Keskustelujen arkisto

My first memory of Barks is either the story where Donald tries to rescue the nephews in Grand Canyon (with the inflated boat) OR the one with Donald and the nephews as cowboys, with a wild colt that Donald tries to tame with Castor oil. It must have been around 1959-60 in the danish Anders And & Co magazine, that my beloved grandmother bought to me - whom b.t.w. would have been 104 years old today (RIP Granny)

I know most people my age started with Ducktales, but that was not at all the case for me. When I was a kid, my dad had some boxes of old Western comics from the fifties and early sixties, and that's where it started. There was some other stuff there--Little Lulu, New Funnies, some Warner Bros stuff--most of which I enjoyed well enough (I'm keeping up with LL through Dark Horse's reprints), but the ducks were what really sent me. I am ninety percent certain that my first duck story (and first Barks story) was the ten-pager "Turkey Trouble." The other ten percent thinks it might have been "A Spicy Tale," which was definitely my first Scrooge story. Not one of his greater efforts in retrospect, but I was definitely hooked at the time. I watched Ducktales on a number of occasions at friends' houses (no TV growing up), and I liked it okay, but it really didn't match up in my mind. I also purchased a few Disney/Gladstone comics in the early nineties--enough that I learned Barks' name, at least, and that I was peripherally aware of how good Rosa was--but never made any great concerted effort.
Alas, I was a dumb kid, and my younger brothers were dumber still, so we did not keep these comics in very good shape, to rather understate the situation. So for a long time, I was completely out of them. Then (this was late October of 2007, my amazon history reveals), on some sort of whim whose origins I cannot begin to remember, I ordered a few Gladstone comic albums ("The Sunken City," "Back to the Klondike," and "The Money Well"). And I must've taken to them, given that my history reveals that I then proceeded to order a total of forty more duck comics and albums in 2007. My initial goal was just to own every Barks comic I'd had as a kid (mission accomplished and then some); at first and for a long time I would only read Barks and Rosa, but my tastes have gradually become more cosmopolitan.
In 2009, I got depressed about Gemstone's closure and started a blog about duck comics on the theory that someone needed to carry the flame. Possibly I was slightly more melodramatic than was warranted, but there you are. The rest is history. Really, really insignificant history.

I don't know my first Duck story anymore and also not my first Barks story, but I started reading Disney comics in the early and mid-1980s. Apart from Barks, I was especially impressed by the stories of excellent Egmont artists like Vicar, Branca and Bolster who ruled in the Disney comic magazines here that time. Already as a little child I had a fine sense for the different styles and qualities of the different artists. So it was a fortunate coincidence for me that Ehapa just started at that time to cough up the name of the "good artist" to the child-reader directly in its comic publications; a series that was published since 1984 had Barks' name written on every cover and included a one-page short biography in the first number. I was thankful for all such information that I soaked up greedily. What anguish of mind those must have had who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s and could only tear their hairs because they did not know who the godlike was who worked all those wonders!

I think it influenced a lot of fans too. There were so many titles and collections and offerings the likes of which are often reserved for our European contemporaries.
I miss Gladstone actually. It's easy to forget how far these comics fell in the 70s and early 80s. I don't think we are anywhere near where we are today without them.

I've had very limited with comics in my early life, but I think my first ever contact with a Disney comic was some kind of Disney digest from Hong Kong. I was quite young then and I've forgotten all but one particular story now: Ruling the Roost and it was in chinese. I think maybe because it was different (much better?) than the few other offerings in that thin kiddy magazine. Huh, now I still wonder if I have it...
Anyway, I've never actually spared another thought for a Disney comic after that. There was the Disney Channel, which of course meant Ducktales and I enjoyed it very much... Yet it now pales in comparison to the real deal in my eyes.
It wasn't so long ago actually, when I was bored one day and decided to try reading a random comic online. Those turned out to be Don Rosa's Duck stories and I've forked over cash for hardcopies ever since.

"Matterhorn" was published in English in the UK (along with another in the series, "The Rain God of Uxmal"). I have copies of them, though I can't claim they're among my all-time favorites.

I have Ten Dollar Dither in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #687.