Darkest Africa etc. (Rosa's Re: Digest #25)

Harry Fluks H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl
Mon May 24 12:48:52 CEST 1993


Don Rosa wrote:
> I can only DOUBT that Disney has unretouched proofs of those MOC stories
> "Darkest Africa" or "Race to the South Seas". As far as I know, those just
> don't exist anymore. Any fool who looks at the recent uses of "Darkest
> Africa" can see that it's all poorly done tracings off of old comic pages
> (or off heavilly damaged proofs?) -- whatever the case, it's quite clearly
> NOT Barks art! As for "South Seas", that bit of forgery is so well done that 
> I don't think even Another Rainbow ever bothered to admit it -- but anytime
> you've seen "South Seas" reprinted, it's Dan Jippes art you're looking at,
> not Barks.

Both stories are re-inked from *xerox copies of* old comics. "South Seas"
entirely by Daan Jippes, "Darkest Africa" by Jippes (pages 1 to 4) and
Dick Vlottes (remaining pages). Vlottes finished the work because Jippes
emigrated to the USA at that time (1982). He started working for the 
Disney Studios.
I don't know why they let Vlottes do the job: he never did any other Disney
comics story. "Any fool who looks at" the pages can see the difference 
between pages 1-4 and the rest of the story.

Daan Jippes had his doubts when they asked him to re-ink Barks stories. He 
thought it would be forgery, too. But at the time (1974-1982) that was the
*only* way to get those rare stories to a great audience. The re-inked
versions are a bit different, but "Barks himself would have made different
versions even if he would have inked the same story again directly after
finishing it." (Jippes, paraphrased, in a 1976 interview.)
I think Jippes is about the only person that should be *allowed* to re-ink
Barks's stories from the 40s.

Jippes also inked some giveaway stories of which better (Barks) versions
are now available. Even when I compare some of these stories, it is hard
to tell which is Barks and which is Jippes. 

But Jippes always made his "forgeries" recognizable by putting a page number
in a circle at the right bottom of each page. When some of his re-inks were
reprinted in the USA, they removed those page numbers...

--Harry.

Harry Fluks                      ()_()     Dutch Disney comics freak
PTT Research, Leidschendam (NL)   (_)      H.W.Fluks at research.ptt.nl 
"Yeah... I've _heard_ of coral barques!"



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