Keskustelujen arkisto

I am always interested in litterature about the comic creators, studios and publishers. And I'm sure I'm not the only one here with that interest.

If anyone wants to sell or trade stuff like that, maybe you could post here, and tell us about it.
Or maybe you know about places that sells stuff like that, or discover something interesting on Ebay or whereever.

The two Norwegians Olaf Solstrand and Tommy Kvarsvik are now starting up a new Norwegian publication about Disney comics titled "KVAKK!" (QUACK!). Their plan is to publish four issues in the year. For those of you who are able to read Norwegian, take a look at this: http://andebyonline.com/forum/2474/ .

Excellent idea, Ole!

The Hand Behind the Mouse--
An intimate biography of Ub Iwerks, the man Walt Disney called "the greatest animator in the world"
Leslie Iwerks [granddaughter] & John Kenworthy
Disney Editions, New York, 2001

As the title makes it clear, it's a biography of Iwerks, dealing with more than his years as an animator and comic strip artist. He truly was quite a genius, who developed interests and passions for diverse things and quickly came to master each of them.
Includes a Glossary of technical terms and an Index.

Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book
Michael Barrier
M. Lilien, New York, 1982-- hardciver

The above link is to the hard-to-find original hardcover edition; I only have some photocopies.
Michael Barrier announced on his site Fantagraphics was planning a softcover revised edition.

Carl Barks: Conversations
Interviews, edited by Donald Ault
University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2003-- softcover

(Already mentioned by Scroodude)
Interviews conducted between December 1962 and June 2000 by various persons.
Includes a Chronology, Notes in the Interviewers, and an Index.

Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book--
Unmasking the Myth of Modernity
Thomas Andrae
University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2006-- softcover

(Already mentioned above by Scroodude)
A scholarly study of Barks' works.
Includes A Carl Barks Filmography and an Index.

Don Rosa et il Rinascimento Disneyano
Alberto Becattini, Leonardo Gori, Francesco Stajano
Editrice Comic Art, Rome, Italy, 1997-- softcover
(I have not found a web site for Editrice Comic Art)

The first book devoted to Keno Don Rosa
In Italian; plenty of illustrations, with a few pages in color (including a gallery of covers of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck).
Includes an Index of Rosa's Disney & non-Disney stories.

I met Alberto Becattini in spring 1997 and he kindly sent me a copy of the book later, as soon as it was published, but I don't remember when the hardcover version was printed, and I don't see it mentionned in the softcover; I assumed it was earlier the same year, but I guess Didier Guez has the right date for the hardcover when he lists it as 1995.

Didier Ghez also provides an Annotated Bibliography of Disney Reference Books on his site-- up to 1999.

And of course, there is that one great omniscient book we can only dream of thumbing through...

The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook
Junior Woodchucks of the World, countless editions
Duckburg, Calisotta
http://scroogemacduck.free.fr/smileys/objects/jw_gb0001.gif

Includes an exhaustive bibliography of anything ever published on Disney comics.

http://scroogemacduck.free.fr/smileys/objects/jw_emblem0001.giflivier

From the above mentionned, I recommend :
Carl Barks: Conversations by Donald Ault
Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book-- Unmasking the Myth of Modernity by Thomas Andrae

And I'll add :
Mickey Mouse in Color (Pantheon Books) for the contibutions of Geoffrey Blum, Thomas Andrae and the interview of Floyd Gottfredson by David R. Smith.

Quote from user: PaperOleI'm looking forward to reading the two books by Andrae and Ault, but in the meantime I have a couple of questions:

1. What influences besides western movies and the National Geographic are known to have been around Carl Barks? Did he listen to the radio, pick up a comic book on Thursdays when visiting the Western offices or down at the drugstore, when spying on what comics the kids picked out? What newspapers did he read? Did he watch TV at all? Go to baseball games? What did he do for fun??

2. Someone growing up in California in the late 40es (Hi, Rob :-) might be able to answer if theatre plays were staged or aired on radio around the time when they were staged on Broadway, or if they were only known from the news? Did Barks ever go to a play, or listen to one on the radio to pass the tedious hours spent filling in blacks and lettering?

3. Why did Scrooge always say "...I made it square!"
Grammatically it would be "squarely", but maybe Americans didn't care about grammar, and that's just how the expression went? (Or is it a subtle comment on the wonder of capitalism, that money has a way of not only multiplying but growing exponentially? The first million takes hard work, the next one rolls in all by itself (and next time you look you got 4 and then 16).
Hej, Ole! Although I was born in Los Angeles, I was living mainly in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and Chicago, in the early and late '50s. But, I DID visit family in Southern California quite often (when we weren't visiting The Netherlands) during Barks' heyday.

