Thread created as a companion to the Favorite Italian Stories thread. So, what's everyone's favorite stories from Denmark, probably one of the biggest producers of Disney comics overseas?
Are we talking all Egmont (and former Gutenbergus) stories? All D-coded stories? If so, I have too many favorites to winnow down to a short list. There's all of Rosa's Egmont stories, and many Korhonen stories (it's hard for me even to choose my top five Korhonen stories!) and Rota stories.
The only way I can make a readable list is to identify my favorite story featuring each of various characters.
So here are my favorite other-than-Rosa Egmont stories featuring the following characters:
Donald: The Nightmare Ship (Rota) Scrooge: The Golden Throne Legend (Rota)--The Money Ocean isn't a D-coded story! Daisy: Himalayan Hideout (Hansegård/Rodrigues) Grandma Duck: Bananas (Halas & Angus/Branca) HDL (three characters, I get to name three stories): Sons of the Moon (Korhonen), And Then There Were Two (Korhonen), The Green Attack (Wejp-Olsen & Kenner/Branca) AMJ: The Substitutes (Hedman/Ferioli) Gyro: Mr. Gearloose Leaves Town (Korhonen/Marsal) Helper: Little Helper Lost (McGreals/Rota) Beagle Boys: The Tomb Raiders (McGreals/Ferraris) Gladstone: Party of One! (Michael T. Gilbert/Vicar) Goldie: Pipe Dreams (Claxton & Anderson/Vicar) Miss Quackfaster: All in a Daze Work (Jensen/Ferioli) Neighbor Jones: Stampede and Deliver! (Lustig/William Van Horn) Belle Duck: Belle, Book and Bungle (Jensen/Noel Van Horn) Mim: Madam Mim Moves (Dester/Gil-Bao) I can't pick a favorite Egmont non-Rosa Magica story. Maybe I could pick a top ten....two Korhonen, two Solstrand, etc.
And here are my favorite other-than-Rosa Egmont stories for special days:
New Year's: A New Year, A New Donald (Martin/Vicar) Easter: Hot-Choc Donald (Per Hedman/Vicar) back-to-school: The Secret of Goblin Valley (McGreals/Vicar) Halloween: All Tricks and No Treats (Janet Gilbert/Vicar) Christmas: The Orphan's Christmas aka The Substitute Santa... (Nærum & Løkling/Midthun)
Are we talking all Egmont (and former Gutenbergus) stories? All D-coded stories? If so, I have too many favorites to winnow down to a short list. There's all of Rosa's Egmont stories, and many Korhonen stories (it's hard for me even to choose my top five Korhonen stories!) and Rota stories.
The only way I can make a readable list is to identify my favorite story featuring each of various characters.
So here are my favorite other-than-Rosa Egmont stories featuring the following characters:
Donald: The Nightmare Ship (Rota) Scrooge: The Golden Throne Legend (Rota)--The Money Ocean isn't a D-coded story! Daisy: Himalayan Hideout (Hansegård/Rodrigues) Grandma Duck: Bananas (Halas & Angus/Branca) HDL (three characters, I get to name three stories): Sons of the Moon (Korhonen), And Then There Were Two (Korhonen), The Green Attack (Wejp-Olsen & Kenner/Branca) AMJ: The Substitutes (Hedman/Ferioli) Helper: Little Helper Lost (McGreals/Rota) Beagle Boys: The Tomb Raiders (McGreals/Ferraris) Gladstone: Party of One! (Michael T. Gilbert/Vicar) Goldie: Pipe Dreams (Claxton & Anderson/Vicar) Miss Quackfaster: All in a Daze Work (Jensen/Ferioli) Neighbor Jones: Stampede and Deliver! (Lustig/William Van Horn) Belle Duck: Belle, Book and Bungle (Jensen/Noel Van Horn) Mim: Madam Mim Moves (Dester/Gil-Bao) I can't pick a favorite Egmont non-Rosa Magica story. Maybe I could pick a top ten....two Korhonen, two Solstrand, etc.
And here are my favorite other-than-Rosa Egmont stories for special days:
New Year's: A New Year, A New Donald (Martin/Vicar) Easter: Hot-Choc Donald (Per Hedman/Vicar) back-to-school: The Secret of Goblin Valley (McGreals/Vicar) Halloween: All Tricks and No Treats (Janet Gilbert/Vicar) Christmas: The Orphan's Christmas aka The Substitute Santa... (Nærum & Løkling/Midthun)
So here are my favorite other-than-Rosa Egmont stories featuring the following characters:
Funny the idea of giving one story for each protagonist! By the way, no option for Mickey, Goofy and Horace? I find the Egmont touch on the miceverse a bit 'involuted', in that it puts on stage a Mickey that seems not even aware of the developments of the character done by Gottfredson in the early forties (not to mention the following evolution under Walsh, Scarpa, De Vita, Marconi, Faraci, Casty...). Nevertheless I would love to read good 10-pagers featuring Mickey and his gang, no matter how silly, as long as they are really funny. But so far I had not much success in my research. I read a few stories by Petrucha, Markenstein, (Sarah) Kinney, Van Horn (jr). But never find something worthy for my taste. To be fair, I should mention that I have read these authors in French or Italian, and in particular the Italian versions came from the magazine Mega, hence the dialogues were probably more or less changed...I am open to suggestions! [fun fact: last year an old Petrucha/Ferioli story for an anniversary of Mickey was published in Topolino. Many users of the papersera forum lamented how silly the story was. But then a user, who owned that story in the original US edition, posted some panels to show how the Italian translator had banalized some dialogues, and those same users admitted that the story would have been much more enjoyable with the original meaning respected!]
