Other artists drawing over Barks' blueline sketches

creator of Duckburg and Scrooge McDuck

Postby Robb_K » Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:07 pm

Harry wrote:
Robb_K wrote:I always wondered why Tony Strobl's drawings based on Carl Barks sketches were so unlike Barks and so much like Strobl.

Just to be sure: not ALL of Barks' JW stories were drawn by Strobl. Many were drawn by Kay Wright.

Robb_K wrote:That was especially frustrating when seeing how closely Daan Jippes stayed to Barks' lines and also did Mau Heymans.

I don't agree with you about Heymans. He changed the staging of some panels, and made the story look like a Heymans story.


Robb_K wrote:And yet Strobl not only failed to stay anywhere near Barks' lines, but he also even RESTAGED panels!!!

It is the job of an artist to improve on the staging of a script, when he thinks it's necessary. This happens all the time.
At the time of Strobl's work, Barks's sketches were not "sacred" yet. They were just a script like any other script.

Robb_K wrote:But what about Strobl?

Have you seen the *scripts* that he made in the 1980s? They are in pencil form and look *much* better than his artwork.
(Strobl wrote some stories before he retired. These stories were (horribly) drawn by the Jaime Diaz studio.)

I tend to think that it's mainly the *inkers* of Strobl stories who make them look stiff and uninspired.
(Strobl hadn't inked a story since the 1950s.)

I agree that the bad drawing we see on those original printings of the Jr. Woodchuck stories was more the fault of the inkers than of Strobl. But, If Strobl had stayed more on Barks' lines (even as I did, I'm sure that even Kay Wright's inferior (stiff) inking would have looked a lot more like Barks' work than it did. Admittedly, poor inkers that have no dynamism and fluidity in their strokes will always have bad-looking art. But Heymans' job on that one story was fine for me. Of course, it is BY FAR, the best drawing he ever did -to my taste. Just as my inking of Barks' panels is by far the best looking any drawing of mine will ever be-even with the horrible inking job.

Daan's restaging of the opening panel to the pristine "green", parlike seen didn't cause a problem in that story. It's "clashing" with the dirty, choking, polluted city, was perfect. It showed that The Jr. Woodchucks are for harmony with nature. They choose to hold their activities in the relatively clean, Black Forest. He was correct in seeing that the high-wire practising would carry more impact with a much higher wire.

Strobl's restaging efforts were ALL bad choices, in my opinion as a fan reader (regardless of Barks' work not being "sacred").
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Postby Daniel73 » Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:41 pm

Robb_K wrote:Daan's restaging of the opening panel to the pristine "green", parlike seen didn't cause a problem in that story. It's "clashing" with the dirty, choking, polluted city, was perfect. It showed that The Jr. Woodchucks are for harmony with nature. They choose to hold their activities in the relatively clean, Black Forest. He was correct in seeing that the high-wire practising would carry more impact with a much higher wire.

There's a clashing because the city air is polluted, while it is clean in Daan's restaged panel. How did the pulloted air stop so suddenly around them then?
I prefer Barks's original staging. I'm surprised that you go for the apprentice, which is what Jippes is in comparison with Barks's writing. By restaging Jippes overestimated himself and it is obvious.
Barks's harmony of the first page is destroyed: an indoors scene at the clubhouse and then a polluted outdoors scene.

Robb_K wrote:Strobl's restaging efforts were ALL bad choices, in my opinion as a fan reader (regardless of Barks' work not being "sacred").

Barks work isn't "sacred". It's just simply so good and steady, that even a team of apprentices can't improve it. Barks was a hard-working man, as he told himself. Barks is only a genius for those who can't comprehend his self-critical work methods.
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Postby Doctor Witchie Britchie » Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:37 pm

Daniel73 wrote:
Harry wrote:And again, a subject that was interesting initially, ends up in a verbal fight between McDuck's two most frequent posters.

And again, someone is giving attention to "a verbal fight" instead of the many interesting on-topic subjects at McDuck.

