DCML Digest, Vol 16, Issue 30 (Vacation Time)

[kimba1962@comcast.net]

Derek Smith wrote:

<<I just read "Vacation Time" by Carl Barks in Vacation Parade 2004. I hadn't 
read it before so it was a treat to me. I think it might be one of the best 
Barks ever did. The story was funny and serious at various points. I think the 
best scene in the whole story was the last panel of page 29 with Donald looking 
at the fire's destruction. The story showed how responsibile, etc. Donald can 
be when the situation calls for it. Vacation Time is the type of story I think 
I'll read again and again occasionally to recall how good it is. 
For those who have read the story, what do you think of it?>>
A really, really excellent story, one of Barks' finest.  It's a great example of how a story can teach a meaningful lesson without being preachy or overly didactic.  Donald's directions to HD&L on how to avoid being killed by the fire are tossed off naturally as part of the flow of the narrative.  It's so easy to imagine this sequence coming off like an extended version of "Donald Duck Tells About Kites" in lesser hands.  Rather than creating the spokescritter Smokey Bear, as the U.S. Forest Service did about that time, the USFS should have seriously considered distributing THIS story to campers and park visitors as an illustration of how (and how NOT) to camp.
Others have remarked on the high level of Barks' artwork and unusual panel design in this story.  Barks apparently put quite a lot of thought into how to arrange the various oddly shaped panels.  This was most unusual for him, as he generally stuck to a conventional layout and concentrated on what was INSIDE the panels.  One might regard "Vacation Time" as presaging Barks' bolder artistic approach of the early 50s, wherein he started to use human characters in supporting roles and otherwise lift his stories out of what would then have been considered the "conventional" channels of relating a "funny animal" adventure.  Of course, he eventually got slapped down on the issue of using humans, but "Vacation Time" nonetheless stands as something of a modest declaration of artistic independence.
Chris Barat
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