I do not think that Faraci is interested in mockering the Erickson/Petrucha/Markenstein/Kinney's red panted Mickey from Denmark. I am sure he does not like it, no way. But knowing him, I do not think that he would mocker it. (I do not know him personally, but he speaks his mind a lot: he uses twitter daily, he has a radio program on comics, he has written a book on his relation with MM, he has given a great ammount of interviews over the dacades...)
According to our Topolino expert, he does it, and quite regularly. In this case it's Goofy telling Mickey how silly he looked in those red shorts. And good on him; anybody who thinks that putting a bodiless alien brain into Mickey's head or thinks it's a good idea to make him suddenly act like a 10-year-old, without any responsibility or sense, after years of being shown as quite clever, should be mocked IMO. (I exclude Byron Erickson from this, because his stories are mostly excellent and he seems to understand Mickey. But then again, he often gets the blame for Mickey's character demise.)
I do not think that Faraci is interested in mockering the Erickson/Petrucha/Markenstein/Kinney's red panted Mickey from Denmark. I am sure he does not like it, no way. But knowing him, I do not think that he would mocker it. (I do not know him personally, but he speaks his mind a lot: he uses twitter daily, he has a radio program on comics, he has written a book on his relation with MM, he has given a great ammount of interviews over the dacades...)
According to our Topolino expert, he does it, and quite regularly.
But what the heck the Egmont production has to do with an inside meta-joke? It is simple: Mickey used to dress in a way that, apparently, is not à la mode anymore in the place were he lives. So it is funny to make jokes about it every time he is confroted with his past. Especially in a celebrative story, 'cause it becomes a sort of meta-joke. But this is not a reference to the Mickey's stories by Egmont. Faraci would have put those jokes there anyway, even if the Danish publisher would have not put the red pants back on Mickey. By the way, he just wrote a story with the red panted Mickey (the so far unpublished anniversary one that I was talking about a few posts above). Faraci does not like northern european Mickey independently of how he is dressed.
By the way, the Mickey that he likes the least is not the Danish one. It is the Italian one from 1965 to 1995, i.e. the annoying infallible deductive detective who solved predictable mysteries without giving not one laugh to the reader. He describes it as "decades of writers who misunderstood who Mickey was". The blueprint of those writers was Martina. (And a few radical Martina fans actually hate Faraci just because of this, even if Faraci was always attentive in never making any name). And those bad detective stories are the ones that he mocked explicitely, in his magazine Ridi Topolino (a spin-off of Topolino magazine with much self-irony directed toward Disney comics themselves). Basically Faraci dislikes almost all the Italians did with Mickey after the golden age of Scarpa and before his generation of writers of the 90's, even if he shows a big admiration for some occasional good writing on Mickey in the 80's or early 90's by De Vita, Cavazzano, Marconi, Mezzavilla.
8.L'Ombra del Drago (1998) Set in Feudal China, with Pete basically being the good guy. Here Faraci goes a bit too far, but well the Medieval setting allows him to go a bit out of character. And the story works, even because Mottura is, you know...Mottura.
Real? Feudal China refers to the period between ~1000B.C. to ~200B.C., did they choose such an ancient time for the story to happen? Or I guess it's more likely to be in an alternative universe. But still it would be much easier to choose Japan, whose society was more close to Medieval western countries in many ways.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 24, 2018 14:20:46 GMT
I just wrote "Feudal China" without giving much thinking to what period is actually defined "Feudal China" by historians. I surely did not mean 200 B.C.! Actually, it looks like a samurai story. But it is set in China. So I guess that you can think it to take place in some moment between 700 and 400 years ago.
According to our Topolino expert, he does it, and quite regularly.
But what the heck the Egmont production has to do with an inside meta-joke? It is simple: Mickey used to dress in a way that, apparently, is not à la mode anymore in the place were he lives. So it is funny to make jokes about it every time he is confroted with his past. Especially in a celebrative story, 'cause it becomes a sort of meta-joke. But this is not a reference to the Mickey's stories by Egmont. Faraci would have put those jokes there anyway, even if the Danish publisher would have not put the red pants back on Mickey. By the way, he just wrote a story with the red panted Mickey (the so far unpublished anniversary one that I was talking about a few posts above). Faraci does not like northern european Mickey independently of how he is dressed.
