As I write this introduction, Don Rosa has just made a reappearance online as a most welcome visitor in the Papersera forum. The official language of the forum is Italian but, fortunately, this does not seem to get in the way of the interaction. With the unofficial demise of the DCML it's nice to have once again a public online place where Don and his fans can meet.
In this episode we go back to discussing Don's pre-Disney days. We already talked about his first character, Lancelot Pertwillaby, which appeared in the student newspaper of Don's university. A few years later, while Don was working in the tile and terrazzo company founded by his grandfather Gioacchino (Keno), Lancelot had a second series of adventures as an unlikely superhero, this time in a real newspaper.
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FS: Shall we go back to the times of the beginning of your...
...of the world!
FS: Well, I thought I suggested the beginning of the world and then you went back to before the world existed! [Both laugh] I think I started by leading you into how you got to publish your first story with Gladstone, the Son of the Sun, and then we went back into prehistory and Lancelot Pertwillaby and so on. So, we were leading up to that and saying: OK, you managed to do the first version of the Son of the Sun, with Lancelot, in your university newspaper; and then, I think before we went out for lunch, I was asking you about the second run of Lancelot with Captain Kentucky, and that we didn't talk about yet, and then after that we would lead into you discovering Gemstone.
OK. So, we didn't talk about this for that [1997] book?
FS: Yeah yeah, that's why I said, I apologize if I'm asking you things that I asked you a million times ten years ago. Because now people can hear them from the horse's mouth.
Oh, I got you, ok! So, what came after I was doing the fanzines work? I was doing that [from] 1974 to about 1978 and then, about 1979, the features editor of the local major newspaper called me up. I was already a known local eccentric, a local personality, cartoonist, comic book collector, you know, people had done articles on me now and then. Anyway, he said he wanted to have a weekly newspaper comic strip. And I was the first person he thought of. He called me up and he said I could do anything I wanted, I could suggest anything I wanted, see if he liked it, and he wanted a weekly strip. I think I had two ideas. That's all he said: "Suggest some ideas!". Right away I knew I wanted it to be... it had to be local, I wanted to make it local and I'd use real people and real places; and I think it was either going to be a detective, like a Sherlock Holmes parody, that would involve local personalities and mysteries, or that it was easier to do superhero, that seemed like there'd be more action.
FS: What kind of paper was it that posted this?
It was for the major Louisville newspaper, The Courier-Journal. Actually for The Louisville Times which was the afternoon edition with the C-J being the morning edition. Both papers were owned by the Bingham family. If you were listening carefully last night [when we went into town to watch Shakespeare's Tempest], I'm sure you don't remember but the lady who came down in the theater and introduced the plays said "Thanks to the Barry Bingham foundation" that helped sponsor this play. Barry Bingham was the publisher of both of the main local newspapers. And his morning edition C-J was a major newspaper in the country. I think it was sometimes regarded as one of the five or six most prestigious newspapers in the country. Anyway, it was a major newspaper, not just like some local neighbourhood [paper]. And this was their Scene magazine, sort of the entertainment section of the Saturday paper. A magazine: on newsprint but it's magazine style, folds out, there's articles on movies, cooking, television and interesting articles on lifestyle and everything; and then he wanted to have a comics page which would have all sorts of interesting national cartoons, like Larson's THE FAR SIDE and other national strips that he handpicked as being unique and different; and he wanted to have a local comic strip so he called me. And so I suggested a superhero comic strip; but I also suggested not because I personally wanted more space but I said: once a week, it has to be like a Sunday page. If it's just once a week, we can't get anything done in one tiny strip per week, because I wasn't going to do just gags, it was going to be a continuing story. And he, without any hesitation, he said "Sure!", he'd give me half a page in the paper and I came up with Captain Kentucky. And it was a comedy superhero, and it was Lancelot Pertwillaby again, I mean there was no reference made to the early Lancelot Pertwillaby, I just figured it'd be fun if I used my same character. One reason it was fun was that it was me. Readers didn't know it was me but it was fun to draw myself into these adventure stories. For instance I guess it was fun to draw myself into that Pertwillaby Papers story that I regarded as an Uncle Scrooge adventure. I was the hero of an Uncle Scrooge adventure! It's hard to imagine it was me looking at me now, but that's what I looked like in those days.
FS: So, did it become you at the transition to Captain Kentucky or was it really you already at the time of Lancelot, at university times?
Oh yeah, from the first episode of the Pertwillaby Papers in 1972, I was drawing myself as Lancelot Pertwillaby, yeah!
FS: Consciously making it yourself?
Sure! But nobody knew it was me, it was just an in-joke to myself. Just for the fun of it. Certainly I wasn't doing it because I thought I was handsome! Gosh no, red hair and thick glasses... it was just fun to do. Plus, it looks like an unlikely hero! It's not the person you make the hero of a comic strip. So, like a Woody Allen kind of character. That's why Woody Allen puts himself in his movies: because he was a very unlikely-looking hero, so he is a comedy hero.
FS: When I visited you eight years ago in 2000...
...you thought I was Woody Allen!
FS: No, I thought you were Captain Kentucky! Because you got out your outfit and you had your mantle [= cape] and stuff, you still have it over there I guess...
You remind me I've got a copy of Scene magazine, it's funny I didn't notice it in there when we were flipping through that stack last night... I'm on the cover of Scene magazine in my Captain Kentucky outfit, but bald... as I look now. They did that a couple of years ago.
FS: So, that Captain Kentucky outfit, is that something you did after this was all over or while it was running?
Oh, while it was running! Yeah! My wife made it and I would make some personal appearances on television or at special events as Captain Kentucky. I remember one, they were doing a special series of TV shows, I think it was a local channel, it was one of their anniversaries, thirtieth anniversary or something, and so they were having lots of local celebrities and local personalities come and appear. And I was down at the [TV] station waiting to go on live and there was some group of little girls, seven or eight years old little girls, and they were going to go out and sing, and I was standing there in my Captain Kentucky outfit... Now, you have to know that part of the outfit, the cape, was a Kentucky flag, which I thought would make a really nice flag because the Kentucky flag is possibly one of the only flags of States that has a fringe around it, an old fashioned gold fringe, you know, tassels all the way around it. So that would always be fun to draw as a cape. I was the only superhero with a cape that had tassels all around it! So I'm standing there, waiting to go on air, and this little tiny girl looks up back at me and says "Is that cape you're wearing... is that a Kentucky flag?" I said: "Yes it is! I'm Captain Kentucky!" She said: "Isn't that disrespectful?" [Both laugh!] Now I said "Ah, uhm, er... Excuse me! Where's the window..." [Just at that moment, a bird smacks into the glass pane of one of the windows (!!) of the studio and then flies away, somewhat perplexed] A bird hit the window! That's what I did, I took off, like that!
FS: Did you also hit the window?
Yeah, hit the window, escaping from a little girl!
This new piece of the interview with Don Rosa, in which he talks
about his twelve Uncle Scrooge posters, can be read at many
levels. The one I consider most interesting is the one that shows the
true reason why Don does all this. Certainly not for the money,
otherwise he wouldn't have spent a week on each illustration when the
specification he received ("Please do us twelve posters to
celebrate Scrooge's 60th anniversary") could have been met with
an afternoon's work per image. So, did he do it
for his readers? For himself? Surely yes, to some extent. But, most
of all, he did for Uncle Carl, to say thank you to him in his own
personal way. This is what I find moving.
You may listen to
the audio
of the interview in mp3 format by downloading it from the link or,
if you have the right plugins, by playing it directly from your
browser with the Flash gadget below.
