R.I.P.: Comic Book Pioneer Carl Barks

August 26, 2000 10:49 AM

R.I.P.: Comic Book Pioneer Carl Barks
Anybody can do superheroes... Carl made Disney cartoon characters into action comc stars.
I devoured these as a kid; bought foreign-language versions from the Disneyland Main Street bookstore; to this day, the only "jillionaire" I can trust is Scrooge McDuck.
Now, if only HE had done the "Backstreet Boys" comic instead of Stan Lee...
posted by wendell (1 comment total)

A book I read about Carl Barks said that at the time, he needed to find some sort of continuing theme for the Scrooge books, and didn't want to use anything violent, but it had to be something he could perpetuate pretty much indefinitely.

And what he settled on was the treasure hunt. Nearly every episode of Scrooge consisted of Scrooge attempting to locate some lost treasure somewhere, with Donald and the three nephews along side.

One of the funniest was that Scrooge decided to find out what had become of the lost Library of Alexandria. And they followed a series of clues where the library had been moved -- and condensed -- a number of times, and each time it got smaller and smaller until finally it ended up being a single book.

Yup: the Junior Woodchuck's Guide. And now you know why it contains nearly everything.

Anyway, the treasure hunt motif permitted him to tell a wide variety of stories, placed in almost any scenario, without any violence. It was a stroke of genius.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:20 PM on August 26, 2000 [1 favorite]