Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi all,
I'm using this list for my personal matters a moment.
My PC has broken down and i'm using my old PC.
But i can't get the e-mail addresses.
So to Eta, Luis, Duco, AC, and anybody else. I'
ll contact you as soon as my pc's fixed\.
Its been a week now.
Gosh, days without pc is a torture to me.
Guess i'm already enslaved by technology, huh? :)

Best,
Arie Fachrisal
--------------------
"Not up to those above, but above those below"
--------------------

At 2000-09-04 16:26 +0200, Botto Armando wrote:
>At a quarter past midnight, on August 25th, 2000, the dream continued on.
>
>Sleep well, uncle Carl...

E bravo Armando!

Frank (filologo disneyano) http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/

Hi!

Do you have personal memories, anecdotes, or anything like that about Carl
Barks? Please send them to me. I am trying to collect them into one article
which I´ll publish in my Duck/Barks/Disney -fanzine "Ankkalinnan Pamaus".

Thanks for your efforts in advance!

Timo Ronkainen

Finnish Donaldists/Ankistit
http://members.xoom.com/timoro/pamaus
.................................
"Rumble on, buxom bumble bee!
Go sit on cowslip - far from me!"

timoro at hotmail.com
http://members.xoom.com/timoro
http://members.xoom.com/timoro/pamaus

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

Hi, Timo, and all!
You wrote:
>
> Do you have personal memories, anecdotes, or anything like that about Carl
> Barks? Please send them to me. I am trying to collect them into one article
> which I?ll publish in my Duck/Barks/Disney -fanzine "Ankkalinnan Pamaus".
>
> Thanks for your efforts in advance!

Well, The italian mag "Fumo di China" is planning to to dedicate a special
issue to Uncle Carl, scheduled to come out in November in the newsstands.
The anecdotes, comments and other things, 'd be very welcomed, if you think
that they could be used for both the publications.
I send a peculiar message to the Italian friends of the list, whose
collaboration shall be very "gradita" by the 'Fumo di China"'s staff.

Sincerely,

Luca Boschi

I finally completed my homage to the Great Master -- an inadequate and
belated but sincerely heartfelt thank you that was several sleepless nights
in the making. The more personal part of it appears below. The full thing,
complete with many original photographs, is at

http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/disney/barks/

He could do magic

One day of many years ago I decided that I couldn't be so lucky as to be
alive at the same time as Carl Barks without letting him know how grateful
I was for the joy he had given me with his masterpieces, so I decided to
write him a letter.

Of course I had no idea of where to send it, so I tried inquiring at the
Walt Disney company in Burbank, California. I got a polite reply saying
that they could not give out the personal addresses of any of the artists
(fair enough) but that I could send my letter to them and they would
forward it. I had not done this before because I feared that by writing to
Carl Barks c/o Disney the letter might just be filed away in some archive
without him ever seeing it. But when they explicitly told me that they
would pass it along, I went ahead.

I knew that my hero was in his nineties and I imagined that, with the
number of people in the world who loved his stories, he would get several
such messages a day; so I certainly did not expect a personal reply. I was
just happy for him to know that, somewhere on another continent, there was
yet another reader who really, really liked his work.

I can't even begin to describe how surprised, excited and happy I was when,
some time later, I received a letter from him! It's just beyond words. This
man, one of the greatest authors of our century, and one of the people I
admired most in the world, had taken the time and trouble to write a
personal letter to a nobody like me! I was over the moon.

We exchanged a few more letters and then, in 1994, I finally got a chance
to meet him when he visited London as part of his seven-week tour of Europe
-- he was 93 years old and this was the first time in his life that he was
out of America! In fact he later wrote to Italian Disney author Carlo
Chendi that he was happy to have been able to do this trip "while he was
still young". And he was indeed: he was in excellent physical shape, stood
tall and straight, and walked without a cane. (During that tour, while in
Italy he even piloted a motor boat in Lake Como!) He reminded me very much
of my own grandfather who was slightly older than him (born in 1898) and
was at the time still equally fit, going out for his regular walk every day.

