The January - April 2022 Fantagraphics books listings have appeared on Amazon, but only a single Disney book is among them, the Casty volume of Disney Masters.
I'm not sure this had been said before but the title story is Casty's first Atomo epic, which is one of his most highly rated stories. I knew this story would be it ever since Joe dropped a few comments about the length...
The title story is great, but as it happens, I already have it in both German and Norwegian. Damn! Oh well, it's nice that U.S. readers will get it too.
But I'm surprised that the second Mickey story included is "The World to Come". This one has already been released in the States both as single comic book issues and a tradepaperback, so from that perspective, I would have preferred a new-to-the-US tale. On the other hand, it IS a high point in Casty's production, and the Disney Masters presentation will no doubt be better than the earlier editions. (I wonder if they'll still present Professor Gutenabend - his name in the Norwegian edition, and maybe also the original Italian - as Doc Static in the translation.)
I hope the cover gets changed. There are several good illustrations by Casty
And good point on Doc Static. What a mess.
The Scrooge/Beagle Boys story is pleasant but not earth-shattering. I really enjoyed some of the more bizarre ideas in it, and to me Casty seemed to channel early/mid Barks to a degree.
I hope the cover gets changed. There are several good illustrations by Casty
(...)
And good point on Doc Static. What a mess.
The Scrooge/Beagle Boys story is pleasant but not earth-shattering. I really enjoyed some of the more bizarre ideas in it, and to me Casty seemed to channel early/mid Barks to a degree.
Deciding to turn Professor Gutenabend into Doc Static is... kind of interesting, considering how similar the two characters are design-wise. But I remember wondering why Doc Static had apparently aged 20-30 years compared with his usual portrayals in the Mickey Mouse Egmont comics... and then going "Ohhhhhh..." when I later found out it wasn't really Doc Static.
The preview cover on Amazon arguably has more of a mystery feel, which can be nice in its own way. It doesn't reveal anything of the world Mickey and Atomo is about to enter. On the other hand, the cover illustrations by Casty look much more dramatic. I love the one with Mickey and Atomo flying over the shadow men.
Anyway... it's a fair bet that the cover WILL get changed in some way or other, especially since it currently says "Paul Murry".
I hope the cover gets changed. There are several good illustrations by Casty
(...)
And good point on Doc Static. What a mess.
The Scrooge/Beagle Boys story is pleasant but not earth-shattering. I really enjoyed some of the more bizarre ideas in it, and to me Casty seemed to channel early/mid Barks to a degree.
Deciding to turn Professor Gutenabend into Doc Static is... kind of interesting, considering how similar the two characters are design-wise. But I remember wondering why Doc Static had apparently aged 20-30 years compared with his usual portrayals in the Mickey Mouse Egmont comics... and then going "Ohhhhhh..." when I later found out it wasn't really Doc Static.
The preview cover on Amazon arguably has more of a mystery feel, which can be nice in its own way. It doesn't reveal anything of the world Mickey and Atomo is about to enter. On the other hand, the cover illustrations by Casty look much more dramatic. I love the one with Mickey and Atomo flying over the shadow men.
Anyway... it's a fair bet that the cover WILL get changed in some way or other, especially since it currently says "Paul Murry".
Casty is Paul Murry in disguise. He is just that good.
I hope the cover gets changed. There are several good illustrations by Casty
(...)
And good point on Doc Static. What a mess.
The Scrooge/Beagle Boys story is pleasant but not earth-shattering. I really enjoyed some of the more bizarre ideas in it, and to me Casty seemed to channel early/mid Barks to a degree.
Deciding to turn Professor Gutenabend into Doc Static is... kind of interesting, considering how similar the two characters are design-wise. But I remember wondering why Doc Static had apparently aged 20-30 years compared with his usual portrayals in the Mickey Mouse Egmont comics... and then going "Ohhhhhh..." when I later found out it wasn't really Doc Static.
The preview cover on Amazon arguably has more of a mystery feel, which can be nice in its own way. It doesn't reveal anything of the world Mickey and Atomo is about to enter. On the other hand, the cover illustrations by Casty look much more dramatic. I love the one with Mickey and Atomo flying over the shadow men.
Anyway... it's a fair bet that the cover WILL get changed in some way or other, especially since it currently says "Paul Murry".