ARE there many interesting on-topic subjects at McDuck? I hadn't noticed; I was dozing off during the endless rounds of "he said--no, you said--no, Benjamin Truffleknocker said my work on his website couldn't fit in a frozen door knob--Richard McTadpole is a scary sacriligious creep" arguments. Is this site supposed to be a place where people can air endless, trivial personal grievances or where they can talk about Duck comics?
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Postby Daniel73 » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:29 pm

There's a topic called 'Discussions about discussing'. I'm writing many messages about Barks, Rosa, Mau Heymans, indexes, publications, etc. etc. I do Barks quizes. I welcome you to contribute on-topic yourself.

*EDIT* boardlinking updated to McDrake
Last edited by Daniel73 on Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Daniel73 » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:55 pm

Robb_K wrote:I agree that the bad drawing we see on those original printings of the Jr. Woodchuck stories was more the fault of the inkers than of Strobl. But, If Strobl had stayed more on Barks' lines (even as I did, I'm sure that even Kay Wright's inferior (stiff) inking would have looked a lot more like Barks' work than it did. Admittedly, poor inkers that have no dynamism and fluidity in their strokes will always have bad-looking art. But Heymans' job on that one story was fine for me. Of course, it is BY FAR, the best drawing he ever did -to my taste. Just as my inking of Barks' panels is by far the best looking any drawing of mine will ever be-even with the horrible inking job.

'Music Hath Charms' would be a great Mau-story with great art. But it there's too much difference with Barks's art and staging. As a Barks-reconstruction, Mau could have done a much better job. Instead, Mau has given the script the treatment as any other good script could get.
I've heard that Mau himself concluded that he wasn't ready to do the job. He had some more of Barks's scripts to do, but so far these were never done by him. Possibly, at least one of them already has been drawn by Jippes.
I believe that Mau was asked because Jippes temporary quit at the time. (Is that true?)
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Postby Harry » Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:16 am

Robb_K wrote:But, If Strobl had stayed more on Barks' lines, I'm sure that even Kay Wright's inferior (stiff) inking would have looked a lot more like Barks' work than it did.

Note that Wright did not ink on Strobl. Wright did the artwork on (lots of) Barks JW stories.
I think Strobl's artwork at that time was inked by Steve Steere.

And as a sidenote: somewhere in the 1980s, Jippes also started drawing (and completing) this Gyro story. But he never finished that job. I wonder how far he got, and if there are any pages of art in existence.
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Postby Robb_K » Sat Aug 26, 2006 11:50 am

Yes, there is no doubt that the new, slicker paper in 1959 was one factor as to why Strobl's inkers deteriorated so badly. But there can also be no doubt that the inkers he had after1958 were much worse at inking (to my taste) than those he had before. But, I'm guessing that his own pencils also were not as good, starting in 1959 (but I haven't seen the proof).
YES! It would be wonderful to see Jippes' version of Barks Pied Piper pages!
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Postby Robb_K » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:46 am

Why has my thread about other artists drawing over Barks' bluepencil sketches polluted by discussions of Frank Jonker's use of a gag that isn't scientifically sound and Rockerduck and Daniel73's discussion of "personal attacks"? Why have posts that were originally on other threads been spliced into this thread??? It makes the thread impossible to follow. I think it has ruined the thread for future contributors!

I wanted to find out what others think of what Strobl, Wright (Steere and the other Jr. W inkers), Rosa and Heymans could have done, had they attempted to stay as close to Barks' lines as possible. I think my inking job, done as an incompetent amateur inker, with very poor equipment on hand (I didn't have my inking fountain pens and brushes (only poor quality markers)-looking very much like Barks, PROVES that the Junior Woodchucks pencilers and inkers did us fans a very bad disservice. I feel that only Daan Jippes has done a decent job on Barks' lines. I admit that Rosa had to place his own style over Barks' lines to avoid having half of the story look like it was drawn by one person, and the other half by another. But I still can't help hating to look at what he's done to Barks' wonderful 3 pages.

Now that this thread has been transformed into a confused mess by excerpts from other threads, no one new will contribute their ideas on the subject I wanted to pursue when starting it.
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Postby Egg » Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:41 pm

Robb_K wrote:Why has my thread about other artists drawing over Barks' bluepencil sketches polluted by discussions of Frank Jonker's use of a gag that isn't scientifically sound and Rockerduck and Daniel73's discussion of "personal attacks"?

