Keskustelujen arkisto

This is my first post in this forum and I hope you don't mind me creating another topic for this instead of adding my comments to the other lengthy post on almost the same topic here. At some forums they like long topics, at some they like to start a new one so newcomers do not have to read the long one. If y'all like single long topics better feel free to add this post the to the long one...

Personal introduction
I don't have a large comics collection - in fact I own very few - but I'm a big fan of Carl Barks. When I was in my teens the Carl Barls Library (CBL) by Another Rainbow came out. My father, being the bigger collector, didn't want them and they were far to expensive for me. I very much liked that they were in English (I'm Dutch) because then the jokes come out better. I also liked that they had accompanying in-depth articles and that they finally were in chronological order. I didn't like that they were in B/W however. So I never bought them.

Then the CBL in Color (CBLC) came out (ca. 1992~'96). I saw a few at my local comic store (which doesn't exist anymore). I loved what I saw, but I thought it'd be almost impossible to collect all of these import "foreign language" (my domestic language is Dutch) soft cover comics in ye 'ol 'Comics and Stories' style and format. The internet didn't exist yet and I could find little information on them. I didn't bother to ask the shop keeper either (stupid of me, I know!). This is about twenty years ago now and I don't know anymore why I didn't bother. Maybe the import copy that I looked at was ridiculously high priced, I wasn't "into" comics that much anymore or maybe I thought that it'd take too long for the series to finish.

Remember, in those days some classic comic book series that were reprinted didn't even finish completely: the famous 'Blue Series' reprint of Bob & Bobette (Spike & Suzy; Suske & Wiske), the 'Classic Carl Barks stories' (in Dutch, B/W, inducs code: AKV) etc. I didn't trust it. Maybe I should have...

All in all you needed about 75 comics for the long stories and the short ones together (25 long and 50 short) to own Barks' complete oeuvre. And no hard cover.

Besides, me and my father regularly bought a copy of one of the comics in the excellent Dutch series 'Beste Verhalen' (inducks code: BV) ever since the seventies. From the foreword - which has been the same since 1975 - I learned who Carl Barks is/was and that the Dutch team that published the Dutch version of 'WD's Comics and Stories' (simply and aptly called the 'Donald Duck' weekly) are big Barks fans themselves. I mean: Daan Jippes who re-inked some of Barks comics worked there (and Robb_K from this forum, I think). So trying to complete those seemed like the best option to get a complete collection of Barks work. That series at least would never stop being published (as it was aimed at the general public) and they were reprinted when sold out.

But the BV series of Barks stories is not in chronological order and some of the stories in the series weren't printed and colored all that well...

Anyway, a few weeks ago I came across some cheap Barks comics in an outlet store that sold some copies of the 'BV' series. And my love for "the good artist", as he was once called, grew again. Now-a-days we have a little something called "the internet" so I started looking. Because in the 00's the amount of comic stores where I live has decreased to almost nil I was wondering if there would be a way to collect Barks comics via the internet or to buy some sort of complete series of Barks' work. Preferably in English and preferably in color. Buying all of the copies in the BV series that me and my father don't have yet, I found out pretty soon, would be a tremendous task. There are almost no comic stores anymore who sell 2nd hand comics and the 'BV series' costs a lot if you have to buy them new or 2nd hand via the internet (shipping costs etc.).

Fantagraphics' coloring
Then I read about the Fantagraphics (FG) 'Complete CB Disney Library' (inducs: CBDL) that started a few years ago. Hard cover, chronological and in color! And that price: a steal! I didn't like it that they'll take 15 years to complete the series, but I thought: "Even if they don't, I'll have some nice hard cover books of Barks' work to read. So why not?". Well...

There has been quite some debate on the internet about the (re-)coloring of Barks' work in the various reprints and collections that have been published over the years. Some people really, really hate the modern computer coloring that uses some sort of "computer generated airbrush effect". Comparing different versions of the same page with different coloring, I don't like it either, anymore at least. So Fantagraphics decided to re-color them in the exact same style and color palette as the original Dell comics as they first appeared in the fifties of the previous century.

I, as a European born in 1970, have never read nor seen these "originals". The first time I saw this way of coloring is in the Fantagraphics collection. And, well... I think FG outdid their very best to please the American fan and purist and I can live w/ the Beagle Boys in blue instead of orange. However... Like somebody on the internet wrote in the comments section of one of the articles about this FG collection: Dell's colorists were clueless as to what the story was actually about (golden buckets on a bag on the cover of 'The Gilded Man' instead of silver!). So coloring Barks' work in Dell's style might not be as good an idea as they thought. At least, I think so. I'm afraid that have a negative opinion about something that is almost sacred to some people: the original coloring of the Dell comics.