Fanta could also simply take Mickey and Atomo from one of the covers I posted and put them onto an otherwise black background, I wouldn't mind. It would just be a shame to let Casty's cover art go to waste for a much simpler comic panel drawing. (We did get something similar in Germany recently with "Donald Quest" - instead of using one of the many covers, the book simply got the first page of the first chapter. But in that case, it did look much like a cover anyway so it wasn't as noticeable.)
I don't know that the worst of the Italian over-the-top art has been included in IDW comics...and there's always the issue Spectrus raises, that it was drawn to be printed in three-tier pocketbooks. But I have to say I prefer Strobl to the most florid Italian style, which is off-putting to my American-trained eyes. I can love Cavazzano or Casty or Ziche, but overall the common art style of Italian pocketbooks is unattractive and alien to me. The Ducks don't look like the Ducks I love, and the backgrounds are fussy, stuffed with curvy profusion. The page has no room to breathe. The Dutch and Egmont art looks more "right" to me.
There are stories where I really like Strobl's art. For instance, in the 1965 Lockman/Strobl story Birthday Blues, Strobl has some delightful panels of the anthropomorphic-cats-coded "Arab", especially one memorable panel of the acrobats performing. Say what you will about 1960's Strobl, in that story it is clear that he was not just "phoning it in."
Joe Torcivia is someone who will defend Strobl's art, I believe--you could check out his blog for references to Strobl. That will give you some images for his non-Disney comics art, as well.
I was reluctant to respond to this question because I don't feel it really belongs on the Fantagraphics thread--perhaps you should have started a new thread on Strobl's art. Perhaps these posts could still be moved to such a new thread.
Yeah exactly, really hope to one day read the Andold Wild Duck stories. That one story in WDCS left me wanting for more hahah. Fantagraphics is going to publish the Dragonlords saga as a standalone book, so I hope that that is successful and it leads to us getting the Andold stuff as well.
>In the spring we'll have a Casty volume, then another Kinney and Hubbard (technically Vol 2 of 4).
And as stated we are getting a new Kinney Hubbard volume as well, very excited for that. Loved the first volume.
Very much looking forward to the Casty volume and a Kinney and Hubbard volume. One suggestion for a future volume:
Ben Verhagen! Over the past few weeks I’ve been re-rereading Gladstone series 1 and noticed how zany and interesting his stories are like Voyage to Moonbase One and Curse of the Lost Empress. Also, his collaborations with Jan Kruse are fantastic. They would be perfect for the Masters
Very much looking forward to the Casty volume and a Kinney and Hubbard volume. One suggestion for a future volume:
Ben Verhagen! Over the past few weeks I’ve been re-rereading Gladstone series 1 and noticed how zany and interesting his stories are like Voyage to Moonbase One and Curse of the Lost Empress. Also, his collaborations with Jan Kruse are fantastic. They would be perfect for the Masters
I second this! Ben Verhagen is definitely one of the more under-appreciated Disney comic book artists. During the Gladstone run, the stories by Jippes, Milton, Verhagen and another under appreciated artist Volker Reiche were the stories I looked forward to seeing the most (well, other than Van Horn, Rosa, Gottfredson and Barks).
Very much looking forward to the Casty volume and a Kinney and Hubbard volume. One suggestion for a future volume:
Ben Verhagen! Over the past few weeks I’ve been re-rereading Gladstone series 1 and noticed how zany and interesting his stories are like Voyage to Moonbase One and Curse of the Lost Empress. Also, his collaborations with Jan Kruse are fantastic. They would be perfect for the Masters
I second this! Ben Verhagen is definitely one of the more under-appreciated Disney comic book artists. During the Gladstone run, the stories by Jippes, Milton, Verhagen and another under appreciated artist Volker Reiche were the stories I looked forward to seeing the most (well, other than Van Horn, Rosa, Gottfredson and Barks).
I third this! I’ve said elsewhere that the first story by someone other than Barks or Rosa which I decided to save for a lifetime was the Geradts/Verhagen Last Voyage of Ringtail van Dukke. I’d love to have that in a Disney Masters Verhagen volume…especially since the comic has the flimsy “self-cover.” Also, the English dialoguing on that one was really well done, and deserves a better presentation!
