December IDW covers

[Matilda]

If anybody sees the A covers for Christmas Parade 3 or Uncle $crooge 33, both due out next week, online anywhere, please post them here. It would help me know what to order from my comic store. Comiclist still only has the bears cover for CP 3 and the Cavazzano sack-of-stars cover for U$ 33. (By the way, the latter cover really looks great with the green-and-red coloring and the extra shadow stars on the green background! But I can't wait to see the Jonathan Gray cover. Two of Gray's covers are among my personal top ten of the IDW Disney covers so far.)

[thadwell]

Here's the A Cover for the elusive Christmas Parade #3, by Andrea Freccero. I like how our "star", Magica, is part of the festivities.

Attachments:

[hex]

IDW have uploaded previews of Uncle Scrooge #33 and Christmas Parade #3 on issuu. You can see all the cover variants on page two (insde the covers). But it looks like there's an error in the US one, where the A cover shown inside is the same as the RI cover. But you can see the Jonathan Gray one on the front and it looks great!

Uncle Scrooge #33
Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade #3

[Matilda]

Thanks much, folks! Yes, Thad, it's great to see Magica on a Christmas cover. Can't wait to read the story! Hex, someday I'll have to figure out how to find the IDW previews on issuu by myself...

[thadwell]

They usually post them the week of publication here...

issuu.com/idwpublishing

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case for Christmas Parade #3.... Huge bummer this will be out after the holidays...

[Matilda]

Ah well, in my family tradition it's never called late if it's during the twelve days of Christmas.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

In Italy Christmas festivities end on january the 6th, the day of the epiphany! On that day eve a witch called Befana, the equivalent of Santa Claus in the ancient Italian folklore, brings gifts to the good kids (and, theoretically, carbon to the bad ones, but never heard of a kid getting it). Santa Claus became a thing in Italy only a few decades ago. When I was a kid I received exclusively gifts from the Befana, Santa was only a guy on tv. (Altrough my friends already received the visit of Santa, sometimes getting two presents, one from Santa and the other from the Befana.)

You may find references to this folkloristic figure in Italian Christmas Disney stories. Or simply here and there the expression "vecchia Befana" (in the sense of 'old hag').

[thadwell]

Well, we did leave in Granny De Spell's "Buon Natale" banner to give Magica's family more of that "old country" flavor...

[Matilda]

Dec 21, 2017 17:38:41 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

In Italy Christmas festivities end on january the 6th, the day of the epiphany! On that day eve a witch called Befana, the equivalent of Santa Claus in the ancient Italian folklore, brings gifts to the good kids (and, theoretically, carbon to the bad ones, but never heard of a kid getting it). Santa Claus became a thing in Italy only a few decades ago. When I was a kid I received exclusively gifts from the Befana, Santa was only a guy on tv. (Altrough my friends already received the visit of Santa, sometimes getting two presents, one from Santa and the other from the Befana.)

You may find references to this folkloristic figure in Italian Christmas Disney stories. Or simply here and there the expression "vecchia Befana" (in the sense of 'old hag').

Yup, I knew about Befana because I'm sort of a professional ritual-ologist. Interestingly, Joe Torcivia, although Italian by heritage, had never heard of Befana--his ancestors must have come from another part of Italy. (I know Italy only coalesced rather recently, and folk traditions were not unified throughout the country.)

I do have some Disney Befana stuff: the story where Magica is briefly mistaken by the children for Befana ("Amelia fatina per un giorno") and a copy of the Silvia Ziche cartoon where the same thing happens. I'm curious about the story "Topolino e l'anticipo natalizio" which is said to be a "Befana vs. Santa" story--is that worth my buying that issue of Topolino on Italian eBay?

By the way, in the French version of "Amelia fatina per un giorno", the children at first think Magica is (the French version of) Mrs. Claus, which makes Absolutely No Sense, since that character is never depicted as a witchy type riding a broom. Yet another indication that the hardest stories to translate successfully are those with references to culturally specific holiday traditions. Dutch stories where they have to eat oliebollen on New Year's--not to mention all the Sinterklaas stories! European New Year's stories where there is a masquerade party on New Year's Eve....

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Dec 21, 2017 20:38:14 GMT Matilda said:

Dec 21, 2017 17:38:41 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

In Italy Christmas festivities end on january the 6th, the day of the epiphany! On that day eve a witch called Befana, the equivalent of Santa Claus in the ancient Italian folklore, brings gifts to the good kids (and, theoretically, carbon to the bad ones, but never heard of a kid getting it). Santa Claus became a thing in Italy only a few decades ago. When I was a kid I received exclusively gifts from the Befana, Santa was only a guy on tv. (Altrough my friends already received the visit of Santa, sometimes getting two presents, one from Santa and the other from the Befana.)

You may find references to this folkloristic figure in Italian Christmas Disney stories. Or simply here and there the expression "vecchia Befana" (in the sense of 'old hag').

Yup, I knew about Befana because I'm sort of a professional ritual-ologist. Interestingly, Joe Torcivia, although Italian by heritage, had never heard of Befana--his ancestors must have come from another part of Italy. (I know Italy only coalesced rather recently, and folk traditions were not unified throughout the country.)

According to wikipedia the befana* thing was specific of the folklore of Center Italy (Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise) and northern part of Southern Italy (Campania, Puglia). It spread in the rest of the country...after the country was actually created, hence in the second half of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th! But now it is already disappearing, replaced by Santa. Maybe Torcivia family came from northern Italy, and moved to the US before the coming of the Befana tradition.
On this perspective, I never realized that the speed of development and changing of traditions must be affected by the average  speed of transmission of information, which is exploding exponentially in our times. Interesting.

Are you an academic anthropologist Matilda, if I may ask?


[* we do not use "befana" as a proper name, so it should be translated "the befana" rather than "Befana".]

I do have some Disney Befana stuff: the story where Magica is briefly mistaken by the children for Befana ("Amelia fatina per un giorno") and a copy of the Silvia Ziche cartoon where the same thing happens. I'm curious about the story "Topolino e l'anticipo natalizio" which is said to be a "Befana vs. Santa" story--is that worth my buying that issue of Topolino on Italian eBay?

I do not know the story that you are asking about, sorry. Magica mistaken for the befana is an inevitable joke, since she is Neapolitan, and the befana tradition is very strong in Naples. 

By the way, in the French version of "Amelia fatina per un giorno", the children at first think Magica is (the French version of) Mrs. Claus, which makes Absolutely No Sense, since that character is never depicted as a witchy type riding a broom. Yet another indication that the hardest stories to translate successfully are those with references to culturally specific holiday traditions. Dutch stories where they have to eat oliebollen on New Year's--not to mention all the Sinterklaas stories! European New Year's stories where there is a masquerade party on New Year's Eve....

I actually discovered that Dutch people eat bignets (?) on New Years's Eve and that in some Northern European countries they have masked parties on that same night (seriously, what is wrong with you people up there ) by reading French translations of Christmas Disney ducks stories.

[drleevezan]

Dec 21, 2017 1:21:23 GMT thadwell said:

Here's the A Cover for the elusive Christmas Parade #3, by Andrea Freccero. I like how our "star", Magica, is part of the festivities.e

Nice cover! I always liked covers with a lot of characters on them.