Admittedly, I have no idea, and I certainly don’t have a xenophobic agenda. In general, I enjoy a good story regardless of where it came from internationally.
Do we have actual sources and evidence of "Italians are now running IDW Disney" or is this just about to become another big bad boogieman?
Because things aren't going well in Italy either, with further and further restrictions and censorship of stories, and I doubt they'd be doing so of their own choosing. You guys sure it doesn't make more sense for someone at Disney to be pushing this out of a "well Italy's had the most success so easier to just have everyone conform to them while we have them conform to us" instead of the immediate kinda-xenophobic "those damn Italians"?
I have absolutely nothing against Italians in general, and love many, many Italian Disney stories and creators, and am happily buying Fantagraphics Disney Masters volumes featuring Italian artists.
As for who is running things now at IDW Disney... even when the first group of editor & translators/dialoguers were working there, my sense is that the Italian Disney comics operation was in some way overseeing stuff. Editors were free to print stories from wherever (Egmont, Netherlands, Brazil, as well as Italy), but Disney Italia had some oversight. Now there doesn't seem to be anyone involved in production of the IDW Disney comics who has any history of connection with American Disney comics. The Italian Disney comics operation (what's it called now?) may not be running things directly, but whoever is in charge is just funneling through all Italian stories, colored in the Italian manner, and translated by someone who either doesn't know or doesn't care about the American Disney comics tradition (e.g. the boys calling Donald "Uncle Donald"!). What we're getting, for whatever reasons, is Italian product.
True, xanderares, the coloring decision may be more economic than ideological...though I have to believe that it wouldn't cost *that* much to recolor the DIME as silver for an American readership. I dislike the primary-colored bin and the yellow-haired Grandma Duck etc., but the gold-colored "dime" is profoundly alienating. It's not just an alternative interpretation of a fictional character/thing; it's a counterfactual representation of a thing in the real world.
There was a large-format American magazine last year celebrating Mickey's 90th. There were 2 or 3 pages in it on Mickey in the comics, consisting of quotations from comics people on the importance and influence of Mickey in the comics, and every single person quoted was Italian. Should half of them have been Italian? Maybe so. All of them? I think not. Brazilian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Italian...and maybe an American or two? In a magazine for Americans? Maybe this had nothing at all to do with the involvement of Disney Italia with American IDW Disney comics...maybe someone who knew nothing about the comics was just given one Italian name to contact and that person contacted his friends. Maybe it was even just a translation of something that had already appeared in an Italian publication for Mickey's 90th. But it seemed pretty odd to me.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Apr 28, 2019 0:50:56 GMT
I honestly do not understand where this 'Italians running IDW comics' weird idea comes from. It is the most unrealistic thing.
For the 50th time, there is NO SUCH THING as 'Disney Italia'. Italian Disney comics are currently produced by an independent publisher, just like IDW, called Panini comics. Panini has no editorial or economical power to influence any American publisher, nor they have any influence on the Disney company itself. Way the opposite, Panini is subjected to the completely arbitrary decisions coming from the US, i.e. from the inside of the Disney company, as every other Disney comics licensed publisher in the world. (It seems to me that actually Panini is even the one editor suffering the most from Burbanks dictates and censorship, but that's probably a consequence of the fact that they are the one publisher that at least tries to make them comics.)
How a clear case of 'IDW publishing a lot of Italian material because its the cheapest', possibly with some pressure to do so from inside Disney itself - meaning the only Disney in the world, the one in California - is turned around of 180 degrees into 'the Italian editors run IDW' ? ? ? ?
Please stop spreading ideas that are close to the inverse of reality. Or otherwise, prove that some dude from Panini has magically managed to infiltrate the company in Burbanks and started to impose its own product to the world. This looks close to conspiracy theory now that I put it down on words, so unrealistic it sounds. This is the public twitter account of the Panini editor responsible for the production of Disney comics. Go head and ask him if he runs or has any role in the publishing of Disney comics by IDW, a competitor and much richer publisher in another continent. This could be funny.
