Geir on Barks and sex and more

[Mattias Hallin]

Well, Geir - that was some answer I got; and I must say right away that you've
got me almost half convinced that you might be right enough on several points.
Yeah - let me say that straight away: I really appreciated your arguments, and
even when I'm not as yet wholly won over, that's OK too; because I also love a
healthy, friendly controversial debate to spice up my day!

Anyway: IF you are correct in your assessment, that Barks actually DID use
phallic symbols and other allegorical statements about sex - then that is
indeed a duck of a different colour; then you are right and I am wrong - but I
hope you'll excuse me if I would very much like to have something like that
substantiated by Barks himself. 

That Barks all the time and continually DOES make fun at a more general adult
level, and DOES depict adult conflicts and emotions - that is of course
obvious to anyone who cares to look even once; and I certainly never meant to
say different. If my letter read like that, I'm sorry!

I know well enough the censored pages from "Back to the Klondike"; and there
were I believe three reasons why these pages were cut out: they were considered
too violent ("It was a fight to be proud of!"), to tinged with possible sexual
interpretations, and, yes: $crooge did of course do something unlawful when he
abducted Goldie and used her as forced labour for a month. Actually, I think
the reason Barks has $crooge do that has less to do with sex (personally, and
on a DONALDISTIC level of reasoning, I don't think anything "happened" between
$crooge and Goldie at that occasion - it doesn't seem to me as something that
would fit $crooges character somehow; nor maybe actually Goldies. There's no
doubt in my mind, though, that they fell in love, but were both too proud to
acknowledge it at the time) than - to return to my argument - to give Goldie
some sort of MORAL as opposed to LEGAL claim to $crooges old claim.

I could, as always, write for hours about these things, but maybe once in a
while I should work too...

...and Geir - of course I agree (as I said before) that there are themes in
Barks's work that one must indeed be an adult to appreciate; and I also think
that most of these themes are much more interesting than those that (if they
do, that is) deal with things sexual, even if sex IS mostly an adult
emotion/experience. Well...

All my quackiest!

Mattias