Topolino60B
Topolino, Italy’s long running digest-sized Disney comics mag, has just celebrated its 60th anniversary. The magazine is one of the most popular in Italy, read by both adults and children, and special issues can sell one million copies…in a week. Mama mia!

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The 60th anniversary is celebrated in this week’s special issue (#2784). Readers can win a trip to Disneyland Paris and there’s a special website where people can vote on their favorite stories from the last 60 years. After the initial votes a list of 12 stories has been compiled, and readers can now read and vote on these 12 stories online (to view them visit the website then click on ‘vota’). Among the finalists are Romano Scarpa’s The Flying Scot (1957) and Mickey’s Inferno (1949) by Guido Martina and Angelo Bioletto. Both of these stories were published in the United States in Uncle Scrooge 315 and Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories 666 respectively.


“Mickey’s Inferno” is, as you might expect, a takeoff on Dante’s Divine Comedy, only with Mickey and other beloved Disney characters going to Hell. That wouldn’t fly here in the US, but the Europeans love it!

[Thanks to Tireless Torsten for the link.]

1 COMMENT

  1. Wait… Mickey’s Inferno *did* “fly here in the U.S.” in early 2006 (the quote even says so). David Gerstein, Dwight Decker, Willie Schubert and Scott Rockwell busted backside to get that 37-page beast translated and fit for print stateside. ;)

    A little inside tidbit: (Gemstone/Disney EiC) John Clark was giddy as a schoolboy about putting something like this into issue #666 of Comics & Stories. He had a mischievous glint in his eye for MONTHS. (LOL)

  3. It still boggles that in Italy, Scandinavia and other European countries Disney titles are selling weekly to incredible numbers and read by all ages -and here, even with the backing of Diamond’s publishing arm, can barely scrape by.

  4. Easy to explain, Oliver. In Europe they are sold in newssands and other mass market venues. In the US they are sold on the direct market and MAYBE a couple of bookstores, tops.

    I’m not saying that putting them out on US newsstands would make they sell millions, of course. Disney comics sales (like all other newsstand comics) are falling all over Europe. But they do have a LARGE readership they build while newsstand comics sales were still strong.

    Best,
    Hunter (Pedro Bouça)