#3 - "I made it SQUARE" (rather than squarely) comes from the saying "Fair and Square" (with integrity and honestly). So, it is an abbreviation of "Fair and Square"- with the missing portion implied. THEREFORE Barks remains grammatically CORRECT. He only waivered from being grammatically correct in dialogue of slow-witted or country folk characters.

#1 - Carl mentioned to interviewers, as well as to me in private conversations that he read a lot of pulp novels (mainly "Western stories". He also read comedy books with gags, jokes and short funny stories. He also listened to the radio - (music, but mainly radio dramas and comedy shows (Mysteries, Westerns, ("The Shadow")), Vaudeville comedy duo routines, etc. T.V. didn't exist in his formative years, so it provided very little influence on his stories (only as a part of current lifestyle in the latter part of his storywriting career). He read the comics in the newspapers. As he mentioned, he was influenced by several newspaper comic strips in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. He had read a few comic book stories from the superheroes, and flipped through Western Publishing's comic books once in a while, but that was very little, and probably had almost no influence on his writing. He not only looked at the pictures in "National Geographic Magazine", but also read the articles. He read newspapers regularly, and got ideas from real news. He also read some books about history.

He was a fairly inward person, but he was once young and did things that most young people did. he went to some baseball games, and played sports a bit as a youth. But he admitted he wasn't very good at it. He couldn't see very well. He dated and got married at a young age. I'm sure that he and his young fiancée went to the cinema, and some parties . We've seen photos of him rowing a boat on a lake when he lived in Minneapolis. I'm sure he took a young woman friend for boatrides. Maybe he even wore a straw hat and brought a ukulele and serenaded her!

As for Newspapers he read - I assume that he read the major newspapers of the area he was living. The USA didn't have National newspapers in those days. While in Eastern oregon, I assume his dirt-poor rural farmer parents didn't subscribe to a newspaper. If he saw any there, sitting in the general store, he might have read the headlines. But it would have been a poor-quality rural regional newspaper, and he wouldn't have read enough of it to influence his writing, unless it had a story on an unusual situation, which he might have remembered. He must have read "The San Francisco Examiner" (Hearst paper), and "The San Francisco Chronicle", the 2 major newspapers of that great city, when his family lived in Santa Rosa, and when he later moved to San Francisco. He worked for one of them, as a typesetter, as I recall. He probably read "The Los Angeles Times", "Los Angeles Examiner", "Los Angeles Herald" and or other Southern California Newspapers while working at Disney Studios, and living in San Jacinto, Hemet, Goleta and Temecula.

#2 - Live stage plays were NOT aired on radio, but live plays made especially for radio were aired live. Barks listened to many of those, especially as a child. Knowing his character, I don't think he listened to radio plays while inking, as I think he would have wanted to concentrate fully on one or the other. I'm sure Barks' first (and possibly his second wife) may have dragged him to a stage play or two. But I'm guessing he wouldn't have liked getting dressed up and attending them. I'm sure that he must have seen "Ramona" live, having lived in San Jacinto. It gave him enough inspiration to write: "In Old California". I visited my grandparents in San Jacinto in summers of 1951, 1952 and 1953, and saw lots of adverts for the live play, shown in the famous "Ramona Bowl". Barks lived there from 1943-1952. I could have bumped into him there by accident, in 1951 or 1952. My grandparents lived on 2nd Street near Main St, and Ramona Boulevard. It was very close to where Soboba Road (with Turkey ranch, and further away, the Soboba Indian Reservation down that road). We could hear the thousands of turkeys gobbeling! They had influenced Barks' use of turkeys in many stories (Hairy Harry, Custard gun story, Donald buying turkey land in The Black Forest).

Barks lived only about one and a half blocks from my grandparents. And I even bought my comic books during my visits, at the drugstore in nearby Downtown Hemet (San Jacinto's sister city), on (that same) Main Street, where Barks went to look to see what the kids were buying. I don't remember seeing an old man watching me and my cousin flipping through comic books there. And Barks confirms that fact, as he told me several times (and also stated in interviews) that he NEVER saw a kid flipping through, or buying any Disney comics. Had he seen us, he would have seen us both flip through them, and eventually have my grandfather buy them for us.

How many regurlarly published fanzines about Disney comics exist out there in the great wide world?
In danish there is DDF(R)appet(silly name, inspired by NAFS(K)urieren), and Strip! which is a general comics magazine with some Disney comic articles in it once in a while.
In norwegian there is Donaldisten(does that still exist?), and the new beforementioned Kvakk!.
In swedish there is NAFS(K)urieren, and Bild & Bubbla, the swedish general comics magazine, with Disney comic articles.
Who will continue the list?

In France are Back-Up by my friend Tristan Lapoussiere, specialized in American comics, and the CBD, about comics in general, as well as Hop and Pimpf. But no dedicated Disney comics magazine.

I am just new member here, may I ask if you know any websites where I can publish or post my comic cartoon????? please reply if yu know one.................