Carl Barks' bezoek aan Frankrijk + interview

Berichtdoor DisneyRemc°o° » zo apr 01, 2007 10:42 am

2 artikels (waarvan een een interview) van Didier Ghez. Didier Ghez werkte samen met Alain Littaye aan het boek: Disneyland Paris, From Sketch to Reality.

Artikel over Carl Barks in Frankrijk
Interview met Carl Barks
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Berichtdoor DisneyRemc°o° » zo apr 01, 2007 10:42 am

Artikel over Carl Barks in Frankrijk:

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Bienvenue Mr. Barks !
by Didier Ghez

This chronicle of the four days Carl Barks spent in Paris during his famous 1994 European tour was first published in a special issue of the Danish magazine Carl Barks and Co.

Did you know that Picsou, Les Rapetoux, Géo Trouvetou and Miss Tic were "barksian" creations. No, those aren't characters found recently in some lost files by an overactive donaldist, but the French names of Uncle Scrooge, The Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose and Magica de Spell. Those names may appear to you, Danish readers, as the strangest on earth, but they do not prevent popularity for our favorite heroes in the native country of Molière.

France is, in fact, the only European country to have created an "Uncle Scrooge Magazine" (Picsou Magazine as we know it) even if Mickey is still more well known and beloved here than the Ducks. But we all are aware of the fact that southern Europe, by tradition, is rather "Mickey-ized" while northern Europe is strongly "Donald-ized". This being mentioned, the arrival of Carl Barks in France was still considered a rather important event and the whole Walt Disney Company decided to join forces to great the Duck Master with a warm "Bienvenue Mr. Barks" ! (Welcome Mr. Barks !)

Thursday July 7, 1994

3 days after the inauguration of Euro Disneyland Paris newest attraction, the Nautilus, the press was back in the park to greet the father of Picsou. Selected journalists were allowed to meet Mr. Barks during the afternoon in the Pinocchio suite, one of the most luxurious of the Disneyland Hotel. The morning had been dedicated to press pictures featuring the Good Artist with Donald and Daisy. Strangely enough Scrooge Mc. Duck wasn't part of the ceremonies. The rumor is that Scrooge has never really been welcomed at Euro Disneyland, since its presence in the park is a symbol some people dislike.

Most journalists who met Carl Barks on that sunny day came out of the suite amazed at the kindness, good health and high spirits of this old genius of a gentle man. During the discussion I enjoyed that afternoon, Carl Barks admitted with a mischievous smile that while he found Euro Disneyland Paris a beautiful and extremely detailed park, there weren't enough Ducks in the shops. "Mickey is everywhere" said he "but where are Magica de Spell, Gyro or Uncle Scrooge ?"

Friday, July 8, 1994

The official ceremonies were a priority on that warm Friday. First, a visit to the American Embassy, where Carl Barks met the American Ambassador in France, officially to settle a visa matter In reality this was more thought of as an official honor due to our favorite artist.

Second, Carl Barks was invited by the Mayor of Paris and his first deputy to Paris City Hall, where he was to receive the most important decoration of the city: La Médaille de Vermeil (The Vermilion Medal). The event was held in one of the beautiful City Hall huge lounges where tapestries added majesty to the place and where a large series of mirrors gave the feeling of grandeur the occasion deserved. Few journalists attended this very private and moving event reserved to high executives of The Company. Barks had the opportunity that morning to enjoy 3 very French traditions: a never ending speech pronounced by the first deputy, an awful translation of the speech and, maybe to compensate, a succulent cocktail in the purest French cooking style.

Saturday, July 9, 1994

The busiest day of all. It started by a signing session held from 9.30 to 11.30 at the Disney Store Champs-Elysées for Disney Store and Euro Disneyland cast members. A hundredth of fans attended the "party" in what has become today the most successful of all the Disney Stores worldwide. Carl Barks autographed his biographies, some brochures presenting his new lithographs, albums of his most famous comics, his new creation for the Disney Dimension series of Disney Art Editions (Scrooge counting his money) and even issues of the old Donald Magazine that was published in France from 1947 to 1953 and ended with issue 313 !

