Parrot Gag vs. Barks

[Rob Klein]

Regarding Daniel van Eijmeren's theory that Barks MAY have written the 1951
Parrot gag drawn by Frank McSavage:  When the information in the Western
Pub. payroll documents refers to "one page Donald Duck gag", that indicates
that barks submitted a rough sketch layout of a one-page gag.  He got payed
for the "writing" of that gag.  It was accepted for use, but not assigned
to a particular magazine.  Further, that gag may never have been used.  It
may have even been drawn up later by another artist (or Carl himself), and
still never published.  It may have also been drawn up later by Barks and
placed in a later comic book (as several of his 1-page DD & US gags drawn
in 1957-58 were finally printed in 1960, 1961 and 1962).  The gag itself
has the flavour of a Barks gag, but the intensity of Donalds changes in
emotion are weak.  Also, I am SURE Barks would not have used the EXACT same
dialogue in each of Donald's balloons.  If  I had been lucky enough to
receive a copy of Barks' sketches for the gag, I would have remained as
faithful to the staging and dialogue as possible.  If McSavage indeed,
received the originals, he did a masterful job of butchery ("McSavagery")
as did Tony Strobl and Kay Wright to Barks' later story sketches.  My
instinct tells me this is NOT a Barks script, or it is a well-changed
version.  I would be interested to see the other 2 gag pages in that issue
of Donald Duck.  Can anyone scan them and offer them on a site for the
DCML?

Rob Klein