You can probably make a case for Italian staffmembers within Disney, or members who were before involved in some wider marketing range with the Italian production, heading Burbank's comics orders
Which is a lot different from the way it tends to be framed here of Italian creatives forcing things to be like they are in Italian comics (which as I' hinted before and Monkey does too, I doubt, since Italian comics are the ones getting new orders like "no guns" to be more like the rules IDW had placed upon them in the first place)
Also, a 126-page story spread over four monthly issues? And one that doesn't even have a stellar INDUCKS rating? Good luck with that!
The solicitation spells Franzo's first name wrong.
That's a pretty good Inducks rating for such a recent story, actually. And I remember our German Topolino expert rated it pretty well too, although he said it doesn't quite match up to the somewhat similar "Scrooge's Last Adventure". In any case, it's a collab between the two most promising young Italian writers, and Stabile's "Wishing Crown" got a lot of praise, right?
I honestly do not understand where this 'Italians running IDW comics' weird idea comes from. It is the most unrealistic thing.
For the 50th time, there is NO SUCH THING as 'Disney Italia'. Italian Disney comics are currently produced by an independent publisher, just like IDW, called Panini comics. Panini has no editorial or economical power to influence any American publisher, nor they have any influence on the Disney company itself. Way the opposite, Panini is subjected to the completely arbitrary decisions coming from the US, i.e. from the inside of the Disney company, as every other Disney comics licensed publisher in the world. (It seems to me that actually Panini is even the one editor suffering the most from Burbanks dictates and censorship, but that's probably a consequence of the fact that they are the one publisher that at least tries to make them comics.)
How a clear case of 'IDW publishing a lot of Italian material because its the cheapest', possibly with some pressure to do so from inside Disney itself - meaning the only Disney in the world, the one in California - is turned around of 180 degrees into 'the Italian editors run IDW' ? ? ? ?
Please stop spreading ideas that are close to the inverse of reality. Or otherwise, prove that some dude from Panini has magically managed to infiltrate the company in Burbanks and started to impose its own product to the world. This looks close to conspiracy theory now that I put it down on words, so unrealistic it sounds. This is the public twitter account of the Panini editor responsible for the production of Disney comics. Go head and ask him if he runs or has any role in the publishing of Disney comics by IDW, a competitor and much richer publisher in another continent. This could be funny.
You're forgetting that when the license went to Panini, the previous publisher, Disney Italia, was left without anything to do. It's my understanding that THEY are the ones who are doing all the approval processes these days, and effectively, this means they are the executive arm of Disney USA, as far as the comics go (and making things more complicated for Panini).
I read an article about getting PKNA and MMMM approved back in the late 90s, and it was problematic back then already. At that time, the approval processes went through a group of people in Paris, which the creators called "The French". They did things like measuring lengths of beaks! And when W.i.t.c.h. was so successful, this "organ" moved to Italy.
Now of course, we don't really know who's doing the selection at IDW currently, but given that the product has to be approved by Italians (not the ones working for Panini!), it wouldn't seem unreasonable that IDW is just taking the easy route of letting them supply the material.
Not to spoil the fun, but yes, Disney Italia has significant control over the U.S. publications, and yes, that's why the Italian coloring and blander dialogue is being used.
Um...I believe it is the Italians who have taken over direct control of the American Disney comics, since the folks who produced them until mid-2018 were let go.
The Disney Masters, that's a different story. They are doing some volumes of non-Italian "masters," including American and Dutch creators (see the upcoming volume featuring Mau & Bas Heymans).
Not to spoil the fun, but yes, Disney Italia has significant control over the U.S. publications, and yes, that's why the Italian coloring and blander dialogue is being used.
Can you explain?
