DCML Digest, Vol 7, Issue 48

[BFOSTERLA@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/25/2003 3:06:24 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
dcml-request at stp.ling.uu.se writes:

From: Kai Saarto <ksaarto at mbnet.fi>
Subject: Re: Correspondence and... 


> My guess is that Carl Barks has inspired many of us in various ways. At 
> least for me, his stories got me interested in history. Is the same true for the 
> other historians in the group? How about his influence on other people's 
> career/studying choices?

Influences are like links in a chain and one's life and career is comprised 
of a bunch of links. I read comic books back in the late 40s but didn't meet 
Barks until 1965. But his comic book stories that I read back in the 40s surely 
had an influence on some part of my brain. I remember reading three comic 
books in particular: Batman, Superman and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. I 
always identified with Donald Duck, and those stories have stayed with me all my 
life. By the early 50s I was pretty much a funny animal fan, adding Walt 
Kelly's Pogo and Kurtzman's Mad to my list of major influences. When I was a little 
kid I didn't know that Walt Disney didn't actually draw everything. In 
reality, that influence was actually Carl Barks. My early love of Disney comics and 
those characters led to a serious pursuit of art as a career, art school 
introduced me to new influences and friends, and that led to a career in animation, 
which led to an interest in writing, which led to a stint with Marvel's Crazy 
Magazine which was noticed by some people at Disney Studios which led to a job 
offer as a staff writer and artist at Disney Publications which eventually 
led to my position as Editor, Managing Editor and Art Director for Disney Comics 
where I edited Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in the post-Gladstone era (if 
3 years can be considered an era.) So that earliest influence came full 
circle to the point of direct involvement with the thing that started me down that 
path back in the 40s. Of course along the way I got to know all the major 
players in the Disney comic book business, and still can't get over the fact that 
my childhood dreams became a reality and my childhood influences became 
colleagues. Mind boggling! 
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