FS: You have on your desk, and you've had on your desk every
time I've been here, the 30 volume CBL Carl Barks Library. How often
do you go back and re-read those?
Well, I would always lean over if I needed an art reference, or to
double-check a fact, any fact I think I remember. I double check it,
though I still get it wrong sometimes. But again, it's sitting there
and I take it for granted so I never sit down and pick up a volume and
read it page by page. But I'm glad you asked that question because
when I did this series of 12 posters--and of course my version of
these 12 posters was so much more elaborate than what they wanted...
FS:
These most recent posters?
Yeah, the 12 posters of Scrooge's 60th anniversary. They suggested
that I do 12 posters, so they could print one a month, and each one
would... what was the original idea?... it was certainly not as
complicated as mine... they wanted one to feature all the other ducks
in Duckburg or something, I dunno, and one would... I don't know! But
my idea was that each one would feature a certain aspect of the legend
of Carl Barks's Uncle Scrooge and I'd do that by showing scenes from
as many of the key stories that dealt with that particular aspect,
whether it was the Number One Dime, or his fights with Flintheart
Glomgold, or... In some cases I could illustrate every story: like,
Flintheart Glomgold, there were only three stories, so I had two or
three scenes from each story. In other ones I had to pick and choose
what were the most famous. Now, most of the covers that they have done
(they don't have any other posters or pin-ups so I can't refer to
those; but just a cover, which is the next closest thing to a
full-page illustration like I was doing), I'm sure their artists can
whip half a dozen of those out in a day, 'cos' they're just like giant
single panels, there's very little detail. And they're good, they're
just the right sort of thing for the cover of the comic: it's
eye-catching. My covers are not eye-catching because they're too
complex. You can't spot them from across the room. It would just look
like a mess, a jumble of colors and dark shapes. A proper cover for a
comic that's on the news rack, you should see it from across the
store: "Look way over there, it's a Donald Duck comic! I'm going to go
and get that!". But that's not my job. My job is to overdo and
complicate everything! So I would start doing research on one aspect
of Uncle Scrooge's history...
FS:
Your illustration is more like a crossword puzzle than a
cover!
Yeah! [Laughs.] That's good! I'm glad! So, most of those stories
would be in the first 60 issues of Uncle Scrooge. There were some
early issues, you know, his earlier stories, in Donald Duck, his early
appearances, that I'd refer to occasionally; but most of the contents
of those posters came from the first 60 issues of Uncle Scrooge. So,
in doing the research, that was the first time I actually, in a long
time, had gotten and read through all those same stories that I grew
up with. And it was so much fun! Every day I would just sit there and
say "Gosh, these are good stories!" Or I'd be looking at the Carl
Barks Library and see the issues... (I'm not sure if these are the
issues I'm thinking of but...) I'd look at issues number 8 to... 12 or
something and say, "Gosh! Those five issues... Man! What a run those
were!" Just like the five greatest... that'd be about a year's
worth... what a year of comic books that was, that you could every
month get those stories! But that's the sort of reaction, it was just
so wonderful to see all those things again!
So, that was why I had a reason to look back and scrutinize maybe a
little bit closer [than while writing a story]. During a sequel I'd
look at one [Barks] story. But this caused me to look at all the
stories multiple times, because this story might have Flintheart
Glomgold but also it would maybe involve some other aspect like the
Number One Dime. Oh, and like I was also saying: these things,
instead of a normal cover which I think would take some of these other
artists two hours to do, when I do one of my overly over-drawn and
over-rendered covers, they take me two days! And these pin-ups,
although they were the same physical size as a cover, they'd take me a
week...
FS: I'm not surprised, having seen them!
...maybe a week and a half to do some of these! Because there would be research. I'd have to go, make a trip (or
send my wife on a trip) into town to the copy store to copy the panels
and sometimes reduce... because I wanted to be so accurate: I wanted
to trace Barks's [original drawing, so] in pencil I'd trace his panel and then of course when I
inked it I'd put my own little details into it---otherwise why
should I draw it? I'd just trace his panel and paste it right to the
piece of paper! But I wanted it to be in the exact same pose and
everything, the exact proportions... for my own amusement, because I'm
doing it as an honour to him. And then I'd have to figure out how to
arrange them, how to best show each element. Sometimes I'd have to
leave some out...
I regard them as the most complicated twelve
drawings I've done in my whole life, and I'm really proud of them!
FS:
Yeah, so, basically, going back to the fanzine days, before your
professional time, this is the same essential thing: you've read the
[Barks stories] many times and this is an excuse for going back
and digging more into them.
That's right, yeah! Plus it gave me a chance to do exactly what I
[originally intended]. The reason I took on this job is just to do
honor to the Carl Barks stories I grew up with and maybe show them to
other people who may not be familiar with them, or at least emphasize
them again.
Don
also wrote extensive notes to accompany the posters, but not all
Disney publishers who used his posters printed them. In February 2008,
one of his readers (Tom Wormstedt) asked on the Disney Comics Mailing
List whether Don would post his original English text. This is what he
wrote in reply.
And I'm HAPPY to do this. I was rather perturbed that so few
publishers gave this information to readers with my posters each
month. I wrote an introduction to the series, a description of the
thought process behind each poster, a list of the Barks stories
featured in each group of scenes, and finally a TITLE to each
poster. The main intro and individual intros were not essential to the
presentation, nor were my comments on the list of Barks stories --
that could all be omitted. But if the featured Barks stories are not
briefly listed and the poster title offered to identify the topic of
the poster, HOW would the average reader know what the @#$% I was
doing? Unless the reader was a Barks scholar of the first water, he'd
never recognize that all the various images were panels copied from
famous Barks stories -- most scenes would simply look
nonsensical. Even *I* would not recognize all of the scenes I chose in
all 12 posters! But then to not even give readers the poster TITLE to
identify the topic! Readers would have NO idea what the poster meant!
Well...
This was the most time-consuming project that I'd ever
undertaken. The research into every $crooge story Barks had ever
created, the decision-making involved in choosing the best stories and
then best panel to represent that story, the design of the
jigsaw-puzzle-like lay-outs, MANY trips into town to copy shops with
stacks of old comics to copy hundreds of specific Barks panels each
copied at a different % enlargement size to meet my needs, the
laborious tracing of each panel of art on a lightbox adapting the art
to fit the space and rendering it in my own style based on Barks'
original, using PhotoShop for the first time on my art to enhance each
line of each drawing to get these special (to me) poster images as
perfect as I could, writing detailed instructions to colorists for
every aspect of the posters........ whereas a normal cover or PICSOU
pin-up might take me 1-2 days, each of these posters took me over one
full week! And then for so much of that effort to be turned into a
total mystery for readers. I'm not going to this much trouble on
anything again. Here are the texts -- I apologize to all European
readers who never knew that I had tried to give them this explanation
of that poster series.
INTRODUCTION TO POSTER SERIES:
I was asked to create a series of pin-ups/posters to commemorate
$crooge McDuck's 60th anniversary, dating back to when Carl Barks
created the character for what was only planned as a single appearance
in a Donald Duck story late in 1947. I should pick 12 different
aspects of the "$crooge McDuck mythos" and devote one large
illustration to each topic.
But HOW can anyone really create single illustrations depicting 60
*years* of $crooge stories involving even one particular aspect?!
Hundreds of writers and artists have created *thousands* of Uncle
$crooge stories in the past 60 years, and, being an American, I'm not
even familiar with the vast majority of all the $crooge adventures
ever created around the world. So, my "coward's way out" is to simply
do what I spend most of my time doing anyway -- I depict 12 different
aspects of $crooge McDuck's legend as seen in the stories of his
creator, Carl Barks. As large as that body of work still is, it is at
least possible to deal with a goodly sampling of Barks' most famous
and beloved stories which pertain to a certain aspect of the comic
life of his greatest creation. These posters will show the *seeds* of
the $crooge mythos upon which were based these past 60 years of
stories by so many other creators... me, included.