Starting by what "Disney Italia" is. As far as I know the Italian division of the Disney company has nowadays no direct control on the comics production. (If not being the intermediate between the licensed publisher and the supervising motherboard in California.) Then, could you explain in what form this phantomatic "Disney Italia" has control over the U.S. publications, which I suppose means IDW and Fantagraphics. Finally, what would be the interest of a foreign division of Disney in having Italian coloring and blande dialogues in a publication on the other side of the ocean.
Still look like conspiracy theory from here, until you don't explain a bit. Geez, I am away from this forum for some weeks and when I come back everybody seem to have turned into caballero.
Is it so hard to apply Occam Razor's and accept the idea that IDW does not currently care about tradition in Disney comics and traditional fans? Isn't this explanation enough to understand why they have bad translations, or why they are trying to get the readers used to the coloring of the main imported product (so not to have to re-color)?
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on May 2, 2019 15:01:18 GMT
The approving on what? Approving on what kind of comics are produced? Egmont and Dutch stories go through the approval of the Italian branch of the Disney company? Approving on how the comics are translated, coloured and on what kind of sheet are printed around the world??? So the mysterious malefic Italian puppet stringers let everyone in Europe and South American colour and dialogue every single Disney comics story the way they want, but for some reason they like to sadistically impose the blue-red-yellow money bin to American readers.
Come on, man.
Look, I cannot care less about the Italian Disney comics (that I mostly dislike) or the way they are colored in the IDW issues (that I do not buy). But you cannot accuse an abstract foreign entity for the fact that IDW currently do not care about readers like you as much as you wish. Meanwhile, in Italy readers are complaining that an abstract foreign entity, the American branch of the Disney company, is ruining Italian Disney comics by imposing veto's on subjects and images that are typical of the American society and not compatible with the Italian way of doing comics (where you can have guns in the hands of characters like Casey or Mickey.) So, find an agreement. Is the evil American Disney ruining Italian DC's or is the evil Italian Disney ruining American DC's? Can you see the irony in all this? Can you see the blind spot?
But maybe there is something that you know from the inside that I do not. Then I wonder why not to tell it openly.
It's not an abstract entity. I already said who Disney Italia is - they now effectively act as Disney Corporate and approve everything for publication in the U.S., just as has been the case for any licensee in the past (albeit, not Disney Italia back then). They wanted these changes to the IDW line, and that's simply the way it is. Please remember, I do work on these books, so I'm not talking out of my ass.
It's not an abstract entity. I already said who Disney Italia is - they now effectively act as Disney Corporate and approve everything for publication in the U.S., just as has been the case for any licensee in the past (albeit, not Disney Italia back then). They wanted these changes to the IDW line, and that's simply the way it is. Please remember, I do work on these books, so I'm not talking out of my ass.
This is fascinating information. I too thought the whole "Italians running everything" felt a bit like a conspiracy theory until I read your comments. What I'm mostly curious about myself... do you know WHY Disney Italia suddenly wanted these changes imposed on the American comic books? (I understand if you're not at liberty to talk about it, by the way.) Just seems like a strange thing to enforce upon the home country of these comics. I'm also a bit surprised that Disney's main headquarters in the U.S. apparently just lets them have their way... but maybe this is simply how little they care about the comics side of things. (Or, maybe Disney Italia has a really good rapport with Disney HQ and convinced them this was the best way to go.)
What I don't get is why the Italian publications are also being affected in negative ways. There has to be more going on than just Disney Italia suddenly wanting these changes.
And nothing about this, whatever Disney's/Disney Italia's reasons are, excuses them suddenly dropping everyone that's been working on these books over the past few years without warning. You want IDW to print mainly more recent Italian stories and you want them to remove all guns, weapons, meat and fishing rods for some reason...
Okay. Fine. I get it. You really didn't need to gut your localizers though who have been doing terrific work that was praised by the fanbase. That's really the worst part about all this more than anything else.
I am very thankful that none of these editorial changes have been affecting any of Fantagraphic's releases.
Last Edit: May 3, 2019 17:04:45 GMT by squeakyboots