His visit to that Disney store in London resolved into a two-hour signing
session, with people queuing up to get his autograph on a comic or on one
of the leaflets that were available in store advertising the latest
lithograph from one of his paintings -- a long, horizontal one, based on
the Golden Fleecing story, that I would see again years later in his living
room. I asked him to sign the large hardbound volume of Uncle Scrooge
stories that was one of my most prized possessions when I was little. I
also took some photographs of him and I got an employee of the store to
take one of us together. I later send him double copies by mail and he
returned mine signed. I then framed them and hung them in my living room,
where they have been since.

Getting to meet him in person was at first perhaps even more extraordinary
than receiving the letter: there he was, in the flesh, smiling at me. Wow!
I was so thrilled, even if my quota of time next to him was only of a
couple of minutes or so. I barely had time to say my name (so that he could
write it in the dedication) and that I loved his stories, and then it was
the turn of the next person in the queue. He later wrote to me that,
unsurprisingly, he had not realised who I was, but that he made the
connection when he got the pictures in the mail.

Many things happened over the next few years and I lost touch with him. I
later learned that his "managers" intercepted his mail and that I must have
been a dodgy character to their eyes because of my association with Don
Rosa, whom I even visited in 1996 when I was writing a book about him with
Leonardo Gori and Alberto Becattini. In retrospect, this explains why I no
longer received any replies from Carl Barks during that period. I shall not
go into the sad details of the whole story of the Carl Barks Studio, but
suffice it to say that it all ended up in court and that the bad guys
eventually disappeared, to everyone else's relief. Those who know the
background appreciate the "champ" back cover of Uncle Scrooge 314, which
says it all without the need for words.

In my next letter I suggested to Carl Barks that, now that circumstances
had changed, the time might be right for a meeting with Don Rosa, who had
always been one of his most devoted fans. This happened a little later: my
friend Michael Naiman, another great fan of both authors, accompanied Don
in his visit to Carl's home in Grants Pass, Oregon, and wrote a brief but
inspired article about the meeting which apppeared in what unfortunately
turned out to be the next-to-last published issue (317) of Uncle Scrooge.
(I hope that I will have to correct this last sentence in the future.)

It was at Michael's home in San Diego in 1998 that I first heard about
Gerry Tank. Michael had been arranging for Barks fans from all over the
world to send in little notes for Carl's 97th birthday. He collected all
the cards and ancillaries (someone had even sent a bottle of liquor) in a
big parcel that he forwarded to Gerry in Grants Pass, who would take Carl
out to dinner for his birthday and deliver the surprise box to him. Gerry
had been the doctor of Carl's wife Gar?; he lived not far from the Duck Man
and visited him regularly. On the day I arrived at Michael's, him and Gerry
had an animated telephone conversation about some incredible problems,
worthy of Donald Duck's worst day, that had sent this important parcel
missing (I am over-simplifying). To anyone whose birthday card was in that
bundle: you have no idea of what Michael and Gerry went through to ensure
that it would be delivered against all odds! But all went well in the end,
and Carl was very pleased to feel the warmth and affection of so many fans
he almost didn't know he had.

Gerry and I then got in touch via email. Leonardo Gori and I were writing
another book on Disney comics, this time focused on Mickey Mouse author
Floyd Gottfredson. I sent Gerry a list of questions we had prepared and he
interviewed Carl for us. That, too, was a brilliant experience, despite the
indirection.

But the best was yet to come. Later that year I had to visit the States
again to speak at a conference; so, with Gerry's invaluable logistic help,
I took a detour to Oregon for the weekend to visit my hero. The plane that
was meant to take me from New Jersey to Oregon had a malfunction in
midflight, so we were flown back to Newark and I had to get on a plane to
California the next day, and then on a connecting flight to Oregon. I felt
of course damn lucky not to have crashed (!) but I was also furious that
this unique chance to spend some time with Carl Barks was being cut short.
After repeated airport delays, and too many phone calls to my patient
contact, I finally landed in Medford, Oregon where Gerry had come to pick
me up. He drove me to Grants Pass, I checked into a local motel and we
finally arrived at Carl's home in mid-afternoon.

