Other artists drawing over Barks' blueline sketches

creator of Duckburg and Scrooge McDuck

Postby Daniel73 » Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:21 pm

Frank Jonker is a good writer. But also he can make weird stories, about a spoonful of (just) soup that breaks open a lock when it gets frozen. Apparently a way of reusing Barks's frozen money bin story (WDC 135). But it's worked out ridiculous. Just put a spoonful of soup in a vertical(!) lock and it breaks open by the cold. I never would expected that to be a Jonker/Hoogma-story, as they should know better.
http://coa.inducks.org/s.php/x/H+24187
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Postby Rockerduck » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:40 pm

Daniel73 wrote:But this is Barks. Daan Jippes and Mau Heymans are incapable of improving on Barks, as they both have shown. Also Jippes has restaged a panel:

http://outducks.org/webusers/webusers/us_wdc_643h_001.jpg
http://coa.inducks.org/story.php/0/H+98254

The first panel is an indoors scene in Barks's script. By changing it to an outdoors scene, Jippes's outdoors panel is an odd contrast to all the smoke and pollution in the next panels.
Barks's staging isn't only changed, but simply destroyed.

In my opinion, it was a good move for Jippes to re-stage the first panel in this Junior Woodchuck story. I've seen the first page of Barks' sketches, and there indeed the first panel, with H,D&L practicing their tricks takes place indoors (I assume in their JW clubhouse). However, in this sketch it seems very odd that one of the nephews is practicing to walk a tight rope when he is very low to the ground. Also, the 4 characters (H,D&L and the JW chief) are all cramped together in a panel that's obviously too small.

By staging this scène outside, and making the panel much bigger, Jippes creates much needed space and he can stage H,D&L properly, without them being cramped together. Now, he can show one of the nephews on a rope from great distance to the ground. That's more believeable. Also, he already shows a (badly maintained (look at the broken glass in the window)) factory in the background. Besides, this could take place in another part of Duckburg, maybe the JW private playground?

But most important: there's nothing wrong with the staging, or the drawings. It's not like Jippes has changed the story dramatically, like some editors did when they were messing with Barks' scripts for 'Hang gliders be hanged' (is that correct?) and 'Dime and dime again'. Therefore, it really doesn't matter that he changed something in Barks' sketches. That's the way things go in Disney comics. Barks also changed a lot of scripts he didn't write himself.

Daniel73 wrote:There are many apprentices who want to improve on their master, without having a clue. Few people seem to realize how much experience Barks had in staging scenes and timing, having worked at the Disney studio.

There is a problem with certain artists, who think they can do better than Barks. Don Rosa turned down Barks' idea for Chapter 12 of 'Lo$'. Geoffrey Blum, a self-claimed Barks-expert, scrapped some very powerfull scènes from that script when he made it into the comic 'Dime and dime again'. Also, I mentioned before 'Hang gliders be hanged', which was altered heavily, making it much less powerfull. That's a real shame, of course, but saying Jippes did it wrong because he restaged a single panel is over-reacted, in my opinion.

Daniel73 wrote:Mau Heymans obviously uses tricks and recurring standard expressions in drawings. The more Mau draws the more obvious it gets that he can't draw.

Mau Heymans has made a huge amount of very well-drawn Duck-stories between 1987 and 1997. I agree that after that, his drawings got worse and worse. Nowadays, his staging lacks imagination, and his Daisy looks like a man. That's just awful. He was also forced to work with compuer-balloons for a very long time.

Daniel73 wrote:I still can't believe that "my" Jippes got into such artistic crimes.

I think you should call the police and turn him in. Seriously.

Daniel73 wrote:The more I get to know about these so-called Barks heirs, the more I realize that Carl Barks is dead nowadays.

I don't think they call themselves 'Barks-heirs', nor do their editors. I guess you coocked up the term. But yes, you're right: Barks is dead nowadays. He has been since the 25th of August, 2000.

His way of telling stories has been mostly followed by the Dutch artists in the 1980's (and maybe even the first half of the 1990's). Noteworthy are the tenpagers that Jippes and Milton made together. They're almost as good as Barks. Then there are many Dutch tenpagers from different artists, mainly written by Jan Kruse and drawn by Fred Milton, Ben Verhagen and of course Mark de Jonge.