The afternoon was without a doubt the actual climax of Carl Barks stay in Paris. From 3.00 to 6.00 P.M., he inaugurated the 3 day exhibition of 29 of his oil paintings in the Catto Animation Gallery. Most of the French TV stations reported on the event. Carl seated for 3 hours in front of some of his most beautiful and well known paintings to greet his admirers, discuss kindly with them and sign hundredth of books. We experienced a few particularly moving moments when a French craftsman who had been influenced by Barks works during all his life presented the Duck Master with one of his creations (a cat carved in precious stone) or when the editor in chief of Picsou Magazine offered Mr. Barks, with shaking hands, an Uncle Scrooge plaster sculpture made especially for the occasion. The heat in the Gallery was unbearable but as ever Carl Barks kept his quiet smile. Some say that the Disney Magic preserve...

Sunday, July 10, 1994.

After quite a hectic week, one could think Carl would relax, but he did not really do that. He first visited his artistic heirs at The Walt Disney Company Europe's Noisy-le-Grand Creative Center where Ulrich Schröder, head of the artists, welcomed him.

Then he eventually concluded his visit to France where it all started, in the most Magic of all Kingdoms, the one that has "not enough Ducks yet". And there he conducted the Parade as Grand Master,... Grand Duck Master should I say.

And while he sat in front of the firemen car, he probably heard Donald whispering with his quacking French accent: "A bientôt et merci, Mr. Barks !" (See you soon and thank you, Mr. Barks).
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Berichtdoor DisneyRemc°o° » zo apr 01, 2007 10:43 am

Interview met Carl Barks:

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Interview with Carl Barks
Disneyland Paris; July 7, 1994
by Sébastien Durand and Didier Ghez

Sébastien Durand: This is the first time that you have traveled outside the United States. You have seen many countries. How many countries have you visited to date ?

Carl Barks: This is our number nine.

SD: And you still have many left ?

CB: Yes, I have more to visit: Holland and England.

SD: I understand that you had no passport to leave the United States.

CB: Well, I had never had any use for a passport before and at the time I was born, the records were kept in that western homestead country. People lived many miles apart and I guess that when I was born, there was word gotten to a doctor about five miles away to come out and deliver a baby at this homestead. Whether he recorded it or not… There was no place to record it because the county governments were pretty flimsy in those days. So at the time I got my social security at 65, I had to establish that I was born in the United States. My brother who had had a mandatory record, being older than I, was able to prove it, because he had been accepted as an American citizen back in 1918.

When it came to passport, they did not accept that. That was not enough proof. And I can't remember how many things we had to do to finally convince them. They sent me a bunch of questions and I answered them. But anyway, they finally realized that I must have been born as an American citizen. They could not prove I wasn't, so they gave me a passport.

SD: Was your childhood in that farm in Oregon your inspiration for Grandma Duck's farm ? Have you used your experience in the farm in your work, after that ?

CB: Yes, in a way. Grandma Duck's farm had been established by the publishers in an other comic book. They had a comic book called Grandma Duck's farm friends. And they had established a pattern of an old granny lady that had a farm back in the middle west, which she grew corn in and things that were very different from the farm I had been used to. I could understand what it was all about because I knew what farmers were. And when it came time for me to write Grandma Duck's stories, I could do it very convincingly.

SD: When you read that the Disney Studio was looking for artists, what kind of artwork did you send them as an example of your work ?

CB: Well, I drew what I thought was a version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I had read that they were working on a movie about Sow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Anyway, these characters were not anything like the one that Disney had created but they were interesting characters and my drawings were in Disney like style and they appealed to the people who were hiring for Disney and so they asked me to come and try out for a job.

