digest #226

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Fri Aug 11 14:45:47 CEST 2000


From: bhc at primenet.com
>>>>However, I don't think Barks worked "within certain bounds"; in fact,
I think he spent his career breaking out of them. How else
could he have captured the imaginations of so many readers with
adventures spawned from what he found in National Geographic?

I thought I was done with this topic, but this I can't pass up. Perhaps
some of us don't quite understand the point others are trying to make. Are
we on different tangents? The very fact that Barks *would* use National Geo
magazines as the springboard for a story or for gleaning accurate and
authentic facts, while other writers would use the illogic of fairy tales
and other artists would use the ease of vague or unresearched visual
details is pretty much what I'm saying was the greatness of his style. Had
he not given his characters flawed personalities similar to actual humans
we all know (or are) rather than the simple mindless wackiness of a Warner
Bros. Daffy Duck,  or had he not set his stories in a logical world that we
could believe in so as to feel the thrill of the danger and the irony of
his humor and drama, then, as you say, "I believe it's very doubtful we
would ever have heard of Carl Barks". He might have blended in with all the
others.
But the reason I have to react to your mention of Barks and his famous
NatGeo researches, and of my use of National Geo's in imitation of his
style, and in reference to my search for accurate uniforms for the Panama
soldiers of 1906 -- within hours of my posting my need for that info on
yesterday's Digest, I received a message *directly* from the staff at the
Archives & Records Library of the National Geographic Society giving me the
information I sought! I don't know who is lurking around here that makes
such magical things happen (I think it was a spouse?), but thanks very
much!








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