Tomas Elliot presents: that one time Disney Italy pulled a Reborn, before Reborn even existed!

[Tomas Elliot]

So, I have been thinking about making this topic for a while, but I never found the time. I posted it in the Wasteland just in case, although, since I am basically spinning a passion of mine, it could have been ok in the Trainer Journal section as well. Yes, here be download links, and yes, Ame herself said it was ok when I asked her. Which admittedly was a while back, but I highly doubt forum rules have changed dramatically in the meantime.

So, how to describe PKNA (short fot Paperinik New Adventures)? I could start by saying that it is my favorite comic book of all times, then I could provide some insight on the plot, briefly introduce some of the characters, and try to convey via words the emotions that this comic gave me when I first read it as a kid, and then once again when I recently picked it up again.
But as they say, an image is worth 1000 words, so I strongly believe that the best way to introduce PKNA is this:



Yes, that's Donald Duck.

A bit of history: back in the sixties, the italian comic industry developed a major interest in dark, edgy anti-heroes, that would dominate the independent italian comic scene for over 3 decades. And the most famous of these dark, edgy anti-heroes was Diabolik, a masked criminal who would steal from the rich to give to himself and his massively hot sidekick Eva Kant.

What does Donald Duck have to do with this? Well, everything in fact. Because you see, we italians are traditionally a bunch of losers. We are the ones who will jump side twice throughout the course of a war and still wind up on the losing side. We are the ones who are conquered and ruled by foreign powers, and have to rebuild everything from scratch every time. Therefore, you cannot possibly expect people like us to root for natural born winner Mickey Mouse: no, in Italy Mickey was never popular, the guy we truly loved and rooted for, the guy we wanted to see triumph against all odds, was perpetual loser Donald Duck. We saw our misfortunes in his own, and in his struggles to achieve some sort of success we saw our own redemption...
Or maybe we just think ducks are funny and mice are gross. Either way, Donald Duck in Italy has always been and will always be massively popular. Which is why, in late seventies, a badass alter-ego was created for him, whose adventures would be published in italian mainstream Disney comics: the name that was given to this badass alter-ego was Paperinik (or PK for short), which would be a portmanteau of "Paperino" (which is Donald's italian name) and "Diabolik", the aforementioned edgy anti-hero.

Because you see, originally Paperinik was a criminal. The idea was that Donald would don the cape not to fight crime, but to pay evil unto evil, exacting revenge on those who routinely humiliated him during the day. We found it awesome, and we loved it.
But unfortunately, Disney writers didn't really know how to handle such a character, so his stories stagnated, being published only sporadically in the italian Disney flagship comic book, Topolino (which would be the italian name of Mickey Mouse). It is important to notice that this character was created in Italy, for the italian audience, so it never made it to the States, and in the rare instances in which it did, it was under a plethora of names (because of course, the play of words behind the name "Paperinik" is lost in English), like Duck Avenger, Superduck and the likes. At some point, throughout these sporadic stories, Paperinik bacema a full-fledged superhero, simply because most of the guys whose rear ends he was routinely kicking were criminals to begin with, so to exact his revenge he was effectively doing a favor to the community. But even after turning him into a hero, the writers didn't know what to do with him, so he kept periodically appearing and resurfacing...

... Untill the year 1997 came around. 1997 was a big year for italian comic books. A bunch of up and coming new artists (who have since gone on to become internationally acclaimed professionals, may I add) were taking the scene by storm, and the overall product was once again returning to the dark, edgy roots established in the sixties... And in thisscenario, there was some executive of Disney Italy who thought it would be a good idea to call the most talented artists of the new crop, give them a new monthly publication only for them, and tell them "grab Paperinik and put him in a scene where, as he is patroling Duckburg, he runs into some enemies his usual weapons cannot defeat. From there, you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT". The result was beyond awesome. The result was beyond epic.

The result was PKNA.

In the words of the creators themselves, they specifically wanted the comic book to be in the same format as Marvel's comics, because they wanted to make it clear that theirs wasn't your standard Disney product, but rather something that could challenge Marvel on their own ground (which is hilarious in hindsight because Disney actually went on to purchase Marvel years later). The very first image of the very first page of the pilot episode (the legendary "PKNA #0") depicts a genocide. There are various instances of explicit content, including a case of family-unfriendly death, 3 (or 4, depending on how you interpret that one scene with Geena) cases of suicide, and mutliple cases in which the verb "to die" is used openly. Did I mention it is a Disney comic starring Donald Duck? A Donald Duck who has become badass enough to fend off alien invaders, time-traveling pirates, international terrorists and a jerkass news anchor.