You can well imagine that at that point I was essentially in paradise. Carl
was in excellent shape and welcomed Gerry and me into his living room.
Betty, one of his helpers, was also there. I was almost petrified with joy.
We started to talk about this and that, I retold my adventure of the broken
plane that had to make a U-turn in midair, then Carl asked about the
conference that I was going to attend next and I opened my bags to show
them the large laminated posters I had prepared for it. I also started to
take out a variety of silly presents that I had brought along: I felt that
this man had given me so much that I wanted to bring in the moral
equivalent of an Easter egg the size of a large safe! As we were back
chatting in the armchairs after I had spread the content of my suitcases
over the floor of his living room, he suggested that I bring my luggage
downstairs. I explained that I had already checked in at the Super-8 Motel
(I still have their plastic card from that afternoon, by the way) and that
we had only brought the suitcases along because they were full of this
stuff that was meant for him. At that point he insisted in the friendliest
of ways that I should be his guest and stay at his house, that he had
plenty of room, that there was absolutely no reason for me to stay
elsewhere and that I should cancel my booking at the motel.

So I was taken downstairs to the suite that had been Gar? Barks's, with
Carl assuring me that I would be fine here, and I just could not believe
it. Could not believe it! Come on, I'll take a real plane crash if that's
what I get afterwards! If I had felt like entering paradise when he greeted
me on his front door with his friendly smile, now I was being taken to the
highest clouds and given the golden keys by the boss!

Carl then took us to his study; it was very luminous despite being one
floor down from the main entrance, because the house was built on a hill.
Brushes and painting colours everywhere. Framed duck pictures on the walls,
but he explained that they were only lithographs (he only had one original
duck painting in the entire house). By far the most impressive item in the
room was Carl's famous easel, seen in so many photographs, made of white
perforated board of the kind normally used to hang power tools to the
garage wall. In the style of Gyro Gearloose, Carl had designed and
customised it to make it suit his work style and his necessities. A smaller
perforated panel could be used to hold smaller paintings at an angle. A
movable "balcony", a bit like the gizmo used by New York window cleaners,
could be positioned in the most comfortable place across this panel to act
as a hand rest. "My hand is no longer that steady", he explained, "but if I
rest it on this I can still work on the fine details." And finally the
cutest trick of all: a long wooden stick ending in a hook that he could
attach to any hole on the board to provide an easily moved support. This
allowed him to reach any point of a large painting without going to the
trouble of detaching and repositioning the "balcony".

His study was also full of comics with his stories, not only the American
ones but also many foreign editions, including the large hardbound Io,
Paperone that I had brought for him to sign in London (this is the volume
he is leafing through in the picture with Gerry and Betty), as well as
translations of these Italian Mondadori volumes from the Seventies in many
other languages. At my request we then visited the back room where he kept
his famous collection of National Geographic magazines (I thought of my
grandmother, a miniaturist painter, who used to love them too, and she had
almost as many). What a thrill to see the magazines that had taken Carl
Barks's mind around the world, in preparation for the adventures of his ducks!

That same afternoon Betty took me into town with the car, first to the
motel to cancel my reservation and then to a Radio Shack to buy a power
supply for one of the toys I had brought for Carl. The British power supply
that came with the gadget was of course unusable in America because of the
different voltage. The gizmo was a special clock that looked like a musical
metronome with its oscillating stick, but the stick had a row of LEDs that
displayed time, date and a scrolling message in the air as the clock
ticked. It was originally meant to count down the number of days until the
end of the millennium, but I had reprogrammed the message to say "xxx days
till Carl is 100". We had a good time getting it to work and setting the
correct time on it once we got back home.

That evening, the four of us went out to a very fine restaurant, where Carl
generously treated us to some delicious fish dishes. I had a sturgeon,
which I had previously only seen in encyclopaedias. Then back home, and to
bed. In that bed! It was almost too much of an honour to lie down on it.
What a day!

The following day I met another one of Carl's helpers, the Helen Hunicke
who also acted as his secretary and who had in fact typed that first letter
I received from Carl many years before. I was very pleased to meet her at
last. She had brought along a nice painting of a pretty girl with a dog
sled (yes, just like in "North of the Yukon"). The interesting bit was that
apparently the girl really existed, was a champion dog sled racer, and
was... Helen's granddaughter! Helen looked much too young to be a
grandmother, let alone one with a 20 year old granddaughter, so I thought
she was pulling my leg. But no, it was all true... Exciting life!