By the way, the Mickey that he likes the least is not the Danish one. It is the Italian one from 1965 to 1995, i.e. the annoying infallible deductive detective who solved predictable mysteries without giving not one laugh to the reader. He describes it as "decades of writers who misunderstood who Mickey was". The blueprint of those writers was Martina. (And a few radical Martina fans actually hate Faraci just because of this, even if Faraci was always attentive in never making any name). And those bad detective stories are the ones that he mocked explicitely, in his magazine Ridi Topolino (a spin-off of Topolino magazine with much self-irony directed toward Disney comics themselves). Basically Faraci dislikes almost all the Italians did with Mickey after the golden age of Scarpa and before his generation of writers of the 90's, even if he shows a big admiration for some occasional good writing on Mickey in the 80's or early 90's by De Vita, Cavazzano, Marconi, Mezzavilla.
Wow, if that is the case us German Mickey fans should hate Faraci more than Erickson because Erickson only complained about what came in the wake of Murry (which was certainly a far less interesting character than what was showed in pretty much every Italian comic). And I think the general consensus among German fans is that the LTBs had their golden age between the no.s 100 and 230 - which spans the mid-80s to mid-90s, and there were IMO lots of great Italian Mickey stories in that period. In fact, there was a rapid decline of the general LTB quality in the late 90s, though this was connected to the I-Mickey being pushed out by the D-Mickey. What has been published from that period mostly didn't wow me except for some exceptions.
Of course, I like detective stories period. But those Italian stories by Martina et al at least seem interesting to me and have Mickey behaving like a character with some depth. (And it's not just all detective comics; you didn't mention Pezzin for some reason even if people like him, Concina, Sarda, Panaro & many others did great stories which were sometimes set in entirely different genres.)
In the older Danish (detective) comics that just isn't the case. And the less said about the newer ones (which weren't written by Erickson), the better. At least the ones in the pocketbook format are almost all completely horrible, with Mickey constantly behaving more stupidly than Goofy!
And that is why the jokes about the red pants were interpreted like that; Egmont thought it would be suitable for a modern-day Mickey to revert constantly to his red shorts even if all the other characters are dressed properly. The interpretation was that Faraci commented on this unnecessary reversal and the unnecessary dumbing-down of the character in a desperate effort to make him more interesting.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 31, 2018 15:40:15 GMT
I do not know the opinion of Faraci about the old non-detective stories featuring Mickey, like the many by Pezzin from the 80's. I guess that he likes them more than the detective ones. My post above only refers to detective stories, the vast majority. Sorry if ever I was ambiguous on this point. Of course, Faraci is not against Mickey investigating police cases. As we all know, that is the focus of his own material! It's the characterisation of Mickey in too many of those old stories that bothers him. Also, it may seem a bit of a contraddiction, since the "unfunny Italian detecive Mickey" probably has some roots in Murry's stories, but I do remember Faraci espressing some good opinions about Murry's work. Something like "on Mickey the guy was better than what people use to think". (Not his exact words.) As a matter of fact, he likes to use Sgrinfia, the sidekick of Pete invented by Fallberg and Murry, if I am not mistaken. (Don't know his original American name.)
I do not know the opinion of Faraci about the old non-detective stories featuring Mickey, like the many by Pezzin from the 80's. I guess that he likes them more than the detective ones. My post above only refers to detective stories, the vast majority. Sorry if ever I was ambiguous on this point. Of course, Faraci is not against Mickey investigating police cases. As we all know, that is the focus of his own material! It's the characterisation of Mickey in too many of those old stories that bothers him. Also, it may seem a bit of a contraddiction, since the "unfunny Italian detecive Mickey" probably has some roots in Murry's stories, but I do remember Faraci espressing some good opinions about Murry's work. Something like "on Mickey the guy was better than what people use to think". (Not his exact words.) As a matter of fact, he likes to use Sgrinfia, the sidekick of Pete invented by Fallberg and Murry, if I am not mistaken. (Don't know his original American name.)