After a succesful run of almost 3 years, the series was rather abruptly ended with a nonsensical last episode that openly contraddicted many events previously established as facts. After the outraged fans predictably manifested their discontent in calm, polite ways, such as burning the car of Disney Italy CEO, PK2 saw the light and, despite a much more psychological plot and much executive meddling throughout its run, it actually managed to give the series a satisfying, definitive conclusion.
Aterwards, Disney attempted to capitalize on such a massive success by releasing a reboot akin to Ultimate Spiderman, by the name of Pikappa, but frankly, that thing sucked big time.

So, if this little gem never became a thing outside Italy, why am I wasting your time by telling you about it? Because recently Disney has decided to launch a new take on the series worldwide. And a bunch of die-hard fans didn't like the idea one bit, or rather, they weren't happy about the fact that the States would get a new thing but not the original series, so they made a fandub of PKNA, PK2 and Pikappa (but seriously, that thing sucks, don't bother with it), and released it online, completely for free.

Here is the link. From the linked page you can download the .CBR files of all the episodes of PKNA, PK2 and Pikappa (but seriously, just get PKNA and PK2, Pikappa really really sucks), as well as the program needed to read them. Again, it is absolutely for free, with no bad links/viruses and no surveys or other such crap.
If you don't know how to kill your time and want to read a really, really good comic, I strongly recommend you take some time to download this stuff, you won't regret it. It is really a little gem, one could even say it is to Disney what Reborn is to Pokemon. It is really worth a shot: do you really want to miss out on being able to say "I read a Donald Duck comic book and it was friggin' awesome"?

If I failed to persuade you, you can also check out the TvTropes page. And if I did persuade you, feel freee to share your impressions in this topic.
Peace.

[Felicity]

*Cough*

Darkwing Duck

[Tomas Elliot]

*Cough*

Darkwing Duck

I... refuse to believe you have read all that stuff in such a short time.

Also yes, Darkwing Duck was wicked cool, but this is a different thing

[Felicity]

I... refuse to believe you have read all that stuff in such a short time.

Also yes, Darkwing Duck was wicked cool, but this is a different thing

You underestimate my skill at speed reading

[Nan]

Donald Duck is really popular in Finland too. And PKNA was released in Finland too but with different name.. I can't remember what is what called in Finnish but I remember reading this as a child but it was Taikaviitta something (Taikaviitta is Paperinik's Finnish name and it means magic cloak or magic cape).

Ok I just made some research and PKNA was called Taikaviitta 2000 in Finland but it wasn't so popular in here so we got only 14 comic magazines of 52, well that might be the reason that they just disappeared, when I was a kid I was wondering a lot about that why it just disappeared... Sorry for possible bad English I'm too tired to think.

EDIT:// edited a little I noticed some errors haha

Edited May 21, 2015 by Nan

[Tomas Elliot]

Donald Duck is really popular in Finland too. And PKNA was released in Finland too but with different name.. I can't remember what is what called in Finnish but I remember reading this as a child but it was Taikaviitta something (Taikaviitta is Paperinik's Finnish name and it means magic cloak or magic cape).

Ok I just made some research and PKNA was called Taikaviitta 2000 in Finland but it wasn't so popular in here so we got only 14 comics, well that might be the reason that they just disappeared, when I was a kid I was wondering a lot about that why it just disappeared... Sorry for possible bad English I'm too tired to think.

It's true! I actually remember some of the episodes for the fandub being translated from a language I didn't know, but that definitely wasn't Italian: so it was Finnish!

[Nan]

It's true! I actually remember some of the episodes for the fandub being translated from a language I didn't know, but that definitely wasn't Italian: so it was Finnish!

Can you link me the fandub ? It could be Swedish or Danish too since it was really popular in those countries according to Wikipedia.

[AuthorReborn]

I'm at school right now, but I'll definitely check this out sometime tonight.