Why do you pollute your own topic by referring to "personal attacks" from the past? How can people defend themselves without getting off-topic again?
Whether or not the working method of Barks-follower Frank Jonker belongs in this topic, depends on whether or not you only mean Barks's bluepencils or his entire working method.

Robb_K wrote:Why have posts that were originally on other threads been spliced into this thread??? It makes the thread impossible to follow. I think it has ruined the thread for future contributors!

What do you mean, posts "spliced into this thread"?

Robb_K wrote:I wanted to find out what others think of what Strobl, Wright (Steere and the other Jr. W inkers), Rosa and Heymans could have done, had they attempted to stay as close to Barks' lines as possible.

What do you mean with bluelines? There are different phases in the working progress. If Strobl, Wright (Steere and the other Jr. W inkers), and Heymans would have traced Barks pencils, the result would have looked like crap.
Have you seen how sketchy the Woodchucks-scripts are? At a convention in the early 1990s, Jippes has explained that it isn't just a matter of following Barks's pencils. Jippes needed to fill in backgrounds and make the scenes look three-dimensional.

Egg seems to remember (from Barrier's book?) that Barks has retouched some scripts after he got them returned in the 1960s in the 1970s, because he found them too bad to sell as they were. If so, Jippes and Heymans may even have got some better versions than what Strobl, Wright and Steere received.

With 'The Pied Piper of Duckburg', Rosa and you have used a relatively detailed work that can easily be traced to look like Barks. A lot of people can do that.
But can you stage a Junior Woodchuck script properly? Can you draw pages of the pied piper Woodchuck-story 'Music Hath Charms'? How would that compare to Strobl, Wright and Steere?

Robb_K wrote:I think my inking job, done as an incompetent amateur inker, with very poor equipment on hand (I didn't have my inking fountain pens and brushes (only poor quality markers)-looking very much like Barks, PROVES that the Junior Woodchucks pencilers and inkers did us fans a very bad disservice.

Egg doubts that the Woodchuck scripts were done in blueline. The few colour scans Egg has seen showed the scripts being done with a normal pencil. You're comparing apples with oranges.

Robb_K wrote:I feel that only Daan Jippes has done a decent job on Barks' lines.

Daan Jippes did a good job because he knows how to draw, from scratch. Jippes has shown disclipin in drawing, and that makes him close to Barks. Jippes imitates Barks's working method, rather than the art.
Jippes needs to do a lot of work in turning wild Barks sketches into finished comic book stories that should look like Barks himself made it. It's a unique situation, if not an offence, to request an artist to just copy another artist's style.

I think you're unfair to Strobl, Wright and Steere. The fact that Barks went out of his way to make remarkable work, doesn't mean that other artists need to do that as well.
Unlike the later Barks-followers, Barks's colleagues Strobl, Wright and Steere were artists on their own. Why would they need to copy a retired colleague's style? Maybe they'd say, at that time: If our old colleague wants it in his own style, then let him draw the things himself.

Painting sketches that have survived show Barks using more than one pencil colour: blue, red and neutral.
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Postby Robb_K » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:04 pm

Egg: "Barks' Blueline pencil sketches" DOES NOT and CAN NOT mean "Barks' entire working method" in English-nor can it mean that (even in a wider sense) in ANY LANGUAGE!!!

I request that you (as moderator of this subforum) REMOVE those posts related to "Barks' Entire Working Method"-and make them an independent thread. Then, I suggest you remove this post of mine, and your defence of initially placing the posts into this thread, that you removed.

I started this thread with a specific purpose. Your additions have ruined the potential results of that purpose (regardless of your interpretation of that purpose). As moderator you have the power to inhance or degrade a thread. I have only the ability to bring up what I see as problems. I have stated my problem. I assume that it should not hurt your purposes to have 2 separate threads: one for the other artists using Barks' original drawings as a starting point for their "re-drawing" or re-creations", and a second for scenarists "working over Barks' entire working method"-(or whatever wider context you are considering).

This forum should be for the original posters, as well as for the readers and contributing posters. If an original poster (thread starter) has a specific question asked, and the receiving of the answers to that is severely encumbered, i think the thread starters views on that should be honoured.
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Postby Egg » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:49 pm

Robb_K wrote:Egg: "Barks' Blueline pencil sketches" DOES NOT and CAN NOT mean "Barks' entire working method" in English-nor can it mean that (even in a wider sense) in ANY LANGUAGE!!!