SD: You began as an inbetweener and then were transferred to the story department. Was it a personal choice?

CB: I was trying out as an inbetweener to become an animator, just as all the people who went in there. But I was turning in jokes and gags to the comic strip and also to the story department, whenever they would send out the little questionnaire to the people in the whole studio, asking for any idea they had for some story that was in production. I was beginning to sell gags to the story department and when the little form for little Modern Inventions was sent out asking all the people of the studio to think of a story that would be suitable for Donald Duck and that would involve modern inventions and Donald reaction to those things. I came out with that barber chair gag that became the main climax of the picture. I also came out with the idea of a robot that was the door-man and the guard of the exhibit.

Walt gave me $50 for that gag and he suggested that I be put in the story department where they needed gagmen more than they needed animators and inbetweeners in the rest of the Studio.

SD: In that department, you often teamed up with Jack Hannah.

CB: That was after I had been in the story department for about three years. In fact almost four years. Jack Hannah was an animator. He was sort of tired of animation and he thought he might try and get in the story department and work over there. As it happened, my partner, Harry Reeves and I had finished a couple of stories in a row and Harry had been sort of promoted to an other job. So I was just alone in one of the units and when Jack Hannah asked to be transferred to the story department, they put him over there with me. He knew nothing about writing stories; However, he knew a lot about technique and how those stories could be put into animation. He knew about music and timing and all those things and I didn't; I could think of gags and a funny situation for Donald. But as for techniques and that sort of stuff, it went over my head. So Jack Hannah was very good put with me. The two of us together made a good team. And we produced a number of good shorts.

SD: I understand that you completed your first comic book story, Pirate Gold, before you left the Studio…

CB: That was adapted from a story that had been put on the shelf. There had been a story that they had been working on for a year, that was about Mickey, Donald and Goofy going to look for a treasure. Some pirates were involved looking for where that treasure chest was hidden and they went on that treasure hunt. The story had never gone beyond the story department. It had been pretty well finished. Walt said to shelve it and maybe after the war was over they could make a movie out of it.

But it looked like very god comic book material. It so happened that a representative from Western Publishing was out there looking for something they could use for a long story plot. That was to test whether a long story involving Donald, Mickey and all those guys could make a good comic book. So the story was adapted for Donald and the three nephews that would go and look for pirates' gold.

I had nothing to do with the writing of it. It had already been written. It was adapted by Bob Carp who was a gag writer for the Donald Duck comic strip, the newspaper strip. He adapted it and made it into a script for comic book illustration. Jack Hannah took half the pages and I took half the pages and we illustrated it together, after hours. We were moonlighting (laughs).

SD: And then, when you left the Studio because of that sinuses problem to become a famous artist, have you never regretted to leave the Studio ?

CB: I never regretted it at all. Because I know that I would have been a failure around there. I never really amounted to anything. And getting out on my own, I was able to create good stuff. I think that one of the secrets of a successful writing is that a writer be alone. I can't think of Hemingway or Poe or all of those guys writing with a comity sitting around them telling them what to write and correcting their stuff. They worked alone. That's why their stuff had such charm.

SD: You are famous for all those characters you created like Uncle $crooge, like Gyro Gearloose. We know that in animation Disney was very involved. Did he ever tell you anything about all those characters you created without asking him ?

CB: I don't know if anybody ever asked him what he thought about those comic books. I never had any comment from him at all. I never had any comment from anybody at the Disney Studio, unless it came to the Western Publishing editorial offices and they relayed it to me second hand. I did not even know if anybody at Disney was reading those stories.

SD: But they read them since they copied you after that.

CB: In recent years they have been giving me credit for a lot of that stuff and treating me as if I had done a big favor to the Studio in inventing all those characters.

SD: Among all the characters that you created, Uncle $crooge is the most famous. Is he your favorite or do you have other favorite characters ?

