Article from Komix #152

Kriton Kyrimis kyrimis at cti.gr
Mon Mar 5 08:30:32 CET 2001


Here's the translation of an article from last month's issue of Komix.
[As usual, comments in square brackets are my own.]

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          From antiquity to the panels of Carl Barks and Don Rosa
		    THE COMICS OF IMAGINARY BEINGS

    With _Mythological Menagerie_, Don Rosa continues a centuries-old
    tradition of talk about monsters and makes his own contribution to
    the zoology of imaginary beings.

"If a painter wanted to stick a horse's neck beneath a human head, add
multicolored feathers on members that he plucked from here and there,
and if he had a body that had the head of a beautiful woman on top end
in the tail of a hideous black fish, would you, my friends, be able to
hold your laughter when shown this piece?"

With these strange verses begins Horatio's _Poetic Art_. With this
introduction, the Latin poet tries to prevent his fellow poets from
talking about monsters, and perhaps, in one way, he may not have been
wrong! As we know, our ancient ancestors had a galloping imagination, as
their poetry and mythology teem with similar monstrosities. Don Rosa's
_Mythological Menagerie_ is one of the most recent and most enjoyable
contributions to this centuries-long tradition of monster-talk.


A CENTURIES-OLD TRADITION

Naturally, Horatio's advice was unheeded... From Herodotus to Pliny,
historians, naturalists and travelers enriched the pages of imaginary
zoology with creatures even more outrageous than those created by the
imagination of poets. Explorers, scientists, and poets continued this
tradition during the years of the scholar-dominated Renaissance and
Enlightenment, while contact with other civilizations enriched the pages
of imaginary zoology even more; from romanticism to surrealism and comics,
imaginary monstrosities are going forth and multiplying...

In 1957, the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges gave new breath to
this tradition with the _Book of Imaginary Beings_. In the introduction
to this dictionary of non-existent creatures he notes that the tenants
of the zoo of mythology could have surpassed by far, in numbers, the
inhabitants of the animal kingdom, since "a monster is nothing but a
combination of parts of real beings, whose possibilities for mutation
could reach infinity. In the Centaur we have a mixture of horse and man,
in the Minotaur a bull with a man... In this way, we could evolve an
endless variety of monsters--that is, fish, birds, and reptiles, which
could only be limited by our own boredom or revulsion".


DONALDIAN MONSTROSITIES

Don Rosa has repeatedly stated that, when he wrote _Mythological
Menagerie_, he had not read Borges' book. As he told us, when we posed
the corresponding question, his source of inspiration was a volume
in the Time Life series, titled _Magical beast_. Even so, his story
w\could be read as an ingenious humorous comment on the observation of
the Argentinian writer.

Donald does not combine parts of different animals, but does something
similar: he creates a bunch of imaginary creatures, disguising Grandma
Duck's animals with plain everyday materials that he finds in the farm's
shed. He does his best, he struggles and tries, in the characteristic
stubbornness of Carl Barks' ten-page stories, to ridicule his know-it-all
nephews. In vain, however! Apart from the last one, even his most
unspeakable constructions have existed! If not in "reality", at least in
the imagination of some writer, or in the mythology of an ancient people,
as the nephews easily discover by thumbing through the irritatingly wise
Junior Woodchuck guidebook. Even Donald's galloping imagination can not
surpass the achievements of centuries of imaginative writing about monsters!

_Mythological Menagerie_ is, above all, a hilarious adventure... However,
as with Carl Barks' stories, it is the cause for thumbing through old
forgotten books and for travel to the imaginary lands where the Chimera,
the Basilisk, and the Catoblepas once lived...


THE IMAGINARY ANIMALS OF CARL BARKS

Carl Barks did not only draw ducks that looked like people: he did
not omit providing his own version of some classic imaginary beings,
and to enrich the chronicles of writing about monsters with original
creatures. Apart from creatures, such as the Unicorn (*Trail of the
Unicorn*, _Komix #7), the ancient Greece-inspired Harpies [now *how* am
I supposed to translate this back into English?] (*The Golden Fleecing*,
_Komix_ #83), or the Minotaur (*The Philosopher's Stone*, _Komix_ #121),
the Duck Man also drew original modern monsters for uncle Scrooge's
zoo. Unlike Don Rosa, who appears to be fascinated by the subject, the
imaginary beings of uncle Scrooge's zoo are short satirical comments on
an entirely modern reality.


[Caption, p.20]
In _Mythological Menagerie_, Donald makes a bunch of incredible
non-existent animals. Don Rosa sent us some of the pictures that he used
as a source of inspiration for some of the Donaldian monstrosities.

[Inset, p. 23]
PICTORIAL ZOOLOGY
Inspired by the pages of the great Argentinian writer, the teachers and
students of the _Vakalo School_ illustrated the _Book of Imaginary Beings_
and prepared a wonderful electronic edition for the electronic pages
of the Internet. The heroic crew of comics was enchanted by the digital
thumbing through these pages, and recommend to their friends that they
visit them at http://www.hum.au.dk/romansk/borges/vakalo/home.htm  From
what it seems, the Internet and the new technologies do not threaten the
rare species of the imaginary animal kingdom... Moreover, such initiatives
show that, in one form or another, good books have nothing to fear from
the new media, as long as there are talented creators!

[Captions, p. 66] Barks' unicorn is distinctly less haughty and impressive
than Alex Raymond's outlandish unicorn. However, Donald is distinctly
less heroic than Flash Gordon...

Two barksian depictions of creatures form ancient Greek mythology. If
Carl Barks' Harpies are simple humorous caricatures, more repulsive
than scary, the statue of the legendary Minotaur, which the Ducks face
in the Cretan Labyrinth, is impressive, indeed.

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	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"Impossible is just another word for `I don't undestand'."
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