Donald: The Nightmare Ship (Rota)
The first time I read it I said: "Here we are! Usual late Rota: just a silly plot allowing him to draw a scary and confused Donald waving his head to the right and to the left!". Since, let us be clear, that is most often the essence of Rota's stories featuring Donald as a protagonist! But at a second slower reading I realized that this story really has a bit of magic, beside the cool final twist. In the end I like it. Other D-coded stories by Rota that I find readable (attention, I never read any of those from the 80's!): Scrooge: the Big Flying Model (co-written with Halas, and this surprises me, since Halas is one of the worst writer of Disney comics that I have experienced!) Andold Wild Duck: The Magic Rune (the best together with the first two Andold stories, which are I-coded) Donald: The Duckburg Air Cup Scrooge: What Goes Around (written by Lars Jensen, a writer that so far I have disliked, but to be fair I only read a fistful of his stories, probably not his best...and in any case I never read any of his Fethry stories!)
Scrooge: The Golden Throne Legend (Rota)
For those who are interested, this story is reprint in the current issue of Picsou magazine (july-august 2017), still available I guess. In the end I did not buy it, for this one was the only story that maybe could interest me in the whole issue. Is this story really worthy 4 euros, Matilda?
HDL (three characters, I get to name three stories): Sons of the Moon (Korhonen), And Then There Were Two (Korhonen) Helper: Little Helper Lost (McGreals/Rota) Neighbor Jones: Stampede and Deliver! (Lustig/William Van Horn) Christmas: The Orphan's Christmas aka The Substitute Santa... (Nærum & Løkling/Midthun)
These are definitely some stories that I would like to read one day!
These 7 are definitely among my top 10 non-Rosa comics produced by Egmont, but I can't think of 3 others right now.
@monkey_Feyerabend I'm really hoping that now that both the Gottfredson and the Rosa Libraries are nearly finished, Fantagraphics will do a William Van Horn Library next!
Favourite Non-Rosa comics produced by Egmont (in no order):
Wonderwool by Paul Halas & Marco Rota (pretty much the only Duck comic that takes place in my home country)
I liked Wonderwool--read it in French, where the country is the imaginary Maghyrbizya. What is your home country, and in what translation does this story take place there? Or is your country not named, but you figure the imaginary country has to be a stand-in for it?
The Ducks journey there by train from Duckburg, so this may be another case like Cimino's "Perfect Calm" where Duckburg is apparently on the Eurasian continent.
Also, Korhonen's "What about 65?" is one of his that so far I haven't been able to find in a language I can read. I hope to read it one day! I was happy to see that this month's IDW Donald & Mickey includes Korhonen's "Hot Sauce", so I'll get to read that this week. I couldn't think of a Gyro story that I liked enough for my list above, and then just after I posted it I read Korhonen's "Mr. Gearloose Leaves Town"--not one of the greatest stories ever, but it does a very nice job of filling out Gyro's character: his attitude towards Scrooge's mistreatment, his affection for Duckburg, his tendency to overwork.... During the story he realizes that he hasn't gone fishing with Donald recently because he's been working all the time, and in the final panel he's heading off with Donald to fish. This does help set up for me the friendship between the two of them that is evident in Korhonen's "Another One for the Album".
Monkey_Feyerabend: I only really care about the Ducks, though I do certainly enjoy a Mouse story now and then, particularly Casty's Eurasia Toft and Estrella Marina stories. Among the Egmont Mouse stories I've read, my favorites are certainly Don Markstein's. I particularly love the two Bungaloos stories, "King of the Bungaloos" (Horace) and "King of the Bungaloos Strikes Back" (Mickey)--probably that has something to do with my being a scholar of ritual. Markstein's "The Joking Champ" I also love--can't say which character comes off best in it, that would be a spoiler!
Another D-coded story which does a good job conveying Horace's personality is Sarah Kinney's "Whale Watch Blues".
If I had to pick a favorite Goofy Egmont story, it would be "A Worthless Trinket" by Paul Halas/Noel Van Horn. Mickey, Minnie, Horace and Clarabelle get more "panel-time," but Goofy gets a great last panel in that one. But nothing from Egmont comes close to the Goofy of "Pippo e la banda tris"....
I'm from Hungary and it takes place in Hungary in the German translation, but I'm 100% it's Hungary in the original script as well. The story was written by Paul Halas who has Hungarian heritage. Funnily enough, the Ducks do travel to an imaginary country in the Hungarian translation, just like in the French one. Maybe the Hungarian translators didn't want to confuse Hungarian kids who imagine the Ducks live in Hungary?