Apostrophes / What will happen with Barks' art?

Daniel van Eijmeren dve at kabelfoon.nl
Wed Apr 4 22:13:58 CEST 2001


HARRY FLUKS to me, 03 APRIL 2001:

>> [Early stories without apostrophes] I've made a list of these stories,
>> based on The Carl Barks Library reprints.

> The CBL may not be a reliable source for this: 

This is exactly why I mentioned that my information is based on the
CBL reprints. 

> an apostrophe is a small thing and can easily be whited out in the
> retouching process.

Reading your reply I do not know if you noticed that the usage/non-usage
of the apostrophes is *consistent* within each story (except for two very
small exceptions, which I've mentioned).

But, even if the CBL editors would have whitened out all apostrophes within
one story, then the information still is useful to me, because I'm also
maintaining a list of changes in the CBL. ;-)

> So for absolute proof about UNCAs and UNCA's, you probably need to look
> at the original printings...

Very true. I can't do that myself, though, because I don't have these
comics. Therefore I've mentioned the panel numbers, which will hopefully
make it easy to compare the information with the original comics.


But, about the importance of the original comics in general: 
What will be left of these comics in (let's say) about 50 years?

Have there ever been any attempts or plans to make sure that Barks' comic
book work is preserved for future generations? Has there ever been an 
extensive research to find all first generation photostats? These photostats
and the original comics must be all that's left of (almost) all Barks' 
comic book art. 

The Carl Barks Library was released just before the Digital Age of the
1990s. Now that computers get more and more advanced, they can already be
a great help in digitally archiving and restoring Carl Barks' art.

I hope that such a project will happen. Otherwise a question like 
"look at the original comics" might become a joke as much as asking for
a 1856 One-cent Magenta stamp in Guiana...


Best wishes,

--- Daniel



More information about the DCML mailing list