Romano Scarpa (September 27, 1927, Venice - April 23, 2005, Málaga) was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.

Biography

Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd Gottfredson's stories. In the Forties he opened an Animation Studio in Venice in which he produced his first works: some commercials, a short titled E poi venne il diluvio and another very good short, titled La piccola fiammiferaia (1953, based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl), distributed in Italy together with Robert Aldrich's Attack! (1956).

Right after that he stopped working in animation for a while and dedicated wholly to creating Disney comics. When in 1956 Italian editors had no more new Floyd Gottfredson's stories to reprint, he was given the responsibility to continue Gottfredson's stories about Mickey Mouse. Also influenced by Carl Barks in the late Fifties and up to about 1963 he wrote and penciled some of the best-known comic masterpieces of all time: stories like Topolino e la collana Chirikawa (1960) or The Flying Scot (1957) that have, later, been translated in many different languages throughout the world. Many of these stories have their backgrounds in movies, for example Topolino nel favoloso regno di Shan Grillà (1961) is based upon Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (1937); not to talk about all the stories starring Snow White or the Seven Dwarfs, obviously based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Sometimes the exact opposite happened; the Italian movie Riusciranno i nostri eroi a ritrovare l'amico misteriosamente scomparso in Africa? (1968) is based on Scarpa's story Topolino e il Pippotarzan (1957).

Around 1963 Scarpa relaxed a bit and practically stopped writing his stories for 6 or 7 years, while still penciling stories written by other people, generally not up to the same high standards of his; an exception to this "rule" is the long Storia e Gloria della Dinastia dei Paperi saga, written by Guido Martina, and co-pencilled by Scarpa with Giovan Battista Carpi. Then, in the Seventies he went back to writing too, and kept doing it to the end, though he later moved to Spain and started working for a different publisher. Among the last things he made while he was still in Italy, at the end of the Eighties and at beginning of the Nineties, there are the so called Paperolimpiadi (a long story about the 1988 Seoul Olympic games) and some wonderful strip stories, the same kind of stories that he loved when he was a child. One of these, Topolino e l'enigma di Brigaboom (1989) was partially based on Brigadoon (1954).

In the meanwhile he has had time enough for some more animation, so we have Aihnoo degli Icebergs (1972), The Fourth King (1977) and a new TV series, The Adventures of Marco and Gina (Sopra i tetti di Venezia) (2001).

Mainly Scarpa worked on Disney comics, but many years ago he used to do something non-disney once in a while, so he did one (Rolf Kauka's) Lupo story and one (Hannah and Barbera's) Yogi Bear story. In the 1950s he also drew some Angelino story, and Italian character.

Since 1988 some of his comic stories have been published in the USA by Gladstone publishing; it was the first time that this happened to an Italian Disney author. Later, when Disney Comics took Gladstone's place, they published some more of his stories, and in 2003, the same happened with Gemstone Publishing, that is publishing his stories in the US at the moment.

He has influenced many younger creators (Giorgio Cavazzano was his inker during the Sixties) and many have attempted to imitate his style.

Disney characters created by Romano Scarpa

In his career Scarpa created many Disney characters that are now widely accepted by everybody to be part of the Disney Universe. Those include, but are not limited to:

• Brigitta McBridge, Scrooge McDuck's self-appointed girlfriend with whom she shares a love/hate relationship;
• Bruto, Ellsworth's stepson.;
• Dickie Duck, a dynamic female teenage-duck which was introduced as the granddaughter of "Glittering" Goldie O'Gilt;
• Gideon McDuck, a newspaper editor and Scrooge's brother;
• Jubal Pomp, an unlucky wanna-be businessman always trying to imitate Scrooge and failing miserably;
• Kildare Coot, a crazy cousin of Donald Duck's;
• Plottigat, Black Pete's cousin, a genius of crime;
• Trudy, Black Pete's mate and accomplice in crime.

Index of comics books published in the USA

This is an index of all Romano Scarpa comics published in USA. Only Duck universe and Mouse universe are listed. Chip and Dale comics are not listed.

Hero

Name	Publications	Year	Pages	Trivia
Mickey Mouse	"The Blot's Double Mystery"	Mickey and Donald #6	1988	76	Serialized in volumes 7 and 8
Donald Duck	"Amundsen's Talisman"	Donald Duck #279	1990	33
Donald Duck	"The McDuck Foundation"	Uncle Scrooge #241	1990	25
Uncle Scrooge	"The last Balaboo"	Uncle Scrooge #242	1990	35	Brigitta MacBridge's first appearance
Mickey Mouse	"Kali's Nail"	Mickey Mouse #254	1990	50	serialized in volume 255
Mickey Mouse	"The Mystery of Tapiocus VI"	Mickey Mouse #256	1990	53
Mickey and Goofy	"TV Troubles"	Mickey Mouse Adventures #16	1991	9	Reprinted in Disney's Colossal Comics Collection 7
Huey Dewey and Louie	"Delay of the Land"	Donald Duck Adventures #22	1992	10	Published as Donald story
Uncle Scrooge	"The Euro Disneyland Adventure"	Disney's Colossal Comics Collection 9	1993	44	Done for France
Donald Duck	"The Man from Oola-Oola"	Uncle Scrooge Adventures #28-29	1994	37
Uncle Scrooge	"The Lentils from Babylon"	Uncle Scrooge Adventures #30	1995	71	Serialized in volumes 31 and 32
Donald Duck	"Colossus of the Nile"	Uncle Scrooge Adventures #37-38	1996	45
Uncle Scrooge	"The Flying Scot"	Uncle Scrooge #315-316	1998	49
Uncle Scrooge	"The Big Break-in"	Uncle Scrooge #320	2003	15
Uncle Scrooge	"One Million Chase"	Uncle Scrooge #322	2003	13
Uncle Scrooge	"Around the World in Eighty Daze"	Uncle Scrooge #341	2005	17
Uncle Scrooge	"The Secret of Success"	Uncle Scrooge 338	2005	33
rowspan=6	The following stories have been done for Egmont.
Uncle Scrooge	"One With the Wind"	Uncle Scrooge #333	2004	13
Uncle Scrooge	"Security"	Uncle Scrooge #343	2005	12
Uncle Scrooge	"All you need is love"	Uncle Scrooge #344	2005	13
Uncle Scrooge	"The Funny Carrots"	Uncle Scrooge #346	2005	16
Mickey Mouse	"History Re-Petes Itself"	Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #654	2005	12

References

• Romano Scarpa - Un cartoonist italiano tra animazione e fumetti, by Luca Boschi, Leonardo Gori and Andrea Sani. Alessandro distribuzioni, 1988.
• Romano Scarpa - Sognando la Calidornia by Luca Boschi, Leonardo Gori, Andrea Sani and Alberto Becattini. Vittorio Pavesio productions, 2001 (in Italian);
• I Disney Italiani by Luca Boschi, Leonardo Gori and Andrea Sani. Granata Press, 1990.

External links

• The Last Balaboo, site completely about Scarpa, with drawings, covers, sketches, indexes, biography and much more (currently temporarily closed, but there's a message board available for anyone willing to share their feelings about the loss, the messages will be collected and sent to Scarpa's family);
• Frank Stajano's page on Scarpa, with a detailed analysis of the different Scarpa's art's periods.