By now you might already fear that I do not particularly like the coloring in the CBDL by FG. If this makes you irate: don't read on.

The modern computer "air brush like" coloring might not do Barks' work justice, but FG's old school Dell like coloring most definitely doesn't in my opinion. I'm sorry: I just don't get it. I love Barks' work in color, but the Dell color schemes of the FG volumes (until now, 2014, that is) were made up by people that absolutely did not care for what was actually drawn (ye 'ol colorists at Dell I mean). Wooden fences are colored white instead of brown, water is green where blue would be the obvious choice, wooden floors are white instead of brown, a brown whale swims in a green sea, everybody's clothes are either blue, red or green (w/ no other shade than the three basic colors of the spectrum).

At best it looks cheap to my eyes (like 1950's off-set printing) but mostly it looks like somebody who is color blind colored these comics. Hair is never gay: it's white or black. The walls around Plain Awful (in 'Lost In The Andes') are green and the grass is yellow or orange instead of the other way around. The pavements in Plain Awful are white w/ blue shading (??). The sides of objects are always in the same (over)saturated color as the rest of the object.
Come on, it's the 21st century: use some shading and more than only the basic four colors of the spectrum. If a stone cube is blue (oh, by the way: a blue stone?) then good colorists color its side in a shade of blue to add some depth to the picture instead of making Barks' fine art look as flat as a pancake. Sometimes a wooden object is brown and its side is white (why not a shade of brown?). And almost no other colors than the basic four (hence the name Four Color Comics?).

The wonderful and highly praised perspective and depth of Barks' drawings are gone this way! I can understand that in the fifties of the previous century comics "weren't worth it" or the printing techniques did't allow for a broad color palette. But this is the 21st century. We now call people like Carl Barks "artists" and coloring comics adds to the depth of artwork instead of flattening it.

Now Barks' comics look cheap and rushed. Like those old comics on brown brittle paper that you find in the second hand section. Seeing the wrong colors on many things that are drawn almost brings tears to my eyes. The printing techniques of the fifties are not something to honor or to look back at in a nostalgic way. Barks' art is.

I'm pretty much in agreement on this post, honestly. You are actually much kinder to the coloring than I am. Fantagraphics has discussed why they did it - the argument being that a new color job could be just as widely disliked, while this colorization has people who enjoyed it, as they had it when they were kids. I personally don't find this a compelling argument, as the universality of the stories reprinted for general readers is diluted not by the coloring techniques of the time, but the errors and lackadaisical incompetence of the time (even Barks was quoted as being frustrated by how they colored his stories).
I can't fault the actual colorist for Fantagraphics, who is doing a perfectly fine job with what he's doing, but I do object to the practice as a customer. And Fantagraphics' commitment to creating a historically viable copy of the stories as they were originally presented is commendable, even if I vehemently disagree with it.

Yep. Same here.

Another Dutchy here.
Interesting discussion, guys, but I'm afraid this whole debate is wasted on me, as I LOVE reading the Fantagraphic books (I'm right in the middle of Trail of the Unicorn), but I honestly don't care about wrong or right colors. My humble apologies to those who do. But, I don't really know what's wrong and what's right here. I know, Michael, you've explained this quite well, and quite eloquently, but it's all a matter of taste to me. And so far, the books taste really, really good.
I've been reading the FG books right from the start and will do so till the CB set is complete....and Gottfredson....and hopefully Don Rosa. Hope I'm still around then.

Siep

Quote from user: MichaelQuote from user: Robb_KHi Michael,

I agree with you about Fantagraphics' colouring, I prefer Sanoma Uitgevers' colourig to the old Western style, and don't like that the errors are not fixed. Good luck finding all the "Beste Verhalen". I, too have seen my favourite comics shops close Panda and Haagse Strip Shop in Den Haag. I still go to Dumpie in Leiden, but they don;t have nearly the stock of good second hand comics as in the old days. I am still missing about 25 Beste Verhalen, and the large-sized Mickey Maandbladen. I am buying all the Fanyagraphics Barks and Gottfredson series books, but I'll about 80 years old when they finish publishing them.

