Kelly (A forwarded message from Steve)

Sigvald Grøsfjeld jr. sigvald at duckburg.dk
Tue Aug 19 23:44:59 CEST 2003


Hi all!

Steve from Austin did recently send me the following mail. It's forwarded
here with his approval.

Sigvald

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Perhaps Olivier reacted as he did because of the word "stuff." In Norwegian
(and possibly Danish [and Swdish] as well), "stoff" would be translated to
"material" however, in American English, "stuff" frequently suggests
inferior material...

You responded: While Carl Barks was kept anonymous by Disney, (comment:
corporation bringing joy to audience while exploiting employees?)

Kelly's name was probably always connected with Pogo, just like Charles
Shulz name was connected to his work, etc. (Comment: Agreed.. On the other
hand, Walt Disney kept his and his company's name connected to all the
characters,even if he did not create them.)
So just like SKO and others say that we shouldn't trust Google-WEB-polls to
much -(Comment: SKO has no sense of experimentation; while your test perhaps
would not stand up to statistical analysis and opinion-poll survey
methodologies, it definitely shows relative amounts of interest.)

we should IMO also be very careful by ranking Kelly and other well-promoted
artists/creators over Barks, whose name wasn't promoted at all in his active
days. (Comment: Barks took a comfortable path, securing his livelihood
--though we know Disney didn't make him rich--by keeping the Disney folks
happy, while still expanding the creativity through story lines. Kelley
chafed under working for someone else and chose the risk of creating new
characters and their world. Who is "better?" It's not possible to ever
answer that question. The comic book medium is somewhat different from the
comic strip medium, due to timing of jokes, pacing, etc. I personally loved
Pogo, because he and his friends came into my home every day in the
newspaper, while the Disney comics only arrived once a month. But I truly
enjoyed the manic reactions of Donald and the interactions with HD&L and U$.
The one thing I would eagerly argue for, however, is that Kelley's
backgrounds were usually more interesting than Barks and other Disney comic
book artists, excepting the occasional large scenic frames. Perhaps because
the Disney artists were told to keep the images simple for the kids?)

In closing, thanks for your response and I hope you won't take this as being
critical of Barks, and in the same vein I hope you may gain a larger
appreciation of Kelly.

I sent this to you off-list, but if there is anything you wish to share with
the others, feel free.

Steve in Austin
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