<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT COLOR="#010101" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">In a message dated 9/25/2003 3:06:24 AM Pacific Standard Time, dcml-request@stp.ling.uu.se writes:<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">From: Kai Saarto <ksaarto@mbnet.fi><BR>
Subject: Re: Correspondence and... <BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#010101" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">My guess is that Carl Barks has inspired many of us in various ways. At least for me, his stories got me interested in history. Is the same true for the other historians in the group? How about his influence on other people's career/studying choices?</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT><FONT COLOR="#010101" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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Influences are like links in a chain and one's life and career is comprised of a bunch of links. I read comic books back in the late 40s but didn't meet Barks until 1965. But his comic book stories that I read back in the 40s surely had an influence on some part of my brain. I remember reading three comic books in particular: Batman, Superman and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. I always identified with Donald Duck, and those stories have stayed with me all my life. By the early 50s I was pretty much a funny animal fan, adding Walt Kelly's Pogo and Kurtzman's Mad to my list of major influences. When I was a little kid I didn't know that Walt Disney didn't actually draw everything. In reality, that influence was actually Carl Barks. My early love of Disney comics and those characters led to a serious pursuit of art as a career, art school introduced me to new influences and friends, and that led to a career in animation, which led to an interest in writing, which led to a stint with Marvel's Crazy Magazine which was noticed by some people at Disney Studios which led to a job offer as a staff writer and artist at Disney Publications which eventually led to my position as Editor, Managing Editor and Art Director for Disney Comics where I edited Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in the post-Gladstone era (if 3 years can be considered an era.) So that earliest influence came full circle to the point of direct involvement with the thing that started me down that path back in the 40s. Of course along the way I got to know all the major players in the Disney comic book business, and still can't get over the fact that my childhood dreams became a reality and my childhood influences became colleagues. Mind boggling! </FONT></HTML>