Nobody'll bat an eye over the Freccero cover on the De Vita volume. The Gervasio cover on the Bottaro volume, I'm less of a fan. Rota on Hubbard? That's a quantum leap if you ask me.
Actually, I disagree. I find the Freccero and Ghiglione covers far more bizarre since De Vita drew several good covers for the Ice Sword stories over the years. I was very glad when the German hardcover edition swapped out the Freccero pic (seen in previews) for the original "Spada del Ghiacco Trilogia" artwork by De Vita, which suited the volume much more.
And although this is just a re-inked and recolored version of the opening panel, it would've made a good cover too:
For "Duck Avenger Strikes Again", this Greek cover would've worked well (although it's recycled from story art):
For The Blot's Double Mystery though, I wouldn't be able to come up with too many great ideas either. This has no Blot, this only has the Blot. This is good, but by Cavazzano too. Here is a sketch by Scarpa that somebody (say, Casty) could really turn into a full-fledged cover, but pistol?
Of course, Fantagraphics should have used this Kari Korhonen picture. That would've been an instant success
The Casty book was delayed a bit by printing issues, ultimately related to Covid supply-chain problems. I believe Kinney will be delayed a bit as well. (But please know they're still on the schedule, and looking beautiful...)
The Casty book was delayed a bit by printing issues, ultimately related to Covid supply-chain problems. I believe Kinney will be delayed a bit as well. (But please know they're still on the schedule, and looking beautiful...)
Awesome! I admire all the hard work you guys put into these. Can’t wait to get ahold of my copies!
The Casty book was delayed a bit by printing issues, ultimately related to Covid supply-chain problems. I believe Kinney will be delayed a bit as well. (But please know they're still on the schedule, and looking beautiful...)
Disappointing news, indeed, but real world issues sadly exist.
I can't wait for the volume. It will be magnificent.
Appreciate all the hard work! The Disney Masters collection is hard on the bookshelves but good for the soul.
Last Edit: Jan 27, 2022 19:42:23 GMT by mousemaestro
Has anyone else read the new Casty volume yet? “Trapped in the Shadow Dimension” has to be one of the best Mickey Mouse volumes yet. I highly recommend that one.
Has anyone else read the new Casty volume yet? “Trapped in the Shadow Dimension” has to be one of the best Mickey Mouse volumes yet. I highly recommend that one.
I have read almost all the stories, so I feel I can vouch for their quality without having the book yet. The Mickey stories are great, and David Gerstein's recent comment about the Casty volume in The Disney Comics Fan Group on Facebook makes me seriously consider buying it, despite having read most of the contents:
The book's main backup story, "The World to Come," was originally Casty's first publication here, serialized in several 2010 issues of WDCS. But the translation—by Francesco Spreafico, Jonathan H. Gray and myself, approved by Casty—was heavily altered by Boom upper management at the last minute, sometimes in ways that distorted it.
This new edition uses our original translation as written, restoring our intent.
(It also adds a few revisions from Casty, so that Dr. Gunther Gutenabend is no longer Americanized as the more traditional inventor character Doc Static; we all thought that was a good idea in 2010, but Casty today prefers that he be a separate character.)
Our front cover is made of "Shadow Dimension" panel art, but from a panel that Casty had proposed basing a cover on. Disney Italy had never done this, but Casty still had a color guide left over from the proposal, and we used it, in part, to recolor the art for our cover.
For "The World to Come," all four of Casty's WDCS wraparound covers are included, albeit as slightly smaller illustrations.
Has anyone else read the new Casty volume yet? “Trapped in the Shadow Dimension” has to be one of the best Mickey Mouse volumes yet. I highly recommend that one.
I have! Fun as ever, both in terms of Casty's output and of Disney Masters's. Mind, Shadow Dimension itself isn't my favourite Casty (I'd read it before in French) — I felt like its picture of the titular shadow-world and its Phantom-Blot-lookalikes never builds up to the epic oomph that it wants to have, and which Casty has shown himself well capable of reaching on other occasions — including the covers for this very story! But there's still plenty to like (such as Pete's delightfully loopy charade). And The World to Come was always excellent.