Nowadays, I see very few good Dutch stories. They seem to have lost the Barks-touch, and even if they hit the right tune, the story is destroyed by the 'art' of a Mau Heymans who went downhill, a Bay Heymans who's still great but for some odd reason still uses computer-balloons, or a Sander Gulien who wouldn't be able to draw a devent Duck if his life depended on it. The Dutch mostly concentrate on short stories (less than 10 pages), and good scriptwriters like Jan Kruse are wasting their talent on Br'er Rabbit and The Big Bad Wolf. These are getting drawn by the assembly-line artists at ComicUp.

There have been put out remarkably good Duck-stories in the last few years however, by Egmont, where creators like Francesco Peinado and César Ferioli illustrate well-written stories from e.g. Byron Erickson.
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Postby Rockerduck » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:41 pm

Daniel73 wrote:Frank Jonker is a good writer. But also he can make weird stories, about a spoonful of (just) soup that breaks open a lock when it gets frozen. Apparently a way of reusing Barks's frozen money bin story (WDC 135). But it's worked out ridiculous. Just put a spoonful of soup in a vertical(!) lock and it breaks open by the cold. I never would expected that to be a Jonker/Hoogma-story, as they should know better.
http://coa.inducks.org/s.php/x/H+24187

However, Jonker has reacted on this criticism in detail, explaing you why the story does ring true. Maybe it would be nice to tell that here, too.
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Postby Daniel73 » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:00 pm

Rockerduck wrote:However, Jonker has reacted on this criticism in detail, explaing you why the story does ring true. Maybe it would be nice to tell that here, too.

Where has Frank Jonker reacted in detail? And why don't you show it then? Does an explanation make a wrong story good? Just try it yourself, opening a lock with a spoon of soup.
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Postby Rockerduck » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:14 pm

You know where Frank Jonker reacted in detail. You received the e-mail he send you about the story, and you placed it in the Dutch part of McDuck.nl. It's in Dutch and a long story, so I'm not gonna translate it. But then again, you came up with this story, so I think it's only fair when you tell the whole story.

(Although I realize you've never been a fan of being fair and telling the truth.)
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Postby Daniel73 » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:41 pm

Rockerduck wrote:(Although I realize you've never been a fan of being fair and telling the truth.)

What is it now? You mention some comments by Frank Jonker. I'm commenting on the story itself. If you're interested in discussing Jonker's comments on the story, which can be found at the Dutch section, translate them yourself.
For me it's a different subject. Everyone can see the story and judge my comments about it.
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Postby Rockerduck » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:44 pm

In other words: you want to discuss a certain story, you criticise it, but you only give your half of the story. That's not really fair.
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Postby Daniel73 » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:00 pm

Rockerduck wrote:In other words: you want to discuss a certain story, you criticise it, but you only give your half of the story. That's not really fair.

What is now again? Can't I mention something in a story, just as a side-note?
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Postby Rockerduck » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:09 pm

You're not giving the whole story.
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Postby Daniel73 » Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:43 am

I've enough of this. For me it's a different subject. Everyone can see the story and judge my side-note comments about it. If I would have to explore everything I write, just to keep you satisfied, I'd be a slave of your so-called "truth".
http://coa.inducks.org/s.php/x/H+24187
My point is that your can't open a vertical lock with a spoonful of soup (or water). No matter how cold it is. The liquid can just leak away before it gets frozen. Are you suggesting I'm a liar for stating that? Go call the Myth Busters instead!
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Postby Rockerduck » Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:21 am

Jonker has explained how a vertical lock can be openen with a spoonful of soup. That you're being selective in your posts doesn't make that any different.
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Postby Daniel73 » Tue Aug 22, 2006 2:24 am

Rockerduck wrote:Jonker has explained how a vertical lock can be openen with a spoonful of soup. That you're being selective in your posts doesn't make that any different.

It's impossible to open a vertical lock with a spoonful of soup. No matter what reasoning. Just try it.
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Postby Harry » Tue Aug 22, 2006 10:36 am

And again, a subject that was interesting initially, ends up in a verbal fight between McDuck's two most frequent posters.
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Postby Daniel73 » Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:12 pm

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. :rolleyes:

Daniel73 wrote:I helped improving three Mau stories, most notably a story about a violin player. This was terribly bad in script, just using a Barks idea of 'The Master Wrecker' (an insect on paper that changes what's written on the paper) and then a runaway ending... I suggested Mau to go further on the unfinished symphony mentioned on page 1, and provided him an ending about an expert being enthousiastic about Donald's finishing of the piece. I never got any credits for my work for Mau. As if he was Disney himself. Which makes me wonder how much he has used from others helping him out.

