Italian Disney Comics

[Dinah Lianes]

Thearticle was a page in issue #113, nothing spectacular (except for what I quoted), probably written by E. Nelson Bridwell who was assistant editor at this time. It's basically just "The title's name in Spain is ..., the title's name in Norway is ..., the title's name in Italy is ..." and so on (with some cover pictures).

Lots of original Italian stories for Disney characters that were not published in the US. I wonder why this was so for Italy? Maybe sort of like Polish movie posters for US films having to have been drawn by Polish artists.

In the vast, varied and exciting world of international comics (aka foreign comics), this is not that uncommon. There is tremendous variation, depending on country, era, publisher, character, etc etc etc. There can be wild variations even within one country and even within one publisher in that country or across different publishers in that country. Often, the superhero stories were sourced precisely from the American versions - the original story kept but just translated into the local language. And often the original art was kept too, or was sometimes redrawn locally. But sometimes brand new stories were written and drawn locally - which is what you are asking about.

I will alert one of our illustrious Boardies, vaillant, who is from Italy. He knows MUCH more than I, and will be able to tell you much more, and hopefully also correct any of my statements that might be erroneous.

I will alert one of our illustrious Boardies, valliant, who is from Italy. He knows MUCH more than I, and will be able to tell you much more, and hopefully also correct any of my statements that might be erroneous.

Since I only know about DCs, the story about Mexico and Gwen were new to me. I know about the German DCs from the 80s and the "og fredsbomben", but I thought that were the only foreign language originals. I wonder which success would have waited for a resurrected British or Australian Kara in the 80s.

Since the 1960s decline of syndicated strips, and consequently Disney comics, Italy has officially become the biggest and most acknowledged worldwide provider of original Disney comics stories.

This has been already happening for at least a decade, but after Walt Disney death the comics production was further neglected in USA, and this of course mutually reinforced the decline of the characters popularity among younger generations of readers. Italian artists (together with nordic or Dutch ones) in particular were also working for the Disney studios for stories to be published all across the world *except* in USA. Gladstone daringly started a slowly "recover" of comics tradition (and twice) in in homeland, where Disney comics originated, but we see how it went. I don't know which approach Boom studios took, IDW was interesting but in my opinion it still did not strike the adequate balance to succeed in making them once again known to the wider public.

The sporadical attempts in US publishing to try and "re-instate" a comics tradition were varied and always ended up being sort of "niche", while in Italy, nordic countries, Argentina, most of Europe, comics (along with the classic animated movies) have always been *the* staple of Walt Disney Productions.

Keep in mind that when the Italian production started, as early as the late 1930s ("Donald Duck and the mystery of Mars, the earliest Disney story entirely produced in Italy, albeit a bit weird, is from 1937), the classic syndicated production from USA was still in full bloom. But by the 1960s Italy had become the official largest provider of new stories of high quality for countries all over the world. Ironically, except USA, until Gladstone tried to change this starting in 1986.

@archivist So, apologies for not getting back earlier. Asif (mustermark) noticed me about this but for some reason my Internet browser did not allow me to access the forums.

The technical problem now seems solved.

As an example: here's an article about the Montecchi brothers, which did a handful of Batman stories for Mondadori (they signed "Montague" to fool readers in believing the stories were orignal US ones):

-montecchi/

I attach a page from a Montecchi brothers story:

I can confirm that for Germany. If one of you travels to Germany, you'll find lots of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck in super markets or other places with magazines but no super-heroes. They can only be found at railroad stations.

So, apologies for not getting back earlier. Asif (mustermark) noticed me about this but for some reason my Internet browser did not allow me to access the forums.

The technical problem now seems solved.

Vaillant, thank you for all your information. WIth what you wrote I was able to open a door into an universe where I still have to find out just how big the amount of exclusive stories is. I hope somebody has a listing with all those stories. If you can point me to the profile of Marcello Vaccari, I would ask him if he has such a listing. Maybe an incomplete one, so that I don't have to start from zero.

Hi, you're welcome. As I said, Marcello Vaccari is on Facebook but I do not have his contacts. I will send you a message with his Facebook profile address, if you wish.

Update: I just learned there are indeed Superman stories from the 1960s written and drawn in Italy, also commissioned by Mondadori.

According to the site comicsbox (should be generally quite accurate), the very first Superman 1960s story done in Italy is "Cronaca Lampo", written and drawn by Leone Cimpellin, and was published on Albi del Falco #317, which is also the italian edition of "Supergirl introduction to the world", and possibly the Supergirl on cover in Italy as well, here the details:

_317

Here's an old article by Marcello Vaccari on the topic (scroll down to the paragraph "Superman made in Italy"):

The publisher of Disney comics for Germany for long years has been Ehapa, I believe the diffusion has been as large as it was in France in Italy, or at least similar.

Up to date "Topolino", our leading Disney title, is still the most known and popular comics publication to the wide, generic public.

Yes, please send the message with Marcello Vaccari's Facebook profile address, either to dc-a...@gmx.net or as a private message here. I'm not that good with social media so I appreciate every help I get.

What I also noticed is that one story written by Bill Finger seems to be not reworked but original. I checked the splash pages of the US stories where I suspected this story to be from, but I haven't found it.

I will ask Mr. Vaccari if he has a second source just so I can cross-check the information and not just have to believe what's written there. But in general I really am glad to have found the information at all.

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