Here is the list of the $croogian topics which will appear during the
next 12 months, culminating in December, 2007, when $crooge officially
celebrates the 60th anniversary of his first appearance.
(Note: except for #1 & #12, this list is not in any logical order
other than the order in which I completed each poster. The list should
be reordered to coincide with the actual planned order in which the
posters will be presented, as long as the first and last posters are
presented in January and December, respectively.)
#1/January: Early Versions of Uncle $crooge
#2/February: The #1 Dime!
#3/March: Strange Beings
#4/April: Uncle $crooge's Early Life
#5/May: The Money Bin
#6/June: Uncle $crooge's Greatest Treasures
#7/July: The Beagle Boys
#8/August: Monsters!
#9/September: Lost Realms
#10/October: Flintheart Glomgold
#11/November: Magica deSpell
#12/December: Sixty-ONE Christmases with Uncle $crooge!
EARLY VERSIONS OF $CROOGE
McDUCK (January)
In the first poster in this series to commemorate $crooge McDuck's
60th year, I chose to examine the first 3½ of those 60 years during
which Carl Barks was still designing and redesigning his new
character's history, personality and (as we see here) clothing &
whiskers. Here we have views of all the earliest appearances of the
World's Richest Duck.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
The original aged tycoon in his oversized stemmed glasses and
robe, eyeing the bear cub he actually never saw during $crooge's
debut appearance in "Christmas on Bear Mountain" (DONALD DUCK
FOUR COLOR #178 -- Dec. 1947).
Losing the spats but gaining large pince-nez glasses (no
stems) and an overcoat and hunting cap, accessorized by a pistol -- I
give you $crooge's "country gentleman" outfit from "The Old Castle's
Secret" (DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR #189 -- June 1948).
Nattily dressed in suit & derby hat, a still somewhat
mean-spirited $crooge McDuck prepares to dump itch powder on his
shiftless nephew Donald in an untitled 10-pager in WALT DISNEY'S
COMICS & STORIES #104 (May 1949).
The first appearance of his top hat, $crooge is a
well-dressed cast-away as he relaxes on a tropical beach in "Race to
the South Seas" (MARCH OF COMICS #41 -- June 1949).
Stems back on his glasses, but switching to a fur-trimmed
frock coat, $McD is meeting Bombie the Zombie, even though he never
actually did so during his cameo appearance in "Voodoo Hoodoo" (DONALD
DUCK FOUR COLOR #238 -- August 1949).
The best-dressed $crooge of all time, wearing a suit &
tie and a fur-trimmed frock coat, and his whiskers gradually
diminishing, as he considers Donald's Santa disguise in "A Letter to
Santa" (CHRISTMAS PARADE #1 -- November 1949).
Admiring the rare gnoof in his private zoo, $crooge has
switched back to the fur-trimmed frock, but still no belt and with
glasses still stemmed, in "Trail of the Unicorn" (DONALD DUCK FOUR
COLOR #263 -- February 1950).
Getting close! The pince-nez glasses are back and $crooge's
frock is now trimmed in fine mole-skin rather than shaggy fur, but
it's solid black in color and his spats have only single buttons, in a
desperate scene from "The Magic Hourglass" (DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR
#291 -- September 1950).
CENTRAL SCENE: The "classic", modern $crooge McDuck, as he
has appeared since July, 1951. (I've slightly changed my own
physical appearance since I first debuted just one month earlier, or
actually at the same time this "July" dated issue was on the
newsstands. Changed my clothing, also -- that original diaper had to
go.)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: My
dedication of "D.U.C.K." (Dedicated to Unca Carl from Keno) is
certainly included in each of these Barks-tribute posters! Give
up? Look in the tears and wrinkles of Bombie's shroud on his
chest.
$CROOGE McDUCK AND HIS NUMBER ONE
DIME (February)
After $crooge himself, what could be the next topic of these pages
other than his #1 Dime, the first money he ever earned? In the central
scene I give you a "generic" view of $crooge dusting the belljar under
which the famous Dime is usually found resting on its velvet pillow
atop a marble pedestal.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
Not a scene that Carl Barks ever showed directly, but one
scene on this page must show the young shoeshine boy as he
earned his First Dime cleaning a ditchdigger's boots on a Glasgow
street.
Magica deSpell, who is collecting various coins from the
world's richest men to use as ingredients in a magic spell to make
herself rich, has the first moment of realization that the first coin
earned and carried throughout his life by the world's richest
man had to be the most potent such talisman on earth -- so began her
career in trying to steal it! ("The Midas Touch" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #36)
Directly above that scene is a close-up of the tiny Dime,
though it is based only on my own speculation that it was probably the
most common 10-cent piece in circulation at the time of $crooge's
youth, a "seated Liberty" dime .
Shrunken by a weird invention, $crooge is trying to rescue
his lost Dime from beneath an anthill when he encounters a resident
with a taste for tycoon. ("Billions in the Hole" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #33)
The #1 Dime makes its very first, if brief, appearance when
it saves the Ducks from Beagle Boy confinement -- it is so worn and
thin from constant handling that's it's sharp enough to cut ropes!
(untitled story in UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #495 -- actual U$ #3)
A second scene from the first Magica story, but it's
significant that her first try was perhaps the closest she ever came
to succeeding in melting the Dime in the fires of Vesuvius. ("The
Midas Touch" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #36)
In the first appearance of Flintheart Glomgold, $crooge used
a string tied around his #1 Dime to win a contest that named him the
World's Richest Man. ("The Second-Richest Duck" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #15)
In another Magica story, $crooge and his Dime were threatened
by some weird faceless critters. ("The Many Faces of Magica deSpell"
-- UNCLE $CROOGE #48)
Another threat from another weird critter, this one no less
than a Martian, as $crooge saves his Dime from the purser's safe of a
sunken ship. ("Lost Beneath the Sea" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #46)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: the
dedication is hidden in the pebbles beneath the Dime in the anthill
scene.
$CROOGE McDUCK AND STRANGE
BEINGS (March)
$crooge met some unusual intelligent beings of either earthly or alien
origin in Carl Barks' stories. Barks' most famous unusual people are,
of course, the residents of Plain Awful who owned the square eggs, but
$crooge never visited there in Barks' adventures, otherwise I would
have made one of them the subject of the central scene here. I was
very pleased to award that spot to my own favorites, the Peeweegah
Indians! Here we see $crooge pleading his case before the skeptical
Peeweegah Chief and equally skeptical chipmunk onlooker. ("The Land of
the Pygmy Indians" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #18)
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
On a asteroid we have two races of aliens seen in "Island in
the Sky" (UNCLE $CROOGE #29)
Having an aerial cavort are the Greek Harpies who kidnapped
$crooge to Colchis ("The Golden Fleecing" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #12)
The Venusian King who swapped $crooge an entire planet of
gold for a box of dirt and got the better end of the deal. ("The
24-Carat Moon" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #24)
Mini-aliens try to get $crooge's attention to make a big
grain deal. ("Micro-Ducks from Outer Space" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #65)
The Mermaid Queen sends a goon (a mergoon?) after $crooge as
an invader to her realm. ("Hall of the Mermaid Queen" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
#68)
Next to the Peeweegahs, my favorites are the Terries and the
Fermies! ("The Land Beneath the Ground" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #13)
To balance the Mermaid Queen in the right corner, in this
left corner I give you another undersea royalty, the King of Atlantis,
also seizing the invading McDuck. (untitled story -- UNCLE $CROOGE #5)
The leader of the Martian undersea metal salvagers I also
showed in my "#1 Dime" topic poster. ("Lost Beneath the Sea" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #46)
Peeking from below the asteroid, another fugitive from the #1
Dime poster, a member of the tribe of faceless people seen in "The
Many Faces of Magica deSpell" (UNCLE $CROOGE #48)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: Look at
the frill on the Peeweegah Chief's buckskin pants.
