{"id":23031,"date":"2020-11-19T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T08:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=23031"},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:56:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:56:56","slug":"the-disney-bros-the-fabulous-story-of-walt-and-roy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2020\/11\/19\/the-disney-bros-the-fabulous-story-of-walt-and-roy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disney Bros – The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy Alex Nikolavitch<\/strong> & Felix Ruiz<\/strong>, translated by Montana Kane<\/strong> (NBM)
\nISBN: 978-1-68112-266-3(HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-267-0<\/p>\n

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because it’s not Christmas without magic castles in the air\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to biography, Walt Disney is a true \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Marmite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d figure, with writers and historians pretty evenly divided between effusive hagiography and excoriating expos\u00c3\u00a9s.<\/p>\n

As fully discussed in author Alex Nikolavitch’s Introduction<\/em>, the genius who nurtured and nourished the childhood dreams of generations across the globe is an immensely polarising figure: a sensitive creator and twice-burned artisan who grew increasing and equally obsessed with micromanaging all around him and spreading heartfelt joy.<\/p>\n

What this superb graphic summation of the fantasy overlord’s complex and contradictory life adds is the necessary balance quietly provided throughout and beyond Walt<\/em>‘s life by his nigh-invisible brother Roy<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Alex Nikolavitch is a French author, screenwriter, essayist and educator, who writes comics and has a steady sideline translating English-language books like V for Vendetta<\/strong>, Tank Girl<\/strong> and Spawn<\/strong> to supplement his own series such as Burton<\/em><\/strong> and Les Canaux du Mitan<\/em><\/strong>. His collaborator here is mercurial Spanish artist and colourist Felix Ruiz (Savage Wolverine<\/strong>, Agents of Atlas: Marvel Boy, The Uranian<\/strong>, Halo<\/strong>) who reverts to a charmingly compelling and effective \u00c3\u2030cole de Marcinelle<\/em> bigfoot style to trace the career of America’s greatest dream factory\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

In episodic bursts of vivid scenes preceded by a potted history of animation, the story opens with ‘Of a Mouse and Men’<\/em>as cartoon pioneers Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks<\/em> – reeling from having their creation Oswald the Lucky Rabbit<\/strong> taken from them by unscrupulous money men – bounce back with a new character\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 a mouse.<\/p>\n

More crucially, Walt asks his brother Roy to join the team. He is an accountant, with his feet planted firmly on the ground and his hands on the financial tiller.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6And then \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Talkies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d revolutionise the film industry and Walt has another good idea just as the Great Depression looms\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Second Chapter ‘Childhood Dreams’<\/em> covers the turbulent period after Snow White<\/strong> was released, as Roy secures global distribution in some very unwholesome places, balanced with the brothers’ fruitless attempts to rationalise their new lifestyles to their pious, old-fashioned doctrinaire parents. This leads to revelatory flashbacks of the boys growing up in rural religious Missouri and Walt’s transformative first encounter with Movies\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The war years and infamous union-busting strike of Disney’s animation studio is covered in ‘Turbulence’<\/em>, as well as the post war years of expansion, as the arch creator increasingly seeks to control every aspect of his ever-expanding kingdom.<\/p>\n

Walt’s anti-communist mania blatantly manifests in ‘Builder of Empires’<\/em>, as the company moves into television and theme parks and the aging autocrats faces his own mortality\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Skilfully negotiating the complex web of beguiling creativity that always warred with a ruthless struggle for autonomy, political control and money, The Disney Bros – The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy <\/strong>is a superbly delivered balancing act between reportage and drama. Evoking amazement, glee, sympathy and moral outrage in turn, the tale – delivered in jolly, velvetxglove-over-lead-lined-blackjack cartoon manner – is available in substantial hardback and various digital formats and is supplemented with an historical critique by author Jarett Kobek in ‘Afterword: How to Build a Media Empire’<\/em> plus suggested Further Reading<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is a splendid work no fan of comics or film history should miss.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2019 Blue Lotus Prod. \u00c2\u00a9 2020 NBM for the English translation.<\/p>\n

The Disney Bros – The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy<\/strong> is scheduled for release on November 26th<\/sup> 2020 and is available for pre-order in both print and digital editions.<\/p>\n

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads see, http:\/\/www.nbmpub.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alex Nikolavitch & Felix Ruiz, translated by Montana Kane (NBM) ISBN: 978-1-68112-266-3(HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-267-0 Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because it’s not Christmas without magic castles in the air\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10 When it comes to biography, Walt Disney is a true \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Marmite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d figure, with writers and historians pretty evenly divided between effusive hagiography and excoriating expos\u00c3\u00a9s. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Disney Bros – The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-classics","category-graphic-autobiography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5Zt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}