Got Ice Sword Saga volume 2 today, looking forward to digging into it.
I loved it of course. De Vita was such a great discovery for me; I had at least some familiarity with most of the other Disney Masters featured, but I don't believe I'd ever encountered his work before. Gorgeous and imaginative, just terrific stuff.
I've been singing De Vita's praises for a long time. His artwork, while clearly not breaking too far from the mold of Scarpa and Cavazzano, is somehow "dirtier" and darker, which I see as a direct echo of Gottfredson's work. For characters like Duck Avenger and Arizona Goof, he's really been the defining artist even if he didn't draw their respective introductions. Then, he also created Professor Zapotek and did some of the best stories featuring him.
Another sci-fi story that ranks very highly on my list and absolutely deserves a US printing is this one: inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+1959-A Mickey gets inadvertently transported to a dystopian future Mouseton now ruled by Pete! It contains one of the most touching scenes I've ever seen in a Disney comic.
After the turn of the millennium, De Vita collaborated with Casty several times, and this one will probably always be my favourite. IDW actually printed one of their collabs, "The Magnificent Doublejoke".
Ater the turn of the millennium, De Vita collaborated with Casty several times, and this one will probably always be my favourite. IDW actually printed one of their collabs, "The Magnificent Doublejoke".
You know, I read Doublejoke and didn't make the connection that it was the same guy. I'm gonna give that one a reread, thanks!
This reminds me of the cover illustration on the “Blot’s Double Mystery” Scarpa book…it’s good, but doesn’t look like Scarpa at all. Before I knew how appealing Scarpa actually drew, and how his actual style differed so much from that front cover, I actually didn’t want to buy the book because the cover turned me off so much.
You were that turned off by a cover from Cavazzano, another of the greats?
That's your right, of course, but I have to admit I liked it more than that! (In fact, since Scarpa himself had never drawn a cover for "The Blot's Double Mystery," I'd been waiting for years to use Cavazzano's cover on a new edition of the story...)
There's a long tradition—going back to the Gladstone Comic Albums—where collected editions that principally showcase one artist employ cover art by another... *when* an appropriate cover drawing by the featured artist can't quickly be found. How did readers in 1989 feel about all-Barks collections with a Rosa or Jippes cover? How did Italian readers feel about two collections of Cavazzano's Dragonlords with covers by Marco Gervasio and Andrea Freccero? (Or, for that matter, a collection of Bottaro's Rebo with a Gervasio cover, which we also used on our first Rebo book here?)
I don't recall it ever being a problem (as long as the substitute cover artist is good!); and to be fair, that's the tradition I grew up in.
My Fanta team and I put a Brazilian cover on this new Murry volume, and a Rota cover on the Kinney/Hubbard book, only after being unsatisfied with our first efforts to make covers using clip art from the included stories.
To be fair, neither of these covers are final—they're just early preliminaries, because Amazon needed some—so things could still change.
But I should note, too, that the level of frustration I'm seeing in this thread seems unprecedented, given that we're discussing a tradition that publishers have engaged in for decades...
Yeah, I guess it's just a personal thing. Like I said, the Blot cover is good, but I (personally) would have prefered Scarpa clip art. Not to say that you shouldn't have put the Cavazzano cover on there, especially since it looks like I'm speaking on behalf of a minority here. I also don't like Don Rosa's style, so to each his own, I guess.
I like the Jippes covers especially because they feel like Barks covers if Barks had drawn it himself. That's, again, personal taste though - my heart will always belong to Barks, and I've only read the work of 3 or 4 non-Barks Disney artists and writers (Gottfredson, Scarpa, a bit of Casty, and some of Van Horn's adventures), so it's not like I'm immensly familiar with Cavazzano in the first place.
And I agree with That Duckfan. I wasn't frustrated - there are better things in life to be angry about than Disney comics. Though, to be fair, it's hard to read tone through an online message...
I will emphasize, though, that no matter what the cover looks like, I will continue to buy any and all Disney comic-related Fantagraphics books that get released to the public. It'd be silly to cancel my pre-orders over a cover that I'm not particularly fond of.
Last Edit: Nov 10, 2021 15:45:15 GMT by tashlinfan44