$CROOGE'S EARLY LIFE (April)
I guess I'm rather well-known for my "Life of $crooge" stories, and
they would provide a wealth of scenes for this page. But these are to
be tributes to Carl Barks' stories, not mine! And that made this a
tough job since Barks gave us very few visual flashbacks to $crooge's
youth. But I think I have them all here. Still, for the central scene
I hope I can be forgiven for using my own version of $crooge as a
young shoeshine lad. Barks showed him at that age only once, drawing
him already with glasses and whiskers; but since Barks did not
write that story, I try to use that as my excuse for dispelling with
such an odd rendition.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
$crooge digging for copper ore in 1882 Montana in a flashback
in the very first "Uncle $crooge" story in the very first issue
of an all UNCLE $CROOGE comic! ("Only a Poor Old Man" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
FOUR COLOR #386)
Again, I use my own image of a young $crooge to show him
gathering firewood to sell, something mentioned by $crooge when once
reminiscing about his earliest jobs. ("The Golden River" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #22)
Just because I'm short of Barks flashback scenes to show you,
here's another view of $crooge in the copper fields of 1882
Montana. Maybe I could claim this comes from his previous days "in the
cattle wars of the old frontier" as mentioned in the same
story. ("Only a Poor Old Man" -- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #386)
I used $crooge's days as a prospector in Arizona in my "Life
of $crooge", but I removed his glasses deciding those came later. But
here he is with spectacles as Barks showed him in a flashback to those
years. ("Ghosts of Pizen Bluff" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #26)
Yes, I also removed $crooge's glasses when I did stories of
his years on a Mississippi Riverboat, but here he is just as drawn in
an untitled 1957 adventure which was Barks' only $crooge story set
entirely in his youth. (UNCLE $CROOGE GOES TO DISNEYLAND #1)
Need I say what this is? $crooge proudly displays the find
that at long last made him rich, the Goose Egg Nugget, which is
catching the eye of one Glittering Goldie. And the rest, as we say, is
history. ("Back to the Klondike" -- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #456 --
actually U$ #2)
I can't swear that this Barks flashback showed $crooge in his
youth somewhere inside that diver's suit, but it seemed to be a
reference to a much earlier time when $crooge spoke of his days
salvaging sunken treasure on the Spanish Main. ("Only a Poor Old Man"
-- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #386 -- actual #1)
One of my favorite single panels of all time! The world's
first view of $crooge on the streets of Dawson City during the Yukon
Gold Rush! (once more from "Only a Poor Old Man" -- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR
COLOR #386 -- actual #1)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look at
the tunnel wall next to the central shoeshine boy's shoulder.
$CROOGE McDUCK'S MONEY BIN (May)
The truth is that Carl Barks never tried to decide on one single
version of the Money Bin. He would always change its appearance
slightly by need or whim. But he did seem to decide on a general
appearance along about 1956. Here, around a central view of $crooge
typically enjoying himself in his cash, I give you all of the early
versions of the world-famous McDuck Money Bin!
READING IN RIGHT-TO-LEFT FASHION (NOT CLOCKWISE!) :
The first time that it was suggested that $crooge had all his
money in cash and kept it in one "bin", literally a grain bin on a
farm, was in this untitled short-story in 1951. It was an excellent
(and very funny) lesson in economics, and a favorite of mine, but a
story that I personally regard as perhaps a dream that $crooge had one
night as it is just a bit too fantastic for me to accept... well,
you'd hafta read it to know what I mean. (WALT DISNEY'S COMICS &
STORIES #126)
The first appearance of a giant megalithic "McDuck Money Bin"
on a hill in downtown Duckburg was in this untitled 1952 story. The
Bin is described as being "new", but later stories described it as
having been on the hill for many decades. Yes, the joke is that it's
supposed to resemble a safe (with a huge combination dial) while
surrounded by a moat of acid and many other boobytraps. (WALT DISNEY'S
COMICS & STORIES #135)
Later that same year of 1952, in the very first "Uncle
$crooge" story in the very first issue of UNCLE $CROOGE comics, the
Money Bin jumped from the hill to a downtown street so that the plot
could involve the Beagle Boys buying the adjacent lot and digging
right into the Bin wall from their own building! ("Only a Poor Old
Man" -- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #386)
You could argue that this was never intended to be a
permanent Money Bin, but just another one-shot idea for another Beagle
Boy heist, but $crooge converted all his cash to paper currency and
stored it inside this round (and easily rolled away!) Bin in
1953. (untitled story in UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR #495 -- actual U$
#3)
Here is the most logical design for the Bin, used only once
in 1955; it shows a very efficient idea of the McDuck offices attached
to the actual 3-cubic-acre Bin of money. But the later cube-shape Bin
has more charm! ("The Lemming with the Locket" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #9)
This isn't exactly how the Bin looked in the 1956
story that I cite as the first appearance of the final design, but
this is how I see the classic Money Bin. The McDuck offices must be
contained inside a narrow facade in front of the actual Bin in the
rear, which doesn't seem very efficient or convenient for the
employees, but y'gotta love it! ("The Land Beneath the Ground" --
UNCLE $CROOGE #13)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look in
the stones in the wall near $crooge's left hand (to your
right).
$CROOGE McDUCK AND THE BEAGLE BOYS (June)
The terrible, terrible Beagle Boys! The greatest, albeit most
inept, crooks in comicdom! They seemed to be the only recurring
villains that Carl Barks really liked -- after creating Magica DeSpell
he used her for only a few years before dropping her for the last 3
years of his career, and he used Flintheart Glomgold only three
times total. But the Beagle Boys were constantly attacking
$crooge's Money Bin ever since the very first "Uncle $crooge" story in
the very first issue of "Uncle $crooge" comics! Here I give you scenes
from some, but certainly not all, of Carl Barks' most famous
Beagle Boy attacks.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
In their first two appearances, The Beagle Boys were not
wearing their later prison uniforms. They seemed to be a "street
gang"... a "crook fraternity"... perhaps not even related to one
another. They had the name of their club on their T-shirts and wore
simple baseball caps (if created nowadays rather than in 1951, I guess
those caps would be worn backwards to further demonstrate their low
mentality). (untitled story -- WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #135)
The BB's try (very unsuccessfully) to imitate $crooge's
demonstration of how he dives into his money, in the very first "Uncle
$crooge" story. ("Only a Poor Old Man" -- UNCLE $CROOGE FOUR COLOR
#386 -- actual #1)
To balance the first appearance of the baseball-capped BB's
on the left, here on the right I give them to you still similarly
garbed in their second appearance one mere month later, chipping
$crooge's money out of a block of ice. (untitled story -- WALT
DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #136)
The BB's reveal themselves to our heroes who thought they
were ghosts of Spanish Conquistadors in the untitled story about
$crooge's search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. (UNCLE $CROOGE #7)
Imitating another ancient ghost with a pirate cut-out and a
lighthouse beacon. ("The Strange Shipwrecks" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #23)
The BB's become astronauts in a snazzy spaceship to beat
$crooge to a golden planetoid. ("The 24-Carat Moon" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
#24)
$crooge buried his money underground but the BB's hit a
gusher with their oil-drilling rig. ("The Money Well" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
#21)
$crooge hides his money in trees but the BB's invent a giant
tree-cutter-shredder. ("The Paul Bunyan Machine" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #28)
The BB's have stolen a portable petrifying-ray machine from a
mad professor who loves cabbage in an untitled story (UNCLE $CROOGE
#8)
If only the Money Bin were as small as it is in this story
when it was hit by a shrinking ray, it would be much easier to steal,
but then the money inside wouldn't be worth so much! ("Billions in the
Hole" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #33)
Two disguised BB's, one as a robot seaman and another as the
ship's skipper, planning to hijack $crooge's fortune hidden in cans in
the hold of a freighter in an untitled story about Hawaii. (UNCLE
$CROOGE #4)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look in
the grid pattern on the rear end of the Paul Bunyan machine (to the
right of the oil derrick).