Where do you live? Do I know you from McDrake.nl? Do know you in person? I know Michel Prior, but not a "Michael".
Hello Robb,

Thank you for your kind reply. :) I live in the neighborhood of The Hague (you guessed that right, from my IP address maybe?). We do not know each other. Me and my father also used to nose around in the 'Stripspeurder' at the opposite side of the 'The Hague Stripshop', remember that one? They sold 2nd hand comics where the 'The Hague Stripshop' sold newer ones and collectors items. Two comic shops in the same street! Back in the eighties comics were big. There were lots of comic shops, a very popular TV program ("Wordt Vervolgd") and a very big three day Comic "convention/market" (Strip Drie-daagse). That convention still exists in some form of course. But somehow the popularity of Comics in Holland has declined to sad, sad level. Another good shop that's been around since the good 'ol days, that my father still visits on a regular basis, is 'Bul Super' in Delft.

Curious how that is in other countries, though.

Anyway, I'm afraid that I'll have to stick to the Fantagraphics Collection and its colors then as the 'BV series' will be hard to collect. I take it then that the CB Library in Color soft cover comics will be equally hard to collect ? I'll be 56 in 2026 when they finish, but on a brighter note: all of Barks' best work will have been published by then. They save the "worst" volumes for last. Which makes me wonder: will people still by the FG series in about ten years? Because then they'll only publish Barks' comics of lesser quality...

Anyway, fat chance that FG will alter it's "color policy" because a lot of their customers really like the old school coloring. Or is it so that only die-hard comic collectors are active enough on the internet to say what they think of the old school coloring (which in FG's case even includes the color mistakes!). I wonder what the average customer thinks of it as they are not likely to comment on the internet. And they are even less likely to be able to compare different color schemes of one and the same page.

[off topic] P.S. There's a relatively new Comic Shop in the Zoutmanstraat in The Hague (Barelli). Somebody said that Hans Matla was involved in it (he's some sort of a "legend" in Holland among comic collectors as he wrote "the" almanac on it).
Hoi Michael,
Yes, I used to go regularly to Stripspeurder when I went to Haagse Stripshop. I got tweede hande comics in both shops. I also used to find many good comics at Walk In in the 1980s and early 1990s.

I used to live in Archipelbuurt (in Atjehstraat 13 years) and also in Statenkwartier. My father's family comes from Den Haag.

I am very impressed with the Egmont "Complete Works of Carl Barks", that is also chronological, and on bigger sized paper, better binding, nice colouring and many extra articles. I share in the German set with my work partner (Jan Gulbransson), but I don't enjoy reading the German language (Even Erika Fuchs). So, I would have rather had an equivalent quality Dutch or American set. Too bad there aren't enough fabs in English or dutch-speaking countries to publish such sets. I have an article published in those sets.

I don't have much else to compare it to (my budget for duck comics is skimpy, and my collection is small as a result), but I'm very pleased with Gladstone's color albums from the 90's. They use computer colouring, but it's not as over-the-top as the later Gemstone colouring (not far off from a Pixar movie, IMO) is - mostly flat-shading with a broad-enough pallette and just touches of gradients. I would NEVER want BAD colour, even if it is historically accurate (for comic books, at least - film is a different kettle of fish).
Overall, I'm a big fan of Scott Rockwell's colour. He shys away from gradients, and uses bold colours that intensify the image. They're a bit dark here and there, but that's not a deal-breaker for me. :)

I bought the slipcase edition of Christmas on Bear Mountain and Christmas for Shacktown last week and I've started reading them, though I'm not reading the stories in any particular order. So, as a result, I can now comment on the coloring.
All in all, I don't mind how they did the coloring at all, and I actually think its quite good for whats its worth. The coloring gave these stories the feel of how they would have looked like when they were first published 60-70 odd years ago, thus making them feel much more authentic in a way. While there are certain colors not on the spectrum, I don't mind it that much considering Fantagrpahic's is trying to make these stories as close to their original formats as possible, and they do succeed in that regard. Had they tried to re-color the stories just like how many modern publishers have re-colored Bark's stories, it might still have been good, but its just that this coloring feels more authentic. So far I haven't noticed anything colored in too weird or ugly, even though I admit it was just a little odd to see Donald Duck's 313 car colored blue instead of the usual red. Not that it made the car look ugly, quite the opposite, its just that I'm more used to the red (come to think of it I'm not even sure how the 313 is colored in different countries).
But in the end, to each his own. I'm planning on buying the Old Castle's Secret next. :D

I don't think the coloring for Don Rosa's stories is always that modern. I'd like to see them recolored differently. I mean, no offense to the colorists at the time, but Rosa stories would really benefit from something (even) more artistic and digitally-colored.
ETA: Only Don Rosa's stories. With other artists I'm fine with it.