in fact these are the places importing more Italian Disney comics, which I remind you are nowadays some 75-80% of the production all over the world).
Finally, from the point of view of the creators, Egmont is some kind of "rest of the world" team, since its writers and artists are rarely Danish, but rather north and south Americans, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, English, German people.

[RobbK1]

Jun 22, 2017 5:28:31 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

As concerns the history of these two editors, I guess there must be much material on Egmont in Danish, but I do not think in English. Anyhow others here are qualified to help you on this, and I am sure they will. As regards Sanoma, there is at least this blog telling (even in English) the history of Donald Duck in the Netherlands: dd50.inducks.org/xindexeng.html


Maybe I am going to write things that you already know, anyhow here is something about the difference between Sanoma and Egmont.

Sanoma is a (little?) Dutch editor.
It produces some of the brief stories appearing on the weekly Dutch Donald Duck (the others are imported from Denmark).
If I am not mistaken, Sanoma has the right to distribute Disney comics only in the Netherlands.
Its few writers and artists are mostly Dutch persons.

Egmont is a giant Danish editor.
Actually it does not produce so much more original material than the Dutch. But it exports that material much more.
More importantly, Egmont has the (exclusive) license to sell Disney comics in all country in North Europe and some in Central Europe (Germany for instance) and even China! In the end only the Americas, France and the Mediterranean countries are out of Egmont's "jurisdiction" (and in fact these are the places importing more Italian Disney comics, which I remind you are nowadays some 75-80% of the production all over the world).
Finally, from the point of view of the creators, Egmont is some kind of "rest of the world" team, since its writers and artists are rarely Danish, but rather north and south Americans, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, English, German people.

We at Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Sanoma - not to be confused with Finnish Sanoma) also produce some of the 10-16 page stories, and even a few long epic stories.  And Dutch Disney has always exported books to Belgium (Flemish areas), The Netherlands Antilles, South Africa and Surinaam.
Italy, Greece, France, Brasil/Portugal, The Netherlands/Belgium/South Africa are the main areas not directly served by an Egmont-affiliated local national publisher, as they traditionally had their own production (except for Greece, supplied almost exclusively from Italy, and Portugal from Brasil). 

Just like Egmont contracting a large % of their artwork to Spanish Studio artists, Dutch Disney does the same, using Spanish Comic-Up studio artists.  But, we also have several Dutch artists working as well.  Most of the writers are Dutch.  Egmont has writers mostly from The UK, USA, and Scandinavia and Finland.  They have several Danish writers (including Gorm Transgaard, Lars Jensen, and several that also work in their editorial offices).  There used to be a larger Danish writing group, from about 1989-1995. 

[iggy]

ex-yugoslavia countries are also under egmont or at least they were, anyway we had a weekly mickey mouse that was going on over thousand issues for many decades then after the country fell apart it stopped later and then egmont got in control and was publishing a dozen issues a year but it was not the same, it was mostly jokes and gags and articles while before it was a normal comic with long stories, mostly italian stuff but also the american masters. I grew up on these, it was released every wednesday and EVERYONE bought them, so people mostly blame egmont politics for todays kids not knowing about disney comics, I dont even know if it is still being released, if it is it is the watered down version I mentioned, there have been publishers interested in doing real standard disney comics but they could not because of the egmont monopoly.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Picsou Wiki's always a good place to visit, though it may not have that much. We Frenchmen had a massive treatise on the history of the Journal de Mickey released in 2014, too, but it's not exactly affordable — I only got it as a birthday present.

[RobbK1]

Jun 22, 2017 8:35:20 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Picsou Wiki's always a good place to visit, though it may not have that much. We Frenchmen had a massive treaty on the history of the Journal de Mickey released in 2014, too, but it's not exactly affordable — I only got it as a birthday present.

Nice looking book. Maybe Harry Fluks should make a book out of his "History of Donald Duck Weekblad".

But, don't you mean "treatise"? A "treaty" is an agreement between two nations (usually ending a war, or allying the nations in an alliance against another group of nations).

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jun 22, 2017 9:12:37 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jun 22, 2017 8:35:20 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Picsou Wiki's always a good place to visit, though it may not have that much. We Frenchmen had a massive treaty on the history of the Journal de Mickey released in 2014, too, but it's not exactly affordable — I only got it as a birthday present.

