LO?12 and Barks in Norway

[bjorn-are.davidsen@s.televerket.tele.no]

This was sent a week ago, but I think I somehow managed 
to get the adress wrong, so I make another attempt (and add 
some stuff).

Don!

After having read Lo$12 I just have to unlurk myself!
Congratulations on your well done project! Of course 
not everyone will agree with your overall vision of 
Scrooge's life, especially regarding his retirement 
and return to business and adventure. Personally I 
think it really does solve a lot of problems related to 
Barks introduction and later elaborations on Scrooge, 
when he decided to use him in more than one story, 
gradually building up the mythology of his past. 

Barks' use of Scrooge in "Christmas on Bear 
Mountain" was after all not due to a lot of 
consideration of his past or present. That only came 
later and made CoBM somewhat of a problem (is 
analomy the right word?) chronicling Scrooge's past, 
concidering his present in the fifties and sixties. 
However, I  think you managed to solve much of the 
problem!

I also liked your presentation of Citizen Duck! That 
may be lost on the kids (or perhaps American kids 
will understand), but is another example of how you 
give additional value and reading joy to us more 
grey haired readers.

Even if I think Lo$10 is the very best of the series, 
the final chapter had it's great moments! I liked very 
much the beginning, the part where they enter the bin 
for the first time, and the ending looking backward 
and forward at the same time. 

I think I'll have to read it once or twice more to get 
the proper perspective, but I think one difficulty is 
that the reader (if this is not the first Scrooge story 
one read) knows too much in advance. The content in 
Scrooges money bin is no surprise. That is a plot 
problem when you make it one of the climaxes of the 
story. However, the Beagle Boys was for once very 
cleverly disguised! By the way, don't you think 
Scrooge did beat them a bit too easily? 

Another thing which disturbs me somewhat is that 
Scrooge is a bit too different from the way Barks 
drew him in CoBM.  I guess that is a problem when 
you try to be consistent to your own (and Barks' 
later) way of drawing Scrooge, but it didn't quite 
seem right (I do not know if I have any clever 
solutions to that problem!).

However, do not misunderstand! The final part of Lo$ 
was well done and overall very satisfying! 

Regarding Barks in Norway

The media has been full of reports, interviews and stories 
about the Duck Man's visit to Norway. It's been headline 
stuff both on Television and in the newspapers. It is a bit 
irritating, though, that they seldom seem to get the facts 
rightm, and often get a bit too condescending about comics.

The main TV news program in Norway ("Dagsrevyen") 
managed to portrait Barks as " the man who invented 
Donald Duck 60 years ago". They did show several glimps 
from Donald Duck cartoons. And the ones they showed from 
comics were not by Barks!

Norwegian TV2 knew a bit more and even had an interview 
with one of Norway's grand old (and very wealthy) men, the 
shipping magnate Fred Olsen. He claimed to be perhaps 
"the only man in Norway who had read Donald Duck from 
the beginning in 1940 or 41" (he was not sure) when the 
first WDCS came out. And he had kept a good collection 
ever since, showing a fair understanding of Bark's work.

By the way, the interviews with Barks in the papers tended 
to touch mainly on his use of National Geographic and why 
there were no fathers and mothers in Duckburg. To that last 
question Barks was reported as having said that "all ducks 
come from eggs. When the mayor needs a new citizen he 
just go out in the woods and get anohter egg" (or something 
like that, I don't have the papers at hand). I guess Barks 
was trying to make a joke about it! Or Don has to rewrite 
his whole Lo$ series!

Bjron-Are




Bjorn Are