I didn't get any credits for my work for Mau in the literal sense. He told me that he agreed with 9 out of 10 points, without telling me which ones. So, principally speaking, my ideas can in fact be simultaneous ideas by someone else. I helped for getting experience and learning how to build up a story, but without explanation and knowledge where and how my proofreading was useful, there wasn't any direction at all.
And I couldn't just look at my xeroxes of the finished scripts, because Mau told me that he would later use some of my ideas when drawing the story. So, in short, I have to figure out what I did - if anything - by looking at the published stories, when even more people have got involved in the production process.
And some corrections which Mau had agreed with, were left unchanged. For example Donald saying the (untranslated) English word "boys" to the nephews, which sounds strange in Dutch.

Another problem was that my ideas would mean a lot of rewriting, as with the violin story. The stories I like were about Donald working for Bel-Sel (published) and one about a certain Kiki Boo (rejected at the time).

One story I disliked was about home videos, which started nice but became messy after the 2nd or 3rd page. (Mau's trademark.)
Mau even went as far as to explain in the script that a videotape was erased but not fully. I told him that this didn't work in comics, as it's too hazy and technical.
Donald was taping something over an earlier film of Daisy's club. And at the television studio someone discovered a remaining of that partly erased film of Daisy's club, and so Daisy's partly erased film got broadcasted.
I asked Mau why he didn't just mention that Donald's film was just placed after Daisy's film, unaware of that earlier film. Just as would happen with optical filming.
Using some videotape-explanation was too far farfetched and it contradicted Mau's 1950s vision. Mau said he'd rather use the world of the 1950s, with telephones still having a dialer instead of buttons.
There was too much contradiction from Mau, which made him unreachable for me in the communication. Very confusing.

Looking at the handful of scripts I can predict one awful Mau-story to appear, about a chicken, a car and a farm. It's a clear example of Mau beginning good, but falling flat on the 3rd page. Disastrous. And then he uses two scenes from Barks stories to keep it going. Horrible. And to my amazement it got accepted.
The more I saw of my idol's work, the more weak working methods I saw. Or worser, the less work methods I saw. Mau even argued that not all the stories needed to be toppers, which I find an ignorant way of working. And it doesn't fit with Barks, in whose footsteps Mau is supposed to be walking.
Also, it didn't match with Mau's vision of Barks being "voedsel voor de geest" (food for the spirit), unless he meant a headache.

My experience with Mau reminded me of an old comment by master Barks, who tried to help and motivate a scripter. In a December 30, 1960 letter to Malcolm Willits, Barks wrote: "I have just finished drawing two ten-page Donalds for Disney Comics that were scripted by an outsider. Editor Chase Craig sent me the two scripts while I was busy drawing the Gyro #3. I welcomed them as a chance to gain some time. Besides, I thought the writer might be some beginner who'd be encouraged by having his stuff used. Well, after days of rewriting and gag-propping on the scripts, all for free, I got them in shape and drew the art. Then, too late, I noticed on the border of one of the sheets the barely legible name of the author. It'd been erased, but I could make out the moniker of an old hack who has been around the game for years, and has never caught onto the duck style. Boy, do I feel let down."

Frank Jonker is a contrast, because Jonker communicates clearly and even gives credits and 50% payment, which made me feel embarrassed as he did most of the work. (Turning text-ideas into script.)
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Postby Daniel73 » Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:54 pm

Daniel73 wrote:The stories I like were about Donald working for Bel-Sel (published) and one about a certain Kiki Boo (rejected at the time).

The script of Kiki Boo needed lots of rewriting and rethinking, but the basic idea was strong. This was in 2004. I'm curious how it was accepted in the end (in 2005?). I'm curious if Mau improved it or not. I only have xeroxes of a rejected version with some memo-notes from the editors stuck on it. (From 2004.)
The Kiki Boo story needed a lot of logic thinking and I guess some kwamtum mechanica. A bit like: What would happen if this wouldn't happen, etc.
But I can't say too much now, as that might spoil the story. Whenever it appears.
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