About my recent Barks criticism (ulp again!) / long ducks

Daniel van Eijmeren dve at kabelfoon.nl
Tue Apr 6 01:56:23 CEST 2004


I just wrote:

> Barks may have created many wonderful, delicious, real human Duck 
> stories, looking just like real life. But not for me.

I think I'm making a grammatical error here, using a wrong tense.
(Should it be "Barks would have created..."?)

Well, what I meant to say is that I do like the few Barks stories with 
real humans that do exist. But that it's mostly because of my interest 
in the development of Barks's style through the years. As an adult. 
And as a freak.

But that was *none* of my interest as a kid. And I think youth is the 
most important moment to get to appreciate Disney comics. I don't think 
I should be soft to people, saying that learning about them as adult is 
as wonderful, too. It simply isn't. If you didn't get to know these 
comics in your youth, you just surely missed something. Get over it. 
Period. Over and out. :-)

Only as *adult* I'm interested in Barks's "long duck" period of the late 
1950s. But I sure dislike that style. Already as a kid. I distinctively 
remember the beachcombers' picnic story (WDC 224). Brrrr!!!

Read my lips: I find it HORRIBLE.

And maybe if I check the story, right after sending this email, I might 
get more nuanced, or just simply scared, and think "Well, "horrible" is 
a bit too harsh... What did I do??? Let's send the world an update of my 
thoughts, if only to avoid those awful, merciless Troll nominations..." 
But still, at this very moment of writing, I remember the art as being 
horrible. And that's how I am at the moment, on April 6, 2004. At a time 
when sane people usually are sleeping.

And by the way: Memory is master of all taste. 
(Can I claim this as "Daniël's Law"?) :-)

I seem to remember that Barks admitted that he wasn't fond of those long 
ducks, either. (Barks agrees with me here! Look! Look!) :-) I think I 
remember that he said that, when he discovered this unintended style 
change, he still had to bear the ones he'd already drawn, scheduled for 
the coming new issues. And that took about a year or so, to his own 
displeasure.

I believe that Barks blamed a paper change as being at least one reason. 
That suddenly made it difficult to simply erase and shorten his penciled 
ducks, which always tended to be too long at first, when he set them up. 
But this is all from memory. I can't remember where I read it. 

Maybe others can fill me in? Or did I alienate any Barks experts?
Will I get assassinated? We'll see... (Brrrr!!!)

But as long as I don't loose too many friends, I insist there's much 
to complain about Barks, too. Yes. In all respect, or whatever. And I 
think it's very interesting and fun to do. Only plain praising would 
be boring to me. And after all, Barks was a human, too. 

I'm interested in discussing *views*. That learns me much more about 
Barks, Rosa, Disney, or anything else, than just being a pet parrot, 
repeating the highlights of good taste over and over again, trying to 
be nice to his/her masters and peers. And so, what I mean to say is 
tha...

Hey! Are there still some people left, here? 

Do I finally have this mailing list for ME, MYSELF and I? (Heh! Heh!) 
Or am I just caught in everybody's killfile? Sob! Sob! Sob! Sob! :-)

--- Daniël (complaining about Barks's long ducks again...)

"Now EVERYBODY'S mad at me! What'll I do? What'll I do?"
(Which Barks story?) :-)

Hint #1: nephews go to summer camp
Hint #2: I wish I had one, too, but rather indoors in this early year




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