Carl Barks: ConversationsInterviews with the Disney artist who created Scrooge McDuck and many well-loved comic books Disney artist Carl Barks (1901-2000) created one of Walt Disney's most famous characters, Scrooge McDuck. Barks also produced more than 500 comic book stories. His work is ranked among the most widely circulated, best-loved, and most influential of all comic book art. Although the images he created are known virtually everywhere, Barks was an isolated storyteller, living in the desert of California and preferring to labor without public fanfare during most of his career. He created work of such exceptional quality that he was accorded the greatest autonomy of any Disney artist. He is the only comic book artist ever to receive a Disney Legends award. The influence of Barks's work on such filmmakers as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and on such artists as Gottfried Helnwein has extended Barks's significance far beyond the boundaries of comics. After Barks's death at the age of ninety-nine, Roy Disney praised him for his "brilliant artistic vision." Carl Barks: Conversations is the only comprehensive collection of Barks's interviews. It ranges chronologically from the very first one (with Malcolm Willits, the fan who uncovered Barks's identity) to the artist's final conversations with Donald Ault in the summer of 2000. In between are interviews conducted by J. Michael Barrier, Edward Summer, Bruce Hamilton, and others. Several of these interviews are published here for the first time. Ault's friendship with Barks, ranging over a period of thirty years, provides an unusually intimate resource not only for standard q&a interviews but also for casual conversations in informal settings. Carl Barks: Conversations reveals previously unknown information about the life, times, and opinions of one of the master storytellers of the twentieth century. Donald Ault, a professor of English at the University of Florida, is the author of Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake's The Four Zoas and Visionary Physics: Blake's Response to Newton. His work has been published in Studies in Romanticism, The Wordsworth Circle, Modern Philology, and The Comics Journal. |
Contents
The Duck Man | 3 |
A Conversation with Carl Barks | 19 |
An Interview with Carl Barks | 26 |
Carl Barks Telling It Like It Is | 37 |
On His Life and Career | 50 |
Carl Barks and His Ducks | 69 |
Carl Barks Interviewed | 80 |
An Interview with Carl Barks Duckburgs True Founding Father | 91 |
Conversation with Carl Barks | 140 |
Carl Barks | 155 |
Carl Barks Speaks with the Finnish Press | 161 |
Carl Barks at Disneyland Paris | 173 |
Carl Barks Remembers A Perfect Life | 181 |
On Floyd Gottfredson | 198 |
Those Things That Came Along in the 20th Century and Became | 205 |
Spools of Memory | 221 |
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Common terms and phrases
artists Barks's name BARRIER Beagle Boys bunch California Carl Barks cartoonist cartoons characters comic book comic book stories comic strips darned Disney Comics Disney Studio Donald Ault Donald Duck Duck comic duck stories Duckburg editor Edward Summer Eye-Opener feel Floyd Gottfredson funny animals gags Garé Gladstone gotten guess guys Gyro Gearloose happened human humor idea in-betweener interview invented Jack Hannah kids kind knew laughs letter little bit living look magazine Mickey Mouse money bin never oil paintings Oregon panel paper pencil plot pretty ranch readers remember Reprinted by permission script Scrooge McDuck Scrooge's sent situation sort story department storyboard stuff Superman tell ten-page things thought Uncle Scrooge Walt Disney Walt Disney's Comics wanted WDC&S Western Publishing whole Willits wrote Yeah