$CROOGE McDUCK'S GREATEST TREASURES (July)
Oboy! I enjoyed designing this one! My favorite Carl Barks stories are
the great treasure hunts! I was so inspired that I created an
interesting symmetry to this page design. At least I think I did. But
you might accuse me of also "cheating" a bit by including some items
that are more like "trophies" than valuable treasures. Further
cheating in the central scene combining two adventures that took place
in frigid climes. $crooge wears the Crown of Genghis Khan ("The Lost
Crown of Genghis Khan" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #14) while sampling the taste
of frozen Bombastium ("A Cold Bargain" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #17). Oh,
okay, and I cheated again by drawing $crooge's penguin pal smaller
than life-size, but I didn't want her to dominate the scene.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
The "ghost of Sir Quackly" threatens an early version of
$crooge McDuck in his second appearance in comics and his very
first treasure hunt story! ("The Old Castle's Secret" -- DONALD
DUCK FOUR COLOR #189)
The world's only 1916 quarter, a coin $crooge made so rare
that he himself was the only person rich enough to buy it from
him! Whups! (untitled Atlantis adventure -- UNCLE $CROOGE #5)
$crooge orbits his own solid gold planetoid. ("The 24-Carat
Moon" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #24)
$crooge swims in the treasure bins of just one of the Seven
Cities of Cibola while the booby-trapped Emerald Idol leers
ominously. (untitled -- UNCLE $CROOGE #7)
Okay, so that Grecian urn might not be worth so much except
as a trophy, but it was very valuable to the Terries and
Fermies. ("The Land Beneath the Ground" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #13)
An ol' rock that turns base metal to solid gold... is that
more valuable than an ol' urn? Okay! ("The Fabulous Philosopher's
Stone" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #10)
Just one treasure from the bottom of a flooded sacrificial
pit in Central America. ("The Crown of the Mayas" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
#44)
The GOOSE EGG NUGGET!!! ("Back to the Klondike" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE FOUR COLOR #456 -- actual #2)
Discovering some very famous diggings! ("The Mines of King
Solomon" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #19)
The Candy-Striped Ruby! ("The Status Seeker" -- UNCLE $CROOGE
#41)
Diving for the Pearls of the Kuku Maru protected by a Hindu
idol. ("Deep Down Doings" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #37)
Turning more metal into gold, this time with Vulcan's Hammer. ("Mythtic
Mystery" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #34)
Running from the Sleepless Dragon with Jason's Golden
Fleece. ("The Golden Fleecing" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #12)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look in
the Emerald Idol's headdress.
MONSTERS! (August)
I'm having more fun with these tribute posters as I go along! This
time I give you the best giant or supernatural (and a few phony)
monsters that $crooge McDuck faced in the stories by his creator, Carl
Barks. And I knew which character had to be in the central
scene -- Bombie the Zombie ("Voodoo Hoodoo" -- DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR
#238). Yes, I know $crooge did not actually meet Bombie face-to-face
in that story, but $crooge was the fellow to whom Bombie was
trying to deliver that booby-trapped voodoo doll. And in that early
story in $crooge's history, Barks did not yet even draw him as I show
him here. So, I may have taken some "artistic liberties", but it was
worth it if it means I can make my pal Bombie the central monster on
this page!
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
A rather inexplicable being from a later Barks story, that's
the Wild Girl who lived with dingoes in Australia. ("Queen of the Wild
Dog Pack" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #62)
Coming up now are what are actually three phony
monsters. First, this hotel-bellboy "ghost" turned out to be fake
(Barks did not like supernatural concepts in his stories), but it
makes a nice visual addition to a "MONSTERS!" page. ("The Mystery of
the Ghost Town Railroad" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #56)
Another fake "ghost", supposedly the spirit of Sir Quackly
McDuck protecting his jewel box in $crooge McDuck's first ever
treasure hunt. ("The Old Castle's Secret" -- DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR
#189)
One more fake monster from Castle McDuck, this one a
disguised member of the McDucks' ancient rival clan, the lowlander
Whiskervilles. ("The Hound of the Whiskervilles" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #29)
One of my childhood favorites, the Sleepless Dragon who
protected Jason's Golden Fleece in Colchis. ("The Golden Fleecing" --
UNCLE $CROOGE #12)
Across the bottom I give you three giant-size monsters
that $crooge has encountered. First is one of the legendary Rocs that
$crooge faced in an adventure that seems to have only been a
dream. ("The Cave of Ali Baba" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #37)
In the center is a giant jellyfish that attacked $crooge's
submarine while he was carrying the Candy-Stripe Ruby. ("The Status
Seeker" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #41)
One of the huge robots that were commandeered by the Beagle
Boys to loot the McDuck Money Bin! ("The Giant Robot Robbers" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #58)
Another all-time favorite! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
the one, the only, Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas! ("The Lost
Crown of Genghis Khan" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #14)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look on
the Sleepless Dragon's big Jay-Leno chin.
$CROOGE McDUCK'S LOST REALMS (September)
This page is a tribute to all the wondrous lost lands and special
places that Carl Barks created for $crooge McDuck's adventures! These
scenes get more fun to do as we go along, and this one might have been
the most fun of all... but a LOT of @#$%& work! The greatest lost
realm that I think $crooge ever visited is easily the wonderful valley
of peace and harmony, milk and honey, Tralla La; in the central scene,
I represent the valley in the person of one of the Tralla Lalian (?)
leaders as he shows $crooge the wonders of his happy land.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
Across the page top I give you three famous castles/palaces
from $crooge's adventures. First, even though it might not really be a
"lost realm", and not even very pretty to look at, still, one of the
most important estates in $crooge's life is Castle McDuck on a remote
Scottish moor. ("The Old Castle's Secret" -- DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR
#189)
Top center is no less than the castle of Valhalla that
$crooge encountered on an errant asteroid. ("Mythtic Mystery" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #34)
The remote and mist-shrouded city of Colchis where the
Harpies guard Jason's Golden Fleece. ("The Golden Fleecing" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #12)
Here we have the lost city of Tangkor Wat somewhere in an
Indochina jungle. ("The City of Golden Roofs" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #20)
Here's another beautiful lost valley, this one hiding the
gold mines of the ancient Incas (though Tralla La didn't have these
nasty booby-traps that greeted $crooge's arrival). ("The Prize of
Pizarro" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #26)
Below the ruins of his palace on the Isle of Crete, at the
end of the famous Labyrinth maze, was found the treasure-filled secret
throne room of King Minos. ("The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone" --
UNCLE $CROOGE #10)
I couldn't fit them all in this tiny view, but I give you at
least five of the Seven Cities of Cibola! (untitled story in UNCLE
$CROOGE #7)
Here you can see regiments of Terries and Fermies marching
through... Terry Fermy! ("The Land Beneath the Ground" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #13)
The lost city of Atlantis surrounded by its guardian whales
(untitled story in UNCLE $CROOGE #5)
With its famous whirlpool seeming to lead down to Atlantis, I
give you the wonderful valley of Tralla La (with its mountainous walls
severely shortened to fit them into the tiny scene). (another untitled
story in UNCLE $CROOGE #6)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: In the
Incan valley, look at the nearer of the two walls where the
spring-loaded blade awaits unwary invaders.
FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD (October)
For me, Flintheart is the greatest $crooge villain since he is, in the
tradition of all great pulp fiction, our hero's "evil twin"! But as
famous a villain as Flintheart has become in 6 decades of $crooge
McDuck adventures, the fact is that his creator Carl Barks only used
Flinty three times! First in 1956, the next time over 3 years later,
then one final time a full seven years after that. Flintheart has
gained his real fame in the many $crooge stories created by
Egmont in and for Europe. But since this is a series of Barks tribute
pages, that leaves me with the tricky job here of using scenes from
only those three stories! Well, okay, let's try it. I start
with a central scene of a classic "generic" face-off between the
world's two richest tycoons.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT:
Fighting! ("The Second-Richest Duck" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #15)
The Glomgold Money Bin at his home base in the Valley of the
Limpopo, South Africa. (U$ #15)
More fighting! ("The Money Champ" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #27)
Flintheart firing rockets at $crooge's jet! ("So Far and No
Safari" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #61)
$crooge (or at least his hat) being hit with a glob of a
witch doctor's shrink potion fired by Flintheart. (U$ #27)
The end of the great string-ball competition to be Richest
Man in the World -- it's a tie? (U$ #15)
No more fighting... now only cussing! (U$ #15).
The great silver dollar competition to be the World's Money
Champ! (U$ #27)
Oh, no! They got loose! They're at it again!!! (U$ #15)
$crooge's jet being hit by Flinty's rockets from the opposite
side of my drawing! Good aim! (U$ #61)
Flintheart firing the shrink-potion glob at $crooge with his
giant cannon, itself already a victim of its own ruptured ammunition
pouch! (U$ #27)
The beginning of the great string-ball competition to be
Richest Man in the World (U$ #15) ...but the richest tycoon on earth,
as we all know, will now and forever be Carl Barks' $crooge McDuck!!!
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look in
the strands near his foot on $crooge's large ball-of-string.
MAGICA deSPELL (November)
While the Beagle Boys wanted the largest part of $crooge's money (all
of it!), this femme fatale wanted the smallest part... only one thin
ten-cent piece. But that dime was THE Dime, the first coin $crooge
ever earned. According to Magica's (and $crooge's) creator Carl
Barks, she wanted to use that coin to forge a magic amulet that would
give her the Midas Touch... not because the Dime had magical
good-luck abilities of its own, but for the opposite reason of it
having powers that $crooge himself had given the coin by handling it
since his childhood. (Another aspect of Barks' original concept for
Magica deSpell that I like to harp on is that she is not the
supernatural "witch" she is often portrayed as in European tales --
she is a normal person who has studied the mystic art of sorcery.)
Barks only used Magica for a few years of his career, from late 1961
to mid 1964, then seemed to go back to using the Beagle Boys as
$crooge's only recurring villain(s). I picked some classic Magica
poses from specific stories, but most of which might have appeared in
any Magica story created in the past 46 years. And they are arranged
around a "generic" central scene of Magica again gaining possession of
the #1 Dime, though we know it's, as always, only temporary!
Magica's famous Sorcery Shoppe on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius
in Italy (I stuck some other volcano in the distance, for
effect). Looking on are the two spies sent by $crooge to keep the shop
under surveillance. ("The Many Faces of Magica deSpell" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #48)
Magica gives a Beagle Boy some lightning in his gabardines in
a rare team-up. ("The Isle of Golden Geese" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #45)
One of Magica's many near successes in melting the #1 Dime to
make her amulet. (In an earlier page, I already used a scene of the
traditional melting method using the fires of Vesuvius.) ("Oddball
Odyssey" -- UNCLE $CROOGE #40)
A typical magical disguise. ("For Old Dime's Sake" -- UNCLE
$CROOGE #43)
Magica uses a nice fly-fishing technique to glom the Dime on
the opposite side of the drawing. ("Raven Mad" -- WALT DISNEY'S COMICS
& STORIES #265)
The sorceress casts a spell to summon a fiery meteor from
outer space to smash the Money Bin! (U$ #43)
Magica strikes a sexy pose! Sophia Loren, eat your heart out!
(U$ #40)
The sorceress casts another spell, this time to summon a
comet from the heavens! (U$ #43)
Magica's pet raven Ratface gloats at the seemingly defeated
$crooge. (U$ #48)
Magica's fly-fishing cast from the other side of the page is
about to snag Ol' #1 from a public display (foolish $crooge!) with
that wad of stickum! (WDC&S #265)
How could I not include a generic potion-mixing scene? (U$
#48)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: look in
the flames in the comet's head.
Sixty-ONE Christmases with Uncle $crooge (December)
After the first 11 pin-ups, my problem was how to think up a "big
finish" for this series commemorating the 60th anniversary of the
first appearance of Carl Barks' Uncle $crooge McDuck? My first idea,
in typical movie-buff style, was a big ACTION SCENE! One topic I had
not yet explored was to try to highlight all of Barks' great action
panels. In fact, I still think the greatest single panel of comic book
art of all time is the half-page of the Money Dam breaking in "Only a
Poor Old Man" in the very first issue of the American UNCLE $CROOGE
comic in 1952. I figured I'd make the 12th pin-up double-size to span
two pages, and enable me to fit in all the Panavision-size scenes of
leaping sea monsters and collapsing Seven-Cities. But soon I realized
that either publishers were already using my pin-ups as
double-page spreads or they were limited by their product and couldn't
use a double-size scene. So I needed a new idea... In an e-mail
exchange of ideas with Duckfan Sigvald Grøsfjeld, he mentioned some
famous Barks $crooge stories that I had not yet featured in the first
11 pin-ups, and I noticed that there were several Christmas stories on
his list. This got me to thinking... the 12th pin-up would appear at
Christmas, the true and exact 60th anniversary of $crooge's first
appearance! The first appearance of $crooge was in a Christmas story
in a Christmas issue! In fact, Barks' name for his new character (in
the American originals) was "Scrooge" after the character in Charles
Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"... if $crooge McDuck had first appeared
in a story at any other time of year, Barks probably would have named
him "John Rockerduck" or a name indicating a *wealthy* character. But
Barks had given his character a Christmas name... Dickens' "Ebenezer
Scrooge" was not especially wealthy, he was just greedy and sour. So
my answer was to have the "big finish" pin-up spotlight $crooge McDuck
as a Christmas character created for a Christmas story. And this is
now his sixty-FIRST Christmas appearance!
In the upper left & right corners of the page appear
$crooge offering Donald the Bear disguise worn in that first story
"Christmas on Bear Mountain" (DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR #178).
Spanning the entire page below that is the scene of $crooge
leading his parade of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" (though I cheated
and only drew about two-thirds of the participants) from the story
"The Thrifty Spendthrift" in UNCLE $CROOGE #47.
Below the end of the parade, clockwise down the right side,
is a horse poorly disguised as a reindeer, pulling the rented sled
seen on the opposite side of the page -- more on that later.
Next is a shot from the untitled Christmas story in WALT
DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #148 where Donald tries to trick Uncle
$crooge out of a free Christmas feast by disguising himself as a
fellow millionaire businessman.
