Keskustelujen arkisto

I keep reading here and there that Carl Barks suffered a burn-out of ideas, inspiration etc. after 1961. 1961 is the year of Magica de Spell's first appearance, in The Midas Touch. The stories he invented involving her were thus made after 1961, and show no sign of burn-out (The many Faces of Magica de Spell especially). Also, The Status Seeker, arguably one of his most unforgettable stories, is from 1963. So what is it with 1961?

I think it all comes down to personal taste. For instance, the mentioned less-than-stellar "That's No Fable" and "Loony Lunar Gold Rush" are actually two of my faves from Barks late period, while the unforgettable "Status Seeker" isn't (great beginning followed by same old fight against the Beagles and rehash of 1947 octopus splash). And I don't think "Bubbleweight Champ" is any more bitter than the 1951 story "Pool Sharks". In my opinion, even some of Barks' very last stories like "Micro-Ducks from Outer Space" or "The Not-So-Ancient Mariner" are still top notch stuff.

Quote from user: HedbergNo one could tell it better than Barks himself - in interviews he told that he felt less inspired and he duplicated several stories, not necessarily making them worse, but repeated plots and stuff...
Could you link to such an interview, please, if available on the Internet? Just being curious.

Hey, I LIKE "Gold Rush," but at the same time, one gets a very strong vibe from it of "okay, I need to come up with something new here, and I'm having a lot of trouble with this, so I'm just going to go nuts." Hence the spectacle of people trying to catapult themselves to the moon, hence rocket seemingly instantaneously built out of junk, and hence the out-of-nowhere Robert Service tribute. Compare it to "The Twenty-Four-Carat Moon," which, while obviously not 'realistic,' is much more in the traditional Barksian vein. "Gold Rush," by comparison, seems kind of desperate. Thematically, we might also note that the fact that Scrooge is opening a store rather than actually hunting for gold indicates a dramatic change from his usual modus operandi to something less romantic. I think it's that kind of thing that people see as evidence of a kind of growing cynicism in Barks' work.
As for "Bubbleweight Champ," I'm mainly referring to the story's very-thinly-veiled alcoholism subtext. Barks' stories were never all sweetness and light, but that seems to me to take things to a whole new level.

Personally, I like the stories made in the 1960s better than the ones in the early 1940s. I don't know, but as Barks stated, he began to run out of Duck ideas, and was delighted when he heard that he could do Scrooge stories. It's always the same. And about "Micro-Ducks", I'm thinking of a sequel. The story is that Scrooge only met them in 1966, without any use of Don and the kids, and that they've returned in 1974, 1982, 1990, 1998 and 2006.
As on "Bubbleweight Champ", it's what I said about the later the later Barks stories earlier in this post. Compare it with "The Duck in the Iron Pants". I like the atmosphere of his later strories better.

Common knowledge is sometimes wrong...

Quote from user: Dia-DiaCommon knowledge is sometimes wrong...
Are we trying to re-write history, Dia-Dia?
Carl Barks said this - not me!

I read this (in nineteenhumptydumpty) as part of my "newly found experience" on Barks and his background and took it for granted that everybody knew. When a man says he's tired, one can only assume that it is correct, ehh?
Thomas Andrae was not the one who made the original interview, but you asked for a link and this was the first I found. Guess I read it in a fanzine in the middle/late seventies...

Yes? You called me? Or maybe these people? :)
http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page