about unpublished material

Lars Jensen lpj at forfatter.dk
Mon Nov 11 20:06:10 CET 2002


Harry Fluks wrote:

> > So I only use to consider the *masters*'s unpublished ideas,
> > when it's possible...
>
> I think that about sums up the ideas here: published material is more
> important than unpublished material, but things Barks did are *always*
> more important that things that other people did.
>
> Ergo: unpublisheed Barks stuff is more important than *published*
> non-Barks stuff.
>
> That's at least what Gilles and Sigvald seem to find. And this does
> not contradict Lars's points of view, if you're willing to regard
> Barks an exception.

Sorry, but it *does* contradict my point of view, simply because I
*don't* regard Barks as an exception.

Stating that "things Barks did are *always* more important than things
other people did" is a statement I'm not sure Barks himself would have
agreed with. It's also in my opinion hurtful to people like Al
Taliaferro, who created a lot of the concepts Barks would use years
later. (By the way, Harry: Do you agree with this dismissal of
Taliaferro and other creators, or are you merely summarizing it for our
benefit?)

Yes, I consider Barks the ultimate authority on all things Barks, like
Scrooge, Gladstone, the Junior Woodchucks and so on (although there
should be some room for reinterpretation). But that's only because he
created those concepts. Saying that Barks should set the only valid
standard on how to use, say, Grandma Duck, Brigitta MacBridge or Ludwig
Von Drake makes no sense to me. In those cases, I would look to
Taliaferro, Scarpa and the cartoons as the "ultimate authorities". Not
Barks.

Regarding the conclusion that "unpublished Barks stuff is more important
than *published* non-Barks stuff"... I've posted earlier about my
feelings on the general value of unpublished material, so I'm not going
to go into that again. I *do* have one argument regarding the value of
unpublished Barks stuff, though.

When Barks did his "Tralla La" and "The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan!"
stories, he didn't draw cross-references from one to the other; he said
nothing about "Tralla La"'s kingdom of Tralla La once having been
occupied by "Lost Crown"'s Khans. (In fact, since Tralla La was based on
Shangri-La, it most likely *didn't* have anything to do with Xanadu
originally.) In Don Rosa's story "Return to Xanadu", Don establishes
that Tralla La and Kublai's Xanadu are one and the same. Since even
unpublished Barks ideas are apparently worth more than actual, published
stories from other creators... Does that mean "Return to Xanadu" is out
of continuity and should be dismissed as having never happened? Millions
of readers (and probably most DCML posters) would disagree.

If all stories that do not conform 100% to Barks' published or
unpublished ideas are frowned upon, the frowners might find themselves
leaping to criticize *a
lot* of stories they might otherwise have allowed themselves to enjoy.

Lars





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