WDC&S Titles

[Daniel van Eijmeren]

OLIVIER, 25-04-2001:

> The WDC&S ten-pagers usually had no title.
> There were a few notable exceptions at the beginning, with a strip of
> art at the top of  the pages or a title panel (ie art with the title 
> but not the first panel of the story, like a cover).
>
> (WDC&S 34, July '43)     No title, just the strip of  art at the top
> (WDC&S 35, Aug '43)    Same as above (same strip too)

"Donald Duck" is lettered into it. Who could have been the artist of this
strip? Was the art made for the strip or has it been taken from a story?

> (WDC&S 36, Sept '43) "The Mighty Trapper" (strip of art with title)
> (WDC&S 38, Nov '43) "Good Neighbors"  (strip of art with title)
> (WDC&S 39, Dec '43) "Salesman Donald"  (strip of art with title)
> (WDC&S 40, Jan '44) "Snow Fun"  (strip of  art with title)
> (WDC&S 41, Feb '44) "The Duck in the Iron Pants" (strip of art with
> title)

Could Barks have been the artist of the strips for these stories? 

The "Good Neighbors" strip is rather creative, using a garden-hose for
the title lettering. At the right of the garden-hose, Neigbor Jones
opens the faucet. At the left of the garden-hose, Donald gets the
water into his face.

> (WDC&S 42, March '44)    "Kite Weather"  (title only)

The story was a victim of shrinking comic-book size, caused by paper 
restrictions during World War II. It was drawn as a three-tier ten-pager,
but published as a four-tier seven-pager. The art was cut up, panels were
trimmed or expanded. In some panels, non-Barks drawings were added to 
fill in the empty spaces caused by the changing of Barks' panel layout.
Apparently, no panels were omitted. (Source: Kim Weston article "My Secret
Life By Scrooge McDuck - Or, The Unpublished Carl Barks", 1975.)

Maybe this story originally was accompanied with a strip on top of
the pages, which was removed during the cutting process?

The comic "Mickey and Donald" No. 15, 1989, published an attempt 
in converting "Kite Weather" into a three-tier ten-pager again. 

(Note: In The Carl Barks Library, the bottom half of published page 6 
is redrawn. This redrawn art was used for the ten-page reconstruction.)

If the story originally contained a strip on top of page 2 to 10, 
maybe the vertical size of the reconstructed panels is now slightly
too large? Or was it taken into account that these pages may have 
contained strips on top of them?

> (WDC&S 43, April '44) "Three Dirty Little Ducks" (title panel)

"The Duck in the Iron Pants" (WDC 41) also contains a preview title panel
which isn't part of the story-line itself. (These preview title panels 
can be removed without having any effect on the story-line.)

> (WDC&S 44, May '44)    "The Mad Chemist (title panel)

This title panel seems to be part of the story-line. The nephews are 
playing with their chemical set. In panel 1.2, Donald comes by and
asks them "what's cooking?"

> (WDC&S 46, July '44)     "Camera Crazy" (title only)
>
> Then (unless I missed some), nothing till
> (WDC&S 229, Oct '59) "The good Deeds" (title, but a machine-like font)
> (WDC&S 230, Nov '59) "Black Wednesday" (title, but a machine-like font)
> (WDC&S 231, Dec '59) "The Wax Museum" (title, but a machine-like font)
> (WDC&S 232, Jan '60) "Unde the Polar Ice" (title)

An interesting exception is "Lost Peg Leg Mine" (DD 52), which originally
was intended for WDC 203, at the time when WDC stories were still untitled.
The title seems to be lettered manually. (No machine-like font.)

This story was submitted on June 14, 1956. In a letter dated June 22,
1956, editor Chase Craig informed Barks about the change and asked for 
another story for WDC. The WDC stories of that time were untitled, so 
maybe the title "Lost Peg Leg Mine" was made up by the editors?

The watchful parent story for WDC 228 was submitted after the stories 
published in WDC 229 and WDC 230, but it is untitled. So, maybe the 
machine-like font titles were made up by the editors? 

If so, then "Under the Polar Ice" (WDC 232) may have been the first
WDC title made up by Barks himself (after "Camera Crazy", WDC 46).
Apart from the creative lettering, the title "Under the Polar Ice" 
sounds more exciting than "The Good Deeds", "Black Wednesday", and 
"The Wax Museum", which only decribe the story's theme.
This is just a guess, though.

At this time, Barks' stories were printed in a different order than
they were submitted. So, maybe the editor felt the need to identify 
the untitled ten-pagers by adding titles to them, making it easier
for them to identify the stories? If so, maybe they asked the 
WDC contributing artists to add titles to their future stories 
themselves, which, in Barks' case, started with "Under the Polar Ice"?
Again, just a guess.

> Does anyone know what prompted the changes (no more titles in the 
> early years, then titles again from late '59 onward)? If titles has 
> started reappearing in 1952/3, I would have guessed the decision
> was influenced by the appearance of  the U$ comic books, to make 
> the whole coherent, but there's a goid 7-year gap in-between.

To find an answer to this question, I think non-WDC stories and 
stories by other artists also need to be investigated. 

For example, a lot of Barks' One Shot stories do contain a title. 
The first two US main stories (OS 386 and OS 456) have a title, but
the third story (OS 495) up to the eigth main story (US 8) are untitled. 
Starting with US 9, all following main stories are titled.


Best wishes,

--- Daniel