Egg knows. Reason for including Barks's working methods, also in comparison with other artists, could be that the Pied Piper story is an unfinished work with an unknown plot. It could be interesting to make the topic a bit bigger. You don't seem to like that, well okay. Egg will discuss Barks's working methods elsewhere.

Barks's working methods
http://bb.mcdrake.nl/engdisney/viewtopic.php?t=114

*EDIT* boardlinking updated to McDrake
Last edited by Egg on Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Robb_K » Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:27 am

Thank you Mr. Moderator (Daniel), for moving the FUTURE discussion of following Barks' working methods to another thread. However, if you really wanted to complete the job of "saving" the original intent of this thread, PLEASE remove the other discussion posts you "spliced" INTO this thread, as well as the discussions you and I have had over this problem (which will no longer be necessary (e.g. the discussion of Frank Jonker's story and your discussion of Mau Hejmans' work that you participated in, as well as my complaint post and all our following posts). The only discussion of Mau's work on this thread should be regarding his work on the one Junior Woodchucks' story he did based on Barks' drawn script. THEN, people will again be able to follow the thread. Thank you.
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Postby Ridder ter Geit » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:01 am

I must say I directly gathered that Mau story under the Barks Woodchuck story's. I was much younger then and did not have information about that stuff, but I just somehow knew it was a Barks story. So there is a striking difference between this story and real Mau-story's.
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Postby Robb_K » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:23 am

Ridder ter Geit wrote:I must say I directly gathered that Mau story under the Barks Woodchuck story's. I was much younger then and did not have information about that stuff, but I just somehow knew it was a Barks story. So there is a striking difference between this story and real Mau-story's.

Yes! By staying reasonably cloe to Barks' lines, he kept his figures more "on model" than his normal style. In addition (other than the few changes he made in staging, his use of Barks' staging of the panels was like Barks' usual style and unlike his own normal style. Personally, I prefer it to his normal style. I think it is, by far, the "best Disney Comics drawing he's ever had published. But, then I think that of Daan Jippes best work on The Junior Woodchucks stories-AND I think that about my own drawing over Barks' sketch lines from his first three pages of "The Pied Piper of Duckburg".

I think Barks drew Duck Stories much better than any of the other Disney Duck comic book artists.
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Postby Egg » Thu Nov 15, 2007 11:35 pm

- - - - - - - - - -

Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:57:03 +0100 (CET)
From: "Stefan Persson"
Subject: The Pied Piper of Duckburg
To: [dcml]

Today I received my copy of the latest issue of the Swedish Donald Duck
weekly, issue 47 from 2007, containing a Jippes version of The Pied Piper
of Duckburg, and I noticed that it's quite different from Rosa's version.
Barks sketches only tell what is supposed to happen on the first three
pages, so Rosa and Jippes had to come up with the rest of the story
themselves.

The first three pages are mostly the same in both versions, but I found
some differences:
* On page 1, Rosa drew the money bin much closer to Barks' original
sketches, with no grass between the money bin and the street. Jippes, on
the other hand, added a large lawn around the money bin, and drew it more
like the normal money bin, although not on top of a hill. In Jippes
version, it is on the other hand located on top of a hill on a later page
in the story, which looks a little inconsistent.
* On page 2, Gyro's electronic question answerer tells Gyro to blow up a
bridge in Barks' original sketches. In the Rosa version, this was kept,
but in the Jippes version, the answerer tells Gyro to open the bridge
instead. This difference also resulted in quite different bridge designs
in the two versions.
* On page 3, the different money bin designs are shown once again. The
lamp outside of Gyro's laboratory looks different in the two versions,
with Rosa's lamp being closer to the original Barks sketches. There are
also some other minor differences, although nothing important.
* Page 4 and on are completely different, with a completely different plot
in each version. Another difference is the page count: Rosa drew 8 pages,
while Jippes drew 9.

All in all, it was interesting to see this story in a new interpretation.

Stefan

- - - - - - - - - -

source: DCML
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