To Harry Fluks: The Mummy's Ring a success?

Hans Pedersen pedersen at cs.unc.edu
Wed Feb 22 21:56:47 CET 1995


Harry Fluks wrote:
------------------

>> [...] Barks' "Frozen Gold", as this was _his_ first successful
>> longer story

> You mean you don't like "The Mummy's Ring", or you think it wasn't
> successful? Why not?

I like the story a lot, and obviously it was at major hit at the
time. Artistically, however, the story clearly shows that Barks' had
not yet mastered the comic book format: like his first story, it looks 
like a compilation of still frames from a cartoon; there is little
variation in the poses and facial expressions, making the drawings 
stiff, awkward, and even repulsive at times. What later made Barks so 
great was his perfect control over subtle detail and expressions, 
allowing him to convey the emotions of his charaters very accurately.
I have always thought that one of the most amazing transformations in
Barks' work occurred between "Mummy's Ring" and "Frozen Gold": while
many of the later Disney comic artists might have written a "MR", 
very few, if any, went on to write a story of the quality of "Frozen
Gold". Not only did Barks do this in just 2 years, but, much more
impressively/incredibly, he did it from scratch with nothing but his 
own talent to guide him. To illustrate my point, consider Donald's 
expression after eating a bad (tuna?) sandwich in "MR", and compare it 
with his subtle yet very sympathetic expression after he is blinded by
snow in "FG". Clearly, there is a a remarkable qualitative difference 
between these two stories, which is why I think it would be unfair to
Barks to call "Mummy's Ring" a success.

- Hans







More information about the DCML mailing list