Comments on Geir's last post

[Torsten Wesley Adair]

On Tue, 2 Nov 1993, Per Starback wrote:
> Here's my two balonian nickels:
> Yes, Geir, comic strips and cartoons were not aimed primarily at
> children, but comic *books* were, just like Mattias said.  It doesn't
> matter that they *reprinted* items originally read (perhaps mostly) by
> adults.  That has been extremely common in children's literature as
> well.

Is Gulliver's Travels a children's book?  Huck Finn?  

> > 50 years ago they didnt have the chasm between childrens entertainment and
> > adult entertainment which you have today.
> There has been a division between entertainment for children and
> adults for several hundred years now, and I would say there's been
> such a "chasm" for over a hundred years.  Certainly Disney comic books
> have always been aimed almost exclusively for children (until
> Gladstone took over).  I'm not sure what you mean by saying that
> "children or adults didn't exist (almost) in Barks's formative years".
> It's like Barks's formative years was in the Middle Ages or something.
> We're talking about rather contemporary stuff here!

As far as children's literature is concerned, it wasn't until the late
Nineteenth Century that children were considered children.  Before this,
they were considered to be miniture adults, and if something appealed to
them, then they read it.  

I do not know the history behind Disney comics, so I do not know if they
were marketed exclusively to children.  Most comic books of the Thirties
and Forties were sold and read by both adults and children.  It wasn't
until the 1950's that comic books were considered "inferior literatrue".

I think it is safe to say that the Disney animators made cartoons that
made them laugh.  Chuck Jones, a master animator at Warner Brothers, has
said that he and his colleagues made cartoons for themselves, not for
adults, or children, or anyone else.  I would assume that Carl Barks did
the same, with some restrictions.

> > Have you [Don] ever thought of calling the girl scouts Junior
> > Woodchicks? Excuse me if the pun is bad or if it has been used
> > before, but I couldnt resist it.
> But they already have a name!  They're The Littlest Chickadees.

Yeah, but in this day and age, someone at Disney will probably consider
this too sexist, and it will be changed.  I like Woodchicks better, but
that is probably sexist too.  
 
Torsten Adair	torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu	Omaha, NE, USA