Another interesting thing that Helen did had to do with a therapeutic
potion made from a tropical fruit called Noni, whose healthy virtues she
extolled. I was offered a small glass to try, but I found the taste so
horrible that I couldn't finish it. Carl, instead, drank his like a good
boy. Since he had it regularly every day, his health and longevity would
have probably made an excellent testimonial for the makers of this beverage.

I spent the morning interviewing Carl for the book about him I will write
one day (probably with Leonardo again -- but this time it's got to be in
English!). His nicest words were for his dear wife Gar?. Hanging on the
wall in front of us was a really beautiful painting of a mountain lake with
deer. One of hers. "She was born with only this much of a left arm. No
hand.", he told me. "When her parents saw the newborn baby without a hand,
they cried." Then he pointed at the painting, explaining how she had to do
everything she did, including of course painting, with just one hand. The
love in his eyes, in his body language, in his words, was moving. He
communicated the joy of the achievement of having created such beauty
despite the handicap. "When her parents saw THIS, they cried." We both
laughed, perhaps because we were about to cry too. He really made me feel
the strength of their bond. It was beautiful.

Carl, Helen and I went out for lunch and had a good time. I seem to recall
that we talked about our families. Back home, Carl had some rest in front
of the television (he liked to watch sports programmes) and I went out for
a little walk in the neighbourhood.

Later that afternoon Carl received the visit of another fan, a doctor
called Richard Huemer, whose father (also Richard Huemer) had worked at
Disney as an animator and had been story director for Fantasia. Richard had
brought with him two interesting artefacts from his father's things: a
piece of original artwork from Snow White and a wonderful sketchbook. In
the photograph he is showing us something from the sketchbook and under it
he holds the framed artwork in his lap. Gerry also joined us, bringing
along some yummy takeaway food (roast chicken or something like that) and
we spent an enjoyable evening around the dinner table discussing subjects
ranging from animation to travelling to medicine to cryptography.

The next morning Carl, Gerry, Helen and I went out for breakfast, which I
thought was a real treat! Eggs, pancakes and other delicious things that I
considered fairly exotic (in fact, very comic-book-like) for a breakfast.
These were our last few hours together and I felt as if I were in a
beautiful dream with the sad sensation that I was soon going to wake up. I
told Carl about a vivid memory from my childhood of diving in a mountain of
golden wheat when I was perhaps 6 or 7 (at the time my grandfather owned
some wheat fields), and burrowing in it like a gopher, and tossing it in
the air thinking that I was like Uncle Scrooge.

As we got back home, while Carl was coming out of the car a coin fell out
of his pocket. I picked it up and gave it to him, but he told me to keep
it. "My lucky dime!", I said, "given to me by the creator of Uncle
Scrooge!". One day I will get hold of two velvet cushions and two glass
bells (I already have two eminently suitable marble columns -- I inherited
them from my grandparents) and I will place my two lucky dimes where they
belong. The other one, in case you are wondering, is an 1875 coin given to
me by Don Rosa.

Back at home I met a third helper of Carl, Anja, who had just spent the
weekend in Las Vegas with her boyfriend. She had some good Vegas anecdotes
for us.

Gerry, Helen and Carl drove me to the airport and the time came to say
goodbye. I flew off to my computer conference in Texas, leaving it one day
earlier to go to the presentation of my Gottfredson book in Italy. When I
finally came back home to Cambridge I was exhausted and drained of all
energy, but happy: I had just lived through some of the most intense days
of my life. No words can completely describe the ecstatic feeling I
experienced during these short days. And it had also been heartwarming to
witness the love and care with which the people near Carl looked after him.