Nice looking book.  But, don't you mean "treatise"?  A "treaty" is an agreement between two nations (usually ending a war, or allying the nations in an alliance against another group of nations).

That is correct. Stupid typo.

[Zantaf]

I highly recommend Alberto Becattini's "Disney Comics: The Whole Story". It has a lot of information about all the publishers from all over the world.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Jun 22, 2017 7:25:15 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jun 22, 2017 5:28:31 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

We at Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Sanoma - not to be confused with Finnish Sanoma) also produce some of the 10-16 page stories, and even a few long epic stories.  And Dutch Disney has always exported books to Belgium (Flemish areas), The Netherlands Antilles, South Africa and Surinaam.
Italy, Greece, France, Brasil/Portugal, The Netherlands/Belgium/South Africa are the main areas not directly served by an Egmont-affiliated local national publisher, as they traditionally had their own production (except for Greece, supplied almost exclusively from Italy, and Portugal from Brasil). 

Just like Egmont contracting a large % of their artwork to Spanish Studio artists, Dutch Disney does the same, using Spanish Comic-Up studio artists.  But, we also have several Dutch artists working as well.  Most of the writers are Dutch.  Egmont has writers mostly from The UK, USA, and Scandinavia and Finland.  They have several Danish writers (including Gorm Transgaard, Lars Jensen, and several that also work in their editorial offices).  There used to be a larger Danish writing group, from about 1989-1995. 

Thanks for this clarification. I never realized that there was a Finnish Sanoma! I thought Egmont was the licensed publisher for Finland, too!
But Kari Korhonen works for Egmont, doesn't he? so, is this Finnish Sanoma also producing stories or just publishing the comics journals?

[Huwey]

Jun 22, 2017 12:30:29 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Jun 22, 2017 7:25:15 GMT RobbK1 said:

We at Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Sanoma - not to be confused with Finnish Sanoma) also produce some of the 10-16 page stories, and even a few long epic stories.  And Dutch Disney has always exported books to Belgium (Flemish areas), The Netherlands Antilles, South Africa and Surinaam.
Italy, Greece, France, Brasil/Portugal, The Netherlands/Belgium/South Africa are the main areas not directly served by an Egmont-affiliated local national publisher, as they traditionally had their own production (except for Greece, supplied almost exclusively from Italy, and Portugal from Brasil). 

Just like Egmont contracting a large % of their artwork to Spanish Studio artists, Dutch Disney does the same, using Spanish Comic-Up studio artists.  But, we also have several Dutch artists working as well.  Most of the writers are Dutch.  Egmont has writers mostly from The UK, USA, and Scandinavia and Finland.  They have several Danish writers (including Gorm Transgaard, Lars Jensen, and several that also work in their editorial offices).  There used to be a larger Danish writing group, from about 1989-1995. 

Thanks for this clarification. I never realized that there was a Finnish Sanoma! I thought Egmont was the licensed publisher for Finland, too!
But Kari Korhonen works for Egmont, doesn't he? so, is this Finnish Sanoma also producing stories or just publishing the comics journals?

As far as I know, just Netherland Sanoma is producing, though there are some co-productions with the code D/SAN, in which Egmont artists and Sanoma artists are working together (there was also D/I, but that's another story).

[RobbK1]

Jun 22, 2017 12:30:29 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Jun 22, 2017 7:25:15 GMT RobbK1 said:

We at Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Sanoma - not to be confused with Finnish Sanoma) also produce some of the 10-16 page stories, and even a few long epic stories.  And Dutch Disney has always exported books to Belgium (Flemish areas), The Netherlands Antilles, South Africa and Surinaam.
Italy, Greece, France, Brasil/Portugal, The Netherlands/Belgium/South Africa are the main areas not directly served by an Egmont-affiliated local national publisher, as they traditionally had their own production (except for Greece, supplied almost exclusively from Italy, and Portugal from Brasil). 

Just like Egmont contracting a large % of their artwork to Spanish Studio artists, Dutch Disney does the same, using Spanish Comic-Up studio artists.  But, we also have several Dutch artists working as well.  Most of the writers are Dutch.  Egmont has writers mostly from The UK, USA, and Scandinavia and Finland.  They have several Danish writers (including Gorm Transgaard, Lars Jensen, and several that also work in their editorial offices).  There used to be a larger Danish writing group, from about 1989-1995. 