Below that is a special entry -- this is a combined scene
from the LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK #D84 published in 1960. Barks provided the
art for this illustrated children's storybook about $crooge's nephews
disguising themselves as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present &
Future and causing their uncle to experience the Dickens story of his
namesake character.
In the lower-right corner is a scene from "Christmas in
Duckburg", the Barks story appearing in CHRISTMAS PARADE #9. Yes,
that's a giant Christmas Tree being hoisted atop a Ferris Wheel next
to Duckburg City Hall; I won't try to explain it! Read the story!
Mid-bottom -- a special central spot had to be found for a
scene from "Christmas for Shacktown", many a Duckfan's favorite Barks
story, from DONALD DUCK FOUR COLOR #367.
In the lower-left is one of my favorite Barks Christmas
stories from CHRISTMAS IN DISNEYLAND #1 when the Ducks enjoy a white
Christmas (due to volcanic ash) on a tropical island while hunting
black pearls.
Going up the left side we next have a scene from another
Christmas treasure hunt -- a submarine search for a sunken ocean liner
in the untitled story from WDC&S #172.
Finally, to complete the scene started by the flea-bitten
horse on the opposite side, you see $crooge forcing Donald to dress up
as a cut-rate Santa Claus to fool Huey, Dewey and Louie in "A Letter
to Santa" from CHRISTMAS PARADE #1. You might recall that I also
featured this very early $crooge appearance way back in my first
pin-up in this series, 11 months ago!
(There were only two U$ Xmas stories that I didn't include --
"You Can't Guess" from CHRISTMAS PARADE #2, and "The Christmas Cha
Cha" from CHRISTMAS PARADE / DELL GIANT #26. But there were no usable
scenes with U$ in either one.)
DUCKHUNTER SPOILER: Check the
whatchacallits on the drummers' hats in the upper left.
And that completes my twelve 60th anniversary celebrations for Carl
Barks' creation of the great $crooge McDuck, my favorite character in
fiction!
Giorgio Cavazzano's impromptu self portrait, sketched on a flip-chart at his 2007 birthday party.
Exactly one year ago I had the privilege of being in Venezia with
Giorgio Cavazzano to celebrate his sixtieth birthday---as well as
Rodolfo Cimino's eightieth. Here are a few belated notes, written on
the anniversary of that happiest of occasions.
Mirano (VE), 2007-10-19
I arrived in Venezia the day before the birthday. Giorgio picked me
up at the airport and took me to Mirano, where he lives. He had booked
me into a splendid Venetian villa so we dropped off my luggage there
and then we went to his studio and spent a wonderful day together.
That morning he had a couple of Disney covers to do for Egmont; so I
had once again the privilege of admiring him at work, from blank page
to finished pencils. But that's an experience worthy of a blog post
all of its own, so I'll retell it in greater detail another time.
Once the idea works, Giorgio continues to draw his cover even while he is answering a phone call
We
had a delicious lunch at home (spaghetti alle vongole), together with
his lovely wife Elena; then he and I went back to his studio for the
afternoon. We talked about many topics and generally had a nice time;
I'm not going to make this into a diary, and I didn't formally
interview him (sorry, no podcast file this time) but you may admire below a wonderful pencil scene he
had prepared for me earlier and which he gave me as a present. It's
now hanging on the wall at home and I like to think of it as a kind of
self-portrait of us on that magical day.
In this brief illustrated essay (in Italian, sorry) I explain why I
believe the talented Giorgio is a true master, in the deepest sense of
the word---in the same way as a Japanese calligraphy master or sword
master.
Giorgio spent the day of his birthday, Friday 19th October, with
Elena; I, meanwhile, spent the day in Mestre with another very
special friend, Rodolfo Cimino, who had just turned eighty three days
before. But let's stick with Giorgio for today: I'll write about the
magical Rodolfo in another post. The fun and exciting thing is that
Elena, Gabriele and Alberto, with Giorgio's longtime friend (and Disney author) Silvano
Mezzavilla, had secretly organized a surprise event: a Cavazzano
exhibition in the heart of Venice! (In the entrance lobby of Venice's
famous casino, to be precise, on the Grand Canal.) So Elena took
Giorgio for a romantic day out and then, as the afternoon came to an
end, she nonchalantly suggested heading towards the casino for a
little cocktail before heading back to Mirano for the planned birthday
party...
Giorgio hugs Silvano Mezzavilla, who prepared the exhibition and edited the accompanying book as his present for his friend's 60th birthday.
Little did Giorgio know that dozens and dozens of his friends,
relatives and colleagues, plus a press photographer, were by
then piling up at the casino, admiring the comics originals on display
while waiting for him to arrive.
The title of the exhibition was "Cento per cento Cavazzano" (one hundred percent Cavazzano), with the "one hundred" obtained as 60+40, i.e. sixty years of age and 40 years of professional cartooning—taking as a starting point Giorgio's first "solo" Disney story (not as an inker of Romano Scarpa), namely "Paperino e il singhiozzo a martello", scripted by Abramo and Giampaolo Barosso and published in Topolino in 1967.
Tito Faraci and Giorgio Cavazzano
Most of the friends of Giorgio who were waiting for him at the casino that evening were people I didn't know; but one of the few I knew was
the talented and versatile author Tito Faraci, who had started as a script
writer for Disney Italia some ten years ago. Tito has a special relationship
with Giorgio, who immediately recognized his talent the first time
Disney gave him one of Tito's scripts to illustrate. Their chemistry
developed immediately and Tito and Giorgio have since produced some
excellent creations together---from the Rock Sassi stories to the
opening installment of Mickey Mouse Mistery Magazine; as well as,
outside Disney, a special story of Spiderman visiting Venezia, Il
segreto del
vetro.
Elena and Giorgio arrive at the casino, with all of us clapping and singing Happy Birthday
Giorgio, Elena, Alberto and Gabriele in front of a poster-sized reproduction of the first page of Giorgio's first story
Finally Giorgio and Elena arrived, hand in hand. Giorgio later said he
felt Elena's hand squeeze his, and he wasn't sure why, as they headed
towards the door... and then he recognized one face, and another, and
wondered what was going on... but as soon as they got through the door we started applauding and then singing "Happy birthday to you" and he was overcome with emotion,
surprise and joy as he realized the magnitude of the surprise party
and noticed his name on the exhibition signs and his works on display. It was
fantastic!
We then had a long, enjoyable cocktail party in a private area of the
casino. After that, a subset of us took Giorgio to dinner at a nice
seafood restaurant. All this was totally unexpected for him! I had a
very enjoyable conversation with my dinnertime neighbour Mauro Lepore,
Vice President for the children's magazines division at The Walt Disney Company Italia.
What Giorgio thought was going to be his birthday party in Mirano had
instead been moved to the following evening. The next day, then, Saturday 20th October, in Mirano, we had a special dinner
reunion with about fifty of Giorgio's closest friends, including the members
of his old rock group from his teenage years, I Randagi. And so,
after the first few rounds of food, a bunch of molto simpatici guys started taking out their acoustic guitars, bass guitars and
microphones, Giorgio took a seat behind his drum kit and, between one course and the next,
the reunited Randagi treated us to an absolutely fantastic sequence of lively tracks from the
Sixties. It was incredibly vibrant and full of energy and we were all
beaming with happiness. The party went on until perhaps 3am!