I will never forget the emotion of spending that weekend with Carl Barks.
Here is one of the greatest men I have ever known, and yet he is so modest
and unassuming. I am only one out of millions of people in the world who
are fascinated by his creations, but he makes me feel like a most special
guest and he welcomes me like a prince. He has a kind heart and a generous,
contagious smile. As I wrote to him shortly after my visit:

Your ducks will always be there as the testimony of your genius. I trust
that even hundreds of years from now they will still be reprinted as the
great classics that they are. You are already immortal as author, artist,
narrator. What not many people know is how nice and kind you are as a human
being. I wish I had kids so that I could read them your comics and later
tell them about you, and inspire their hearts with the story of this
humble, honest, hard-working man that put a smile on so many millions of
faces, generation after generation, and yet remained so innocent and modest
about himself. [...] I'll never forget this visit. And, unless you decide
at the time that you have more important commitments, as in fact you well
deserve, I promise I'll be back to take you out for a nice celebration
dinner when the clock reaches the end of its countdown.

His reply, written a few days before Christmas 1998, mentioned a nasty
pneumonia that hit him a couple of weeks after my visit, and from which he
was just recovering:

Well, I am feeling better today. Maybe life will improve soon. The
millennium clock is still clicking. It gets lots of comments from visitors.
Today it says "825 days till Carl is 100". I will probably make it.

He almost did. But leukaemia attacked him in 1999, slowly and methodically
destroying his blood cells; a year later his health started to deteriorate
fairly rapidly and he asked, with the dignity and wisdom that were so
deeply engrained in his character, that the medications that were
prolonging his life be stopped. Gerry acted as a bridge between his fans on
the Internet and him, forwarding many emails of encouragement, gratefulness
and love. Carl died a couple of months later, on the 25th of August 2000,
aged 99. I could not help thinking about the King Khan Khan of one of his
last and most powerful stories (despite the Tony Strobl artwork) who, after
having lived for millennia, voluntarily chose to eat the antidote to the
blue immortality powder.

Frank (filologo disneyano) http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/

Botto Armando wrote:
> Sleep well, uncle Carl...

Thanks, Armando: unforgettable.

- Paolo

--
http://members.xoom.it/inducks mailto:p.castagno at libero.it

Fernando:

> What is the real history behind this [Barks'] "managers"?

Well, as Frank already said:

> suffice it to say that it all ended up in court and that the bad guys
> eventually disappeared, to everyone else's relief.

Barks had some managers a few years back, forming "The Carl Barks Studio".
If you want to know the details about their practices, try searching in the
DCML archives for "Grandey". Or "Barks Studio".

--Harry.

for Timo, Luca and all friends of DCML, this is my personal memories.
Unfortunately not in English (my english is very, very bad).

Sono semplici pensieri, li scrissi di getto due giorni dopo la morte di Carl, cio? appena l'ho saputo.
Ho voluto che rimanessero cos?: spontanei, scritti con il cuore, non volevo ripensamenti a mente fredda, se lo facessi snaturerei i sentimenti che mi hanno portato a scriverla.
L'ho scritta per me stesso, non per diffonderla, ma il vostro entusiasmo mi ha contagiato ed allora perch? non rendersene partecipi?

- RICORDI -

L'uomo dei paperi...

con lui se ne v? per sempre una parte di noi,
quella pi? gioiosa,
e forse non ritorner? mai pi?.
Mi piace ricordarlo non per la sua impareggiabile abilit?
ma per la sua umanit?,
non a caso era chiamato Uncle Carl Barks,
questo perch? era considerato da tutti come uno zio.
Non era un semplice disegnatore
ma molto di pi?,
forse con un' enciclopedia si possono descrivere le sue opere
ma di sicuro non esistono le parole adatte per contenere l'uomo.
Tutti noi dobbiamo qualcosa a lui!
Carl possedeva un talento narrativo inimmaginabile,
mentre il suo disegno era semplice,
schietto,
come un bambino;
forse era anche questa la sua forza insieme alle sue storie,
che si dipanavano con incredibile fluidit? e riuscivano a creare
lo stupore,
l'imprevisto,
come quando eravamo piccoli,piccoli ed ogni cosa era nuova,
ora che siamo cresciuti tutto ci appare cos? prevedibile,
cos? banale,
cos? scontato,
ma Barks no!
no! Barks non ? morto.
Sapr? vivere oltre il senso comune della vita,
perch? un uomo sar? morto solo quando non ci sar? pi? nessuno a ricordarlo.
Amo pensare che d'ora in poi vivr?,
e si divertir? tantissimo insieme agli altri grandi vecchi
in quel mondo di sogni che insieme hanno creato.

Ciao Carl