The story of a story (Darkest Africa)

[Harry Fluks]

Last july, I had an e-mail discussion with an Andrew from Australia
about the story 'Darkest Africa'. There are some facts that might be
interesting for this mailing list, so here is a modified version.

The story of a story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will try to explain the whole thing by giving a chronological overview.

1. In the 40s, Barks drew 22 pages "Darkest Africa", published in a
   comic called "Boys' and girls' March Of Comics". This comic was
   a so-called Giveaway. The original artwork (22 pages Barks inks)
   has been lost - Western did not store it because it was only a
   giveaway, or maybe they threw it away when they needed the
   space - so they could't use the story again for a reprint.

2. In 1981 (or so), a Dutch or Scandinavian Barks fan had a xerox
   copy of the '40s comic. Maybe it was a copy of a copy of a comic
   that belongs to an American fan. Anyway, it must have been 22
   xeroxes, black and white and on many places almost unreadable...
   The Dutch Disney editor wanted to publish _all_ Barks stories.
   They could not publish Darkest Africa, because there were no
   originals at Western, and the xerox copies they got from the fan
   were un-publishable.
   So they decided to have Daan Jippes re-ink (and often re-draw)
   the story.

   They found one panel had to be censored (apart from some textual
   changes). That panel was deleted while re-inking the story. The
   next panel was widened to fill in the space. (It is the panel
   where the cannibals are running away and the man [don't know his
   name] is saying something like "that smart-aleck better catch
   that butterfy - and soon!")

   Daan Jippes went to America in 1981 (to join the Disney studios),
   so he could not finish his re-inking. He did only pages 1
   through 4. So they got another Dutch artist, Dick Vlottes. He
   inked the rest of the story (omitting the censored panel). He is
   not a very good Disney artist. If you look very good, you can see
   the difference between pp. 1-4 and 5-22.

   This re-inked version was published in Holland in 1982 (and reprinted
   twice afterwards).

3. In the mid-80s, American publisher Another Rainbow wanted to
   publish _all_ Barks stories in The Carl Barks Library. Since
   Western did not have the story "Darkest Africa", they got a copy
   from Holland. I think they did not know that the story was
   reinked and that a panel was missing (because noone told them,
   and they never asked...).

   The American Disney Company still wanted the story to be censored
   (this was _not_ Another Rainbow's decision). So the "remaining"
   cannibals in the story got thinner lips, and some texts may be
   changed. May be the text is even re-translated from the Dutch.

4. In 1985, the missing panel was published in the Dutch comics
   fanzine "Stripschrift" (don't even try to pronounce it 8-).

5. In 1992, I asked Dutch publisher Thom Roep if he had the original
   xerox copies, that Jippes and Vlottes worked from 10 years ago.
   He said that they had vanished, disappeared, never been seen
   again...

6. In 1992, Disney Comics reprints "Darkest Africa" in color. They
   took the CBL version, _without_ further changes.

7. In september 1992, the Dutch publisher published "The complete
   Barks" in 17 books, black/white, Dutch translation. I helped them
   to get the books _really_ complete. This even meant I had to
   send _them_ a copy of the missing panel from Stripschrift!

   They also included a French copy of the page the panel was on,
   so the story must have been published in France sometime.

BTW: Jippes did some redrawing of other rare Barks stories as well,
e.g. 'Atom Bomb' and 'Race to the South Seas' (both recently
reprinted in Disney Comics).
Items 1, 2, 3 and 6 apply to these stories mostly, though no panels
are missing in these stories.
In 'Atom Bomb', Another Rainbow re-insterted some original Barks
panels in the Jippes version.
In 'South Seas', the Dutch origin can be spotted on a panel where
Donald's boat is identified as 'Kwaak', which is the Dutch word
for 'Quack'. This is only in the CBL version: the word 'Kwaak'
is omitted in the Disney Comics version.

---end---
(are you still there?)

Conclusion: the two Dutch members of this list have some Barks
artwork that is NOT in the Carl Barks Library! Nyaah nyaah! 8-)

--Harry.