Thanks for this clarification. I never realized that there was a Finnish Sanoma! I thought Egmont was the licensed publisher for Finland, too!
But Kari Korhonen works for Egmont, doesn't he? so, is this Finnish Sanoma also producing stories or just publishing the comics journals?

I don't think that Finnish Sanoma has its own production, other than some magazine covers and advertising.  I believe they get all their stories from Egmont and Dutch Sanoma.  Kari Korhonan works mainly for Egmont, other than possibly a few special covers and perhaps special non-comics drawings made only for Finnish Sanoma.  Perhaps one of our Finnish members can elaborate on that.

[RobbK1]

Jun 22, 2017 5:28:31 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

As concerns the history of these two editors, I guess there must be much material on Egmont in Danish, but I do not think in English. Anyhow others here are qualified to help you on this, and I am sure they will. As regards Sanoma, there is at least this blog telling (even in English) the history of Donald Duck in the Netherlands: dd50.inducks.org/xindexeng.html


Maybe I am going to write things that you already know, anyhow here is something about the difference between Sanoma and Egmont.

Sanoma is a (little?) Dutch editor.
It produces some of the brief stories appearing on the weekly Dutch Donald Duck (the others are imported from Denmark).
If I am not mistaken, Sanoma has the right to distribute Disney comics only in the Netherlands. [CORRECTION: as RobbK pointed out below, also in other places where Flemish is spoken.]
Its few writers and artists are mostly Dutch persons. [CORRECTION: as RobbK pointed out below, actually most artists are from the Spanish Comic Up studio.]

Egmont is a giant Danish editor.
Actually it does not produce so much more original material than the Dutch. But it exports that material much more.
More importantly, Egmont has the (exclusive) license to sell Disney comics in all country in North Europe and some in Central Europe (Germany for instance) and even China! In the end only the Americas, France and the mediterranean countries are out of Egmont's "jurisdiction" (and in fact these are the places importing more Italian Disney comics, which I remind you are nowadays some 75-80% of the production all over the world).
Finally, from the point of view of the creators, Egmont is some kind of "rest of the world" team, since its writers and artists are rarely Danish, but rather north and south Americans, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, English, German people.

Dutch magazines are exported to all places where either Dutch, Flemish or Afrikaans is spoken by decent numbers of people (e.g. The Flemish half of Belgium, South Africa and most of the former Dutch colonies except for those in Southeast Asia, and the long-gone colonies like Nieuw Netherland (New York/New Jersey), The Atlantic Coast of Brasil, Dutch India/Ceylon, and New Zealand/Oceania).

Oberon had previously had a contract requiring them to self-produce 55% of their printed comics pages.  I don't know what Sanoma's current own production requirement is.  But it is not accurate to state that MOST Sanoma artists (or even art pages produced) are from Comic_Up Studios in Spain.  I would guess that the split between the 2 sources is rather much closer to an even split than what "most" implies.  Sanoma has MANY Dutch artists, including Mau and Bas Heymans, Ben Verhagen, Sander Gulien, Wilma van den Bosch, Michel Nadorp, Victor Venema, Daan Jippes still draws a few special covers, Tim Artz, Henrieke Goorhuis, Gerben Valkema, Jan-Roman Pikula, Maarten Janssens, Jaap Stavenuiter, Piet Voordes, and several more.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Ok, I re-edited!

[Matilda]

Jun 22, 2017 10:31:18 GMT Zantaf said:

I highly recommend Alberto Becattini's "Disney Comics: The Whole Story". It has a lot of information about all the publishers from all over the world.

Yup, this is what I was going to say. It's not online, but you need to read it!

[hex]

The best source for the history of Disney comics from Egmont is the book "Egmont & Co" (ISBN 978-8799345205) by Niels Houlberg Hansen. Unfortunately it's only available in Danish, and is sold out/out of print too I think. The book has tons of information not available anywhere else and really should get a translation some day!

I haven’t had the time to read all of "Disney Comics: The Whole Story" (ISBN 978-1683900177) by Alberto Becattini yet. But from what I’ve read so far I too can recommend that book for anyone interested in the history of Disney comics. Some parts of the book are great, but I have to add I was a bit disappointed about some parts too (ex. about British comics that I have a special interest in myself). I felt the text was mostly just a listing of the different publishers and titles, something you get more knowledge about browsing through the inducks database.