Yes, that sounds like the *perfect* idea for this blog.

"They Call me MISTER Duck!"

(That title is just my extrapolation of what Gemstone almost certainly would have called it had they released it stateside, given their proclivity for movie references.  The French version is just "Call Me Mr. Donald;" the original Italian, per google translate, is the uneuphonious "Donald and Honors."  If you don't get the impression that anyone was trying very hard here, wait'll you see the story itself.)
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"Donaldo Furioso"

Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso is a massive sixteenth-century epic poem/romance taking place in Carolingian Europe (with occasional excursions to other environs).  As it happens, I've actually read the thing, in Barbara Reynolds' excellent two-volume verse translation.  And I recommend it to you all.  Even if you're a connoisseur of epic poetry, the first word that comes to your mind to characterize it as a form probably isn't "fun."  But let me tell you, Ariosto is pretty much fun fun fun 'til her daddy takes the T-Bird away.  The poem is nominally centered around a Christians-vs-Saracens thing, but that's really just a flimsy pretext for a whole bunch of knights and the odd wizard gallivanting around, having duels, fighting monsters, righting wrongs, finding magical artifacts, and so on.  If the idea of a story involving heroic Christians fighting evil Muslims sets off warning bells in your head, as well it might, please be advised that it's really nothing like that: Ariosto treats his characters sympathetically regardless of religious orientation, and the poem really doesn't push the conflict very hard at all.

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"The Tommy Moccasin Trail"

I feel like this blog has been too damn positive lately.  Here's my impression of me: "Gee whillikers, fellows, look at this keen Italian artist I just discovered!  Isn't he swell?  Golly, I sure hope he gets published in the US someday!  Living in 1958 is the most!  I like Ike!  I wonder if Jenny will go to the sock hop with me?  Gosh, she sure is pretty!"  Now, that's all good clean fun as far as it goes--and we've definitely not seen the last of entries of that nature--but sometimes you just need to spit some venom, you know?
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