The inclusion of Triple-Dimensional Beagle Boy was a surprise (Ducks? in my Mouse book? more likely than you'd think!), but, as the meme goes, a welcome one.
For me the "problem" of the Shadow Dimension is that it paraphrases from Scarpa's stories so heavily that it comes off, at times, as more of a homage than a story in its own right. Although the second half is more typically Casty (with quite a similar story arc to "Quandomai Island").
Dear Mr. Gerstein- are you intentionally avoiding publishing things that were in the Timeless Tales collection? I want to know especially for some of the Casty stories because I’d prefer to get them as part of the Disney Masters series rather than lay out treasure for the IDW books. Also, publish whatever you have to in order to keep the series profitable and alive. I’ll keep buying even if it’s another Murry with the assumption that the series will continue to expand and diversify.
I read through this thread to see a neat cut-through of the series so far and what the plan is to release from various artists. While I collected the Gottfredson and Rosa libraries (and Taliaferro ones from IDW) I didn't have an interest in this series at first. Living in the Nordics and in the digital age I don't exactly have a drought of the most famous classic stories, which seemed like what this series was going to do at first. Best-of stories from the best artists. My interests are more toward getting definite collections, preferably in chronological order with historical information about the artists and the stories. The Gottfredson and Rosa libraries are gold standards here, they are absolutely suberb. But I understand that the market is not large enough to do that for most artists.
Apparently some sub-series in Disney Masters are doing the chronological collecting. If I gathered the information correctly, they go like this: - Paul Murry ones collect the Mickey serials (and one book collected the Phantom Blot comic book), with about half of them to go now? - Al Hubbard ones collect the first Fethry stories in order (with four books planned to get them all) - Van Horn ones collect his whole output (in about 8-9 books?) - Jippes & Milton one collected their collaborations into one book
I'm actually surprised that Van Horn's output wasn't that large comparatively, since when I was a kid he seemed to have stories out much more frequently than e.g. Rosa.
Then there's the Italian volumes which, excluding the Ice Sword Saga, comprise completely of anthologies. Even though I personally have little interest in them since the stories are already familiar to me, I'm glad that these stories get nice hardcover printings. Especially Casty, who I think has the most consistently great stories out of all the featured artists. Here I know that all of them, Scarpa, De Vita, Carpi, Cavazzano and also Casty by now, have so large outputs that getting anywhere close to a definite collection of their stories is impossible in the English market. As far as I know, only Scarpa got a collection even in Italy and that one was 50 books long. And these artists have mostly a very varying quality in their stories so I don't think I would be interesting in buying these hypothetical behemoth collections even if they were made. Except Casty, that one would be a dream. Or if we are dreaming I'd gladly take a curated best-of series including the historically important stories in chronological order from any of the most productive artists.
So what I want to say here to the editors is that continue the great work you are doing, and I'm thinking of helping get the chronological collections to their destination by getting them now that I have a better idea of what the subseries are going for. And maybe get the Les Mis/War and Peace one too, that one looks sweet.
Yes, I understand that my reasoning means that I'd rather buy the current Paul Murry books than Scarpa ones but the world is funny like that.
i mainly stick to the duck stories because in the past the i have never enjoyed mouse books
Which mouse creators have you read in the past? Have you tried any of the classic stories by Floyd Gottfredson from the 1930s? Or any of the Mickey comics by Romano Scarpa or Casty?
i mainly stick to the duck stories because in the past the i have never enjoyed mouse books
Which mouse creators have you read in the past? Have you tried any of the classic stories by Floyd Gottfredson from the 1930s? Or any of the Mickey comics by Romano Scarpa or Casty?
I read the Gladstone comics as a kid, bough the Gottfredson boxsets as they came out and stopped after the third one and read the first scarpa masters book. I didn't know if most people fall in both camps or are one sided ( like me on the ducks books). I am happy for people that read both in the masters but just wish there was a way to get more duck books mainly jippes, van horn and more haymens but i do recognize that's likely just my own preference.