Giorgio gave each of his guests a copy of a magnificent "Memory"
card game set
produced by Italian playing card manufacturer Dal Negro with his
characters from Altai & Jonson, and also a copy of the catalogue of
the Cavazzano exhibition—a splendid booklet in full colour edited by
Silvano and with contributions from several people connected with
Giorgio's life and career: from famous Disney coauthors such as
Rodolfo Cimino, Giorgio Pezzin and Tito Faraci to special friends such
as Claudio Hintermann. The book includes a wealth of illustrations
(both reproductions of comics works and photos of Giorgio at various
stages of his career and private life) and a chronology edited by Luca
Boschi covering both Disney and non-Disney work.
Silvano Mezzavilla (a cura di), Cento per cento Cavazzano, Edizioni if, 2007. ISBN 978-88-524-0238-8.
Words fail me when I try to convey to the unknown readers of this blog
the happiness that pervaded that fantastic evening. I hope the photos help a little.
Thanks a million, Giorgio, and happy birthday again.
Finally, here are a couple of sites that wrote about "cento per cento Cavazzano".
Here I am again (earlier than expected, for once: hooray!) with part 4
of the Rosa interview. The first three parts were recorded in one
sitting, around noon on Sunday 20th January 2008. Then, as you might
have noticed at the end of the last recording, we stopped for lunch:
we ate some mushroom risotto, with the dried porcini mushrooms I had
brought from Italy. We then resumed the interview in the afternoon. In
this initial short additional chunk, Don picks up where we left
off and completes the story of the TV themes archive.
A small part of the duck figurines in Don's studio. Note the glass cabinets full of them and also, by the way, the glass dome with the Number One dime.
In this recording he also refers in passing to a new collecting hobby
that's keeping him busy lately: books. He is into adventure novels,
such as Edgar Rice Burroughs ones, and likes to read them in their
first edition. He has piles of them in his library! This new activity
seems to have taken over from his previous occupation of collecting
Disney duck figures from all over the world, which used to be his main
thing until a few years ago. Well, maybe not his main thing: one of
his main things. As he says himself, he has so many hobbies that
they'd keep five people busy! The duck figures of all sizes that he
accumulated during years and years of dedicated collecting spill over
from their glass cabinets and are to be found in every corner of his
study room.
That's what those plaques under the picture between the windows are; hmmm... do they ring a bell? Seen this before somewhere perhaps?...
The next chunk of interview to appear on this podcast will deal with
the 12 amazing pin-ups that Don did to celebrate Uncle Scrooge's 60th
anniversary and which some countries have published as a calendar. I
have the Finnish one here (can any non-Finns guess what "Lokakuu" and
"Keskiviikko" mean?) and this month shows the epic fights between
Scrooge McDuck and Flintheart Glomgold.
As I write this, by coincidence Don is actually in Finland! Check this
video by Timo Ronkainen to see the monstruously long queue of people who line
up for the privilege of having their comics signed by Don.
If they're very lucky, maybe some of the people who
attend these signing sessions will also have a chance to buy
high-quality life-size versions of these Scrooge pin-ups and have them
autographed by Don on the spot. Ask him! He told me he considers them
the most complicated twelve drawings he ever did and he is really
proud of them. They are his personal tribute to Carl Barks: he honours the Duck Man by recalling the salient moments from Barks's own Scrooge
stories.
But more on that next time. Now, without further ado, let's get on
with today's interview chunk. You may download the audio of the
interview in mp3 format or play it directly with the Flash gadget below. I'm pleased to say that I managed to record this session in stereo, unlike the previous one, which makes a subtle but noticeable difference!
DR: When we last left off, I was talking about the 16 hours of TV
themes that I had. Dan Shane was going to transfer them to a CD (or a
set of CDs, I guess: 16 hours!) and then I offered to let him sell
copies if he wanted to, since he was doing that for me, which was such
a nice thing. And so, a couple of hours later, he told me about a web
site where this guy has got what looks like every TV theme in history!
I mean, all the way from 1947 up to 2007! You know, I only had from
1947 to about 1977, so he's got another 30 years of TV themes, in
alphabetical order, and you just click on one and you listen to it,
and you go and click on another and you listen to it...
FS: Did it take all the fun out of your thing, or did you think it wasgreat?
Well... both! And that's exactly what I told [Dan Shane]. This is
wonderful but I spent decades... I mean, not decades but there were
over a thousand or two thousand themes, each one recorded
individually. I think I got a few small groups from other collectors
but for the most part I was recording them individually, and timing
them, and waiting a whole week to get it, and maybe not getting it
that week and then waiting another week... I want to ask him to please
go ahead and put those on a CD, just to preserve them for me, but
that's going to be tough because he's doing it just as a friend and
now we both know that there is just no reason for him to be doing
that!
He could still digitize the tapes without indexing everything minuteby minute...
What we might do then is, instead of, like we were saying, putting
them in alphabetical order... because the only problem with that is
the way they are now they are introduced verbally by me...
That's the fun part! Then you should preserve [them] for that!
Yeah, and one of his first questions was (I didn't even mention that
part), "Should I retain your numbered introductions or should I
arrange them alphabetically?" And when I was typing that answer I was
thinking (my thoughts were racing ahead of what I was typing) and I
said "How could you possibly do that with 16 hours of tapes
unless... you put them into the computer file and title them
and... tell the computer to do it..." and I said yeah, I'd hate to
lose all those introductions of myself speaking back in 1970 but it
wouldn't make any sense. It would be "number 732" and then "number
4"...
Back into comics!
The way we got onto that was that I took over the Information Center,
where I would answer questions but not simply on the history of comic
books but also the history of television and movies. And that's when I
did movie indexes and TV show episode indexes, which at the time you
could not get anyplace else on Earth, but now you can just click a
computer key and it takes you right to it. So, I served my purpose at
the time, now I'm obsolete. I'm like a buggy whip!
I think what you said about answering this column also to have anexcuse to go back to your collection is the reason why many people dothis indexing and so on.
Sure!
Once you've got it all, unless you make a regular re-reading schedule,you want some excuse, some stimulus to go back and dig more into it---because that's the fun of it!
Ah! So that's where you'd seen that plaque before... Chapter 12 of the Life of $crooge! (Gladstone edition)
I'll tell you something. Actually changing the subject, but there's
this huge book collection now that I'm working on---and it would apply
to the comic books also. I want to go back and read all my old comic
books. I want to read all these books I'm buying. I'm buying more
books than I can ever read! I was telling a friend of mine who is a
book dealer, maybe a year or two ago. I said: as of now, I already own
more books than I can possibly read for the rest of my life if I did
nothing but read books! I've just got so many of them! But I still
enjoy buying them, 'cos' I might get some more in the future that I
want to read more than the ones I've got now. But the problem that I
have, every day, and I have the same problem with these DVDs, my movie
collection---I've got thousands of movies here, both on videotape and
laserdisc and DVD, and I sit down on a Sunday, and I think... OK, I'm
going to watch a DVD, or I'm going to read a book, or I'm going to
read some comic book from my collection or some of these other books,
history of pulp magazines, history of this... OK, I'm going to do it
all afternoon! Now. Which... what do I do? Which one? Which book do I
read? Which DVD do I watch? I need someone to tell me which one to
watch, because I can't decide! There's too many of them to choose
from! And I can't possibly pick one that I'd rather watch more than
another! Sometimes I'll just sit there, dumbfounded that I've got so
much to do that I want to do that I can't decide where to start! So,
like you're saying, in those days it was nice to have somebody point
me at a certain comic book title, or a certain TV show; it would force
me to get into that show, I'd have a reason. And it's the same way I
need now: I wish someone would, once a week send me a list, my reading
list: this is what you're going to read this week; these comics, you're
going to watch these DVDs and start reading this book.
It's the reason people do the indexing and sometimes also the reasonpeople are on the Internet, maybe someone mentions an interestingstory they've read before, they go back and reread it.