[Nova]

Wait, this was Donald Duck all along?

Didn't know that. I am extremely interested in this now.

[heloo5t5]

Dõñáłdò Düçkø įtâłïåńö

[Tomas Elliot]

Can you link me the fandub ? It could be Swedish or Danish too since it was really popular in those countries according to Wikipedia.

Link is in the OP. As you download the various episodes, you will see that some of them don't have the usual italian cover, but a cover with words from a foreign language. I suppose that's either Finnish or Swedish or Danish according to what you are saying...

I'm at school right now, but I'll definitely check this out sometime tonight.

You should. Theis thing is gold, I can promise you you will love it

Wait, this was Donald Duck all along?

Didn't know that. I am extremely interested in this now.

I am positive I told you it was lol. And well, just check it out and share your thoughts, the program you need to read the episodes is super easy to use: you download it, you install it, then you download an episode, you double-click on the .CBR file of the episode, and the program is automatically launched and allows you to read the thing. Enjoy!

[zimvader42]

Welp, another thing to do during the summer lol

[Nan]

Link is in the OP. As you download the various episodes, you will see that some of them don't have the usual italian cover, but a cover with words from a foreign language. I suppose that's either Finnish or Swedish or Danish according to what you are saying...

I just noticed that after I posted the reply sorry.

[Maelstrom]

Hmm, it sorta reminds me of why I always rooted for Tom in the Tom and Jerry show. Friggin' Jerry.

[Tomas Elliot]

Hmm, it sorta reminds me of why I always rooted for Tom in the Tom and Jerry show. Friggin' Jerry.

Lol, that is just because, in cartoons where a guy chases another guy, the guy doing the chasing is the one who gets character development (in the form of his plans evolving), why the guy being chased comes off as flat and kinda obnozious in his taunting of the chaser. Also see: Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.

[Nova]

Read the first part and really liked it. And yes, I read your tags.

[Azeria]

Yesss....Yessss THE DUCKS ARE GAINING POWER,THIS WAS STEP ONE TOWARDS WORLD DOMINATION!

[Shamitako]

You underestimate my skill at speed reading

After seeing this I went and re-read the whole post whilst timing it

43 seconds (Though I do read quicker the second time, I'd guess my first time through was closer to 65 seconds)

Also, this looks neat, I will totally check it out if I encounter the time

Oh and yes, I do read tags

[Sparky]

Lol, that is just because, in cartoons where a guy chases another guy, the guy doing the chasing is the one who gets character development (in the form of his plans evolving), why the guy being chased comes off as flat and kinda obnozious in his taunting of the chaser. Also see: Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.

So much childhood; Wile E Coyote was always the one i'd side for over the Roadrunner.

[NickCrash]

In the end Wile gets his prey.
In terms of people rooting for the characters you usually hate, I like to believe Scrooge McDuck was one of them. Does anyone remember the Duck Tales?

[Tomas Elliot]

The popularity of Duck Tales in Italy is one of the reasons why this thing saw the light to begin with

So, has anyone actually downloaded some episodes and tried to read them? How did you like it?

[Ermac]

Finally!

PKNA will be published by IDW.

http://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/JUN160503

[Halloween]

i realize this thread just got awakened from the dead by Ermac here, new and already spreading god's gospel to us all, but

read the first issue; can't say the comic itself was quite my style, but I think posts like this are the best posts; country trivia that I could have lived my whole life without knowing. Thanks to you a hundred people know that Donald Duck was widely popular in Italy, and for what reasons. It's just very neat to me, thank you

but Donald is actually the most popular character worldwide, and has been so since 1938; Mickey's just the face because he was the first one to reach fame. there has been more movies about DD than any other disney character, and he's saved Disney from bankruptcy more than once. i had like this huge book of dd comics as a kid with his entire american history listed, like the donald duck bible. at some point walt was supposed make one movie about mickey mouse, but instead made three about dd and just went like "ok, you're gonna be retired if you keep eating my time"

[Tomas Elliot]

Well talk about the necrobump. But welp, I suppose I should be glad PKNA is going to the states at long last... And thanks for your words Halloween: yes, getting people worldwide to know about this little trivia was exactly my goal with this. Although I am a bit sad that you would say that PKNA is "not quite your style" ;-;