Barks' early Grandma/Scrooge & Euro

[Rob Klein]

Re:Barks' Donald Duck's "Best Christmas": 

I believe that the "Grandma" Barks drew was meant to be the "one and only" 
Grandma Duck that was needed for the newspaper strip AND the comic book Disney 
Duck Universe.  To that time, and indeed since, there have not been many 
regular characters added to the family.  If The Studio Animation, or Comics 
Departments, OR K.K. Publications/Western Publishing had intended to introduce 
the "OTHER" Grandma of Donald or his Nephews, they would have introduced her 
very specifically - so that the reader would have no doubt that she was a 
different person from "Elviry" (the Grandma introduced by Taliaferro in 1938). 
As Frank B. surmises, I too believe that Carl Barks had not intended to portray 
a different character. She only appeared in TWO panels.  He was not careful to 
check the Disney Studio Animation Model Sheets (which DID exist, at that time), 
or check an old strip of Taliaferro's (which may NOT have been easily obtained 
by him in mid 1945 (he was working at home in San Jacinto- far from the Western 
Ooffice in Los Angeles.  That office likely did NOT have photos of old 
Taliaferro grandma Duck Drawings in 1945.  Barks would have had to have the 
Western Publishing office request from the Disney Newspaper Comics Department, 
that they post him photographs of grandma from an old strip, IF they had that,-
OR that Al Taliaferro draw him a sample sketch, or that The Comics Department 
in Disney Studio request from the Animation Department, that a photo of the 
Grandma Duck Animation Model Sheet be posted to Barks.  This entire process, 
with protocal, personal favours, and red tape would have taken several weeks.  
As Barks kept to a rigourous work schedule of cranking out stories, he would 
not have wanted to WAIT on this story.  It required a certain amount of lead 
time to be ready for shipment to FIRESTONE STORES, WELL BEFORE CHRISTMAS. There 
may not have been time.  As Barks had regularly read the Taliaferro strips (he 
told me so, himself), he had a reasonable memory of what Grandma looked like.  
She didn't look different enough that she couldn't be the SAME person.  By 
early 1950, when Barks first used Grandma as a major character in a story 
(Vacation Parade Nr.1 - Summer 1950), he drew her much closer to Taliaferro's 
version.  He may have had a reasonable time before drawing the story to obtain 
the studio model sheet.  By 1950, the Western publishing editorial office in 
Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) had a larger staff, and likely, closer ties to the 
Disney Studio Offices (as the comic books editorial system was no more in 
place0.  Don't forget, that in early 1945, the regular production of Disney 
Comic books by Western Publishing was only a few years old (and only a few 
artists had been working on them).  The editors gave Barks a virtual free hand- 
as HE was, in effect, forming the production system, almost by himself.

Thanks Kriton, for informing me on the longer-term deadline for exchanging our 
old currency for Euro. This brought me up a very funny scene: Uncle Scrooge 
spending several months visiting EACH of The European Union National Banks to 
exchange his old currancies to Euro.  Of course, he had to do that because of 
his trying to save money by not taking his "expensive" MEMORY PILLS. Because of 
that grievous error, he missed the FIRST deadlines for exchanging in all those 
countries. Can you imagine the riots caused by the many angry people waiting in 
line for days for him to finish turning in his billions of paper bills??? 

Good Luck Don and the Italian Artists and Writers! Your fight is for ALL of us! 

Rob
Klein

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