Scuttle is the guy's American name. That said, I'm not necessarily against Murry either - which is why I said "in the wake of Murry". People like Bancells or Tello basically continued in his style but Mickey was seriously starting to devolve as a character, and many of the detective cases themselves weren't particularly interesting either. This is what Erickson wanted to rectify.
I can't say I remember too many older Italian detective stories in which Mickey's characterization bothered me like that, though. Maybe I've just forgotten them
Pete basically says that Mickey is no good detective anymore and that he was great when he still wore long pants.
But that was a joke added by the German translators (which also accounts for how we in Germany interpreted Faraci's remark about his silly red pants); the original version had a different dialogue.
Since some years now, on the week of Mickey's birthday Topolino publishes an anniversary story. This year the celebrative story was by top writers Artibani and Faraci and artist Mastantuono, namely the same team who gave us The River of Time. Unfortunately, some authority external to the magazine required some very last minute corrections. Basically when the issue was ready to be sent to print. So, they were not able to publish the story. All we are left with is the cover, here below, which they had not the time to change. So this week issue looks from the outside as a Mickey anniversary issue, but inside there is no story featuring the Mouse. Fans look a bit disappointed. Not because of the external request of corrections, which is normal. (Not the editor-in-chief Ms. De Poli, nor Mr. Artibani on fb or Mr. Faraci on twitter specified what kind of authority required that, but we can imagine it could be someone from California.) Rather, the disappointment is because these requests came too late, pushing the magazine to make a bad impression of "unprofessionally" in front of the public, on a week where the attention on them is even higher than usual. Of course these are speculations, so we wait for further explanations, if they will ever come. (The story will be published soon, anyway.)
I resume this OT to say more on this. According to what Artibani has declared on the Italian forum, this story will never be published, nor its authors (Artibani and Faraci) have the intention of ever re-use the plot again. I remind that it was intended as a sequel of The river of time, a story written by Artibani and Faraci and drawn by Mastantuono to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Mickey in 1998. The river of time created a clever and deeply emotional link between the modern Mickey from comics and its animation origin, the Steamboat Willy. This sequel was going to featur Kat Nipp and Butch too.
The river of time is considered by most people as the best story by both Artibani and Faraci to date. (And for many like me one of the best Italian Mickey Mouse Story ever.) It is a pity not to see the sequel, especially if we consider that the story is finished, lettered, colored and all. (Disney used its veto a few hours before the printing machine went on.) I still do not know if the reasons for this veto have been clarified. If someone here has more sure information please share.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Aug 27, 2018 10:20:56 GMT
On the bright side, for this year's anniversary there will be a story by Artibani drawn by Pastrovicchio settled in the 30's, featuring the old Dippy and Donald. Pastrovicchio is not my favorite artist, but he is very good and I am thrilled to see him work on the main characters on vintage style, here is a previews on the art:
The following one is not for the story, but it is still an illustration by Pastrovicchio
So far only Cavazzano was allowed to use them like this in a comics.
I'm still angered that it was broken up and incompletely presented in the European pocketbooks. Thankfully we got the whole saga a few years ago, and it benefited immensely from being printed in one or two pieces. The arc that spans across half of the series is among the best storytelling I've encountered in any Disney comic so far.
There is a new series called "Topolinia 20802" which looks very interesting to me. But I do not speak Italian. Has it ever been published in English, German or French?
There is a new series called "Topolinia 20802" which looks very interesting to me. But I do not speak Italian. Has it ever been published in English, German or French?
English? No. French? Yes. German? Not yet (we've been asking for it ever since the second arc came out, and it's now been promised to be printed in the LTB Premium next year).
There's a review of the first arc here - in German, but you can probably Google Translate your way through it:
Are there any Scrooge stories that is considered to be, like, "defining" of how Scrooge is depicted in Italian comics? Like some story from the 50s or 60s that has had a particular influence?