Mary Perkins or Mary Atkins?

Mary Perkins/on Stage  è stata pubblicata per anni in Italia sulle pagine del quotidiano Il Giorno. Forse pochi ricordano che il nome della protagonista – e di conseguenza della strip – fu mutato in Mary Atkins. L’unica spiegazione si può cercare con la paralella presenza della strip Perkins di John Miles pubblicata sulla stessa pagina di comics.

… whoever has read the comics of Mary Atkins (1) published on “Il Giorno,” will note how the drawings are laid out through varied frame solutions with a highly technical assembly (the artist belongs to the great Alex Raymond school) with very unusual and  daring angles and perspectives inspired by cinematographic language, contrasts (frame after frame) with views from a distance, from above, to settings in which the “lens” (ideally speaking) focuses on the characters through the gap of another character’s arms, drawn in a foreground close-up etc.

 

(1) The name of the protagonist – and consequently the strip, was changed to Mary Atkins. The only explanation can be found in the parallel presence of the strip Perkins by John Miles published on the same comics page

 

from: Apocalittici e integrati, Umberto Eco, 1964