Romano Scarpa


Romano Scarpa 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 one titled La piccola fiammiferaia, distributed in Italy together with Robert Aldrich's Attack!.
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 stories like Topolino e la collana Chirikawa or The Flying Scot 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 is based upon Frank Capra's Lost Horizon ; not to talk about all the stories starring Snow White or the Seven Dwarfs, obviously based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Sometimes the exact opposite happened; the Italian movie Riusciranno i nostri eroi a ritrovare l'amico misteriosamente scomparso in Africa? is based on Scarpa's story Topolino e il Pippotarzan.
Around 1963, Scarpa stopped writing for 6 or 7 years. In the seventies, he 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 and some strip stories, the same kind of stories that he loved when he was a child. One of these, Topolino e l'enigma di Brigaboom was partially based on Brigadoon.
In the meanwhile he has had time enough for some more animation, so we have Aihnoo degli Icebergs, The Fourth King and a new TV series, The Adventures of Marco and Gina .
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 Lupo story and one 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 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 accepted by some as part of the Disney Universe. Those include, but are not limited to:
In 2017 Fantagraphics Books published a collection containing four stories of Scarpa's Snow White comics, titled The Return of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs, ISBN.
In 2018 Fantagraphics Books began publishing a hardcover series titled Disney Masters, in which Romano Scarpa has to date had three volumes dedicated to his Disney works.
This is an index of all Romano Scarpa comics published in the US. Only Duck universe and Mouse universe are listed. Chip and Dale comics are not listed.

Citations

General references