WDC & S sales

[Rob Klein]

For W.L. Lilly and others:  I was informed by Tom Andrae, that Walt
Disney's Comics and Stories DID, indeed, SURPASS the 3 million sales figure
in the early 1950s; and was officially, the largest selling comic book of
all time.  The Malcom Willits article did not have different figures for
each month in 1950; and thereby,  it is not possible to compare sales of
Barks vs. non-Barks lead story issues in that year.  In addition, it is
unfortunate that the actual number of subscriber letters of complaint to
Western Publishing is not available.  It should be noted, however, that the
total was significant enough to place Mr. Barks back on his old schedule of
producing ALL 10-page lead stories in succeeding years.  EVERYONE whom I
knew, in those days (INCLUDING casual readers), were dissappointed when
they came accross those non-Barks issues.

More information on specifics of circulation figures will be published in
Tom's upcoming book on Barks.  I am sure he will want to inform DCML
members in proper time about its publication date.

Regarding Joe Torcivia's comments on the comic book cover notes announcing
Barks' stories inside:

I tend to agree more with W.L. Lilly, that lines such as "It's Spooky, it's
Kooky" sound much more like Western's editors than Carl Barks.  Their idea
of the "mental age" of their readership was very different from that of Mr.
Barks.  A few of these did seem "Barksish" enough to have been written by
him.  But, knowing the way Western operated, I rather doubt that some of
them were provided by Barks, and some not.  I can picture them asking him
to draw an additional small drawing for the cover, but not bothering him
for "advert lines" to entice readers to purchase the book.  I believe the
editorial staff would have saved THAT function for themselves (one of the
small, fun riskless ways they could help justify their existence).  It is a
very interesting question posed by Daniel van Eijmeren.  It is too bad that
no one thought of it early enough to have asked Carl, himself, or Chase
Craig (unless Don Ault did recently).

Rob Klein