Norwegian Carl Barks Index

[Fluks, H.W.]

Last Saturday, I bought (in a shop in Dordrecht): "The Carl Barks Index.
Originals and Reprints 1942-1984". It contains indexes for the USA and
Norway, up to 1984. Issued by "Barks Friends". I found two familiar names in
the book: Geir Hasnes (DCML member in 1994, haven't heard much from him
recently), and Nils Lid Hjort (DCML member recently, hadn't heard much from
him in 1994. 8-).

This index is interesting for me, since I collect Disney comics indexes (as
part of my "Inducks" project). It was issued in the days when USA comics
were about to stop - 2 years before Gladstone started. With only a few Barks
Library volumes issued (which were also quite expensive), lists of "not yet
reprinted in the USA" comic stories were relevant.
Quote: "New WDCs still may be found once a month, but had a short pause
after an uninteresting no. 500. It is planned to stop this glorious series
permanently."

The cover of the index is beautiful (and has become famous in 1984,
according to the index itself 8-). The index itself is quite accurate, with
only some minor errors. To my surprise, rare stories like the Milkman story
and the Christmas Carol story were only mentioned in a 1-page text piece.

A quote I can fully agree with, about Barks' non-Disney stories: "These
certainly deserve to become better known, in particular the Barney Bear &
Benny Burro stories are small masterpieces."

And then I found something funny in the Norwegian index (Norsk sjekkliste).
As far as my Norwegian goes, it says: "The 'I'-books often have shortened or
changed stories, and panels are trimmed. Note that we didn't put
cross-references to these books from the stories in the American index (out
of protest against the I-books' poor quality)".
(The "I"-books were books like "I, Donald Duck", originally made in Italy,
and published all over Europe...)

All in all, a nice historic document for my collection (also giving me some
nostalgic feeling...).

(Does "Barks Friends" still exist?)

--Harry.