essay on Barks 99 in `Dagsavisen'

[Nils Lid Hjort]

Anders Heger, among the chief executive officers
of the major Norwegian publishing house "Cappelen",
and a journalist/debater/writer/essayist of recent 
increased fame because of his highly praised book
on Agnar Mykle, writes a column every Sunday on page 2
of the "Dagsavisen". His pen is free and his themes are 
wide-ranging, and the collective heading of these 
essays is "Free thoughts".

Well, last Sunday Heger devoted his half-page to
Carl Barks, "Uncle Carl" at age 99-and-a-half, 
quoting parts of a message from our Disney Comics
mail-list concerning Carl's deteriorating health. 
Heger uses the opportunity to praise Barks and 
his work in general, and the power and spellbinding 
aspects of his stories for children in particular.
Anders joins the long list of grown-ups claiming
to have been taught to read by Barks, and explains
that having read Barks helps a reader to jump into
other and more "grown-up" stuff like (e.g.) Dostoyevski.
This boss of modern literature goes on to say that Barks 
is among the very greatest adventure writers of our times. 

Heger ends this Sunday contribution with a quote 
from Uncle Scrooge #8 (1955), where the professor 
obsessed with inventing smell-free cabbage says, 
"There are too many masters of the world. And too 
few good friends." In the context in which this is
quoted, the reader sees Barks as a good friend 
and Disney as among the masters... 

Heger's essays are always accompanied by high-quality,
original drawings, by Tor Bomann-Larsen, himself active 
on the comic book market, and known in Norway for his 
wonderul and long comic book story about Nansen and Amundsen. 
I understand the drawing made for the Dagsavisen column 
on this occasion portrays Dostoyevski with a "Donald Duck & Co." 
under his arm. [I haven't actually seen the final thing; 
I have only seen Heger's pre-pubication draft and heard 
from another about the Dostoyevski drawing.] 

Nils Lid Hjort