CB: Well, of course I would say that Donald should be the favorite character and I guess he is. Because he was the means in getting to Uncle $crooge and all these others. But Uncle $crooge is a good character and I am proud that I was able to invent him and I am also proud of some other characters that I invented, for example Gyro Gearloose, the crazy inventor.

I read some of those stories now that I wrote for Gyro and I keep on laughing because I think: "How on Earth did I ever come up with such a goofy bunch of stuff.

SD: You also created some wonderful villains like The Beagle Boys or Magica de Spell. You are very interested with all these ducks, since as, apart from a few exceptions, all those characters are ducks.

CB: That was because I was assigned to draw for the Duck comics. I was not going to drag in a whole new bunch of other types of characters, because I did not want to raid the Mickey strips or the Goofy strips. They had there own comic books. Pluto himself had his own comic book and I was not going to raid those books to get characters. I just invented my own and kept them pretty well identified and Duckburg characters were all associates of Donald in some way. I did not stick to duck faces only. Gyro is a chicken, the Beagle Boys are dogs and I had fellows with pig faces. They had variety but did not came from the other comic books.

SD: When you as a writer or painter, you are the owner of your art. When you drew those comics, you knew that other people can use the same characters. How do you react to that ? How is it for you to see other people drawing Uncle $crooge or Donald Duck ?

CB: Well, I just hope that they will do a good job with them and will keep the character. I know of some instances when somebody has shown Uncle $crooge as a greedy old showoff with a magnificent car, driving around and showing off his money. I don't agree with that. I feel that $crooge is an old tightwad. He had a magnificent car once in a while but it was for some particular purpose.

SD: You have written a new story that will be published soon (Horsing Around with History). Did you choose the artist that will draw it ?

CB: Yes, I chose Bill Van Horn who lives in Vancouver to do the artwork. His drawing style is very Disney like. It looked quite a bit like my own drawing and his way of staging things is close to mine I just wrote out the script with a typewriter and had been trying to sketch it out and he got the feeling of what I was thinking of. He would read that little blurb and come up with a sketch just like I thought it in my head.

SD: When you receive his drawings, can you resist correcting a few things ?

CB: I had very few things to correct. He and I went over his pencil drawings quite thoroughly. I went over the whole way though once before I even got to thinking: "Well I have got to correct some things. " So I went back and looked at two or three small situations that required a tiny bit of changing. It could have gone through and make a successful story without my correcting at all. He was that good at interpreting what I wanted.

SD: Who are the Disney artists today that you would consider as having the same feelings as you had for the characters ? Van Horn is one of them, of course, but who are the others ?

CB: Those guys in Italy and a number of people working for Egmont. They are marvelous artists. They are doing much better drawings of the ducks and other Disney characters than I was able to do. Daan Jippes for example has been very good doing Disney style for many years. Vicar who comes from Chile is excellent and there are a number of them up there in the Nordic countries and down in Spain. Those guys are superb artists.

SD: And what do you think of an American artist like Don Rosa ?

CB: Don Rosa has a style that is a little bit different from the Disney style. I know that there is a great deal of people that like that style, which is extremely detailed. So there is room in the business for artists like Don Rosa and for others like Van Horn. They have a different style. But if they have a good story and tell it properly, then people are going to like it.

SD: For you, it is the story that is the most important part ?

CB: Oh, yes.

SD: And you wrote all your stories alone ?

CB: Once in a while I got a suggestion from somebody. I would buy somebody's idea. They would told me: "Why don't you write a story about Donald giving Gladstone a treasure map and sending Gladstone on some dangerous trip ?" Well, I bought that little suggestion from some friend of mine; All I needed were just a few words or something like that to trigger me and I would think of all the rest of the elements of the plot.

Of all the 500 stories I wrote, there was about 10 of them that started with suggestions from someone else.

SD: When you stopped written and drawing stories, you started a career as a painter. Now, you have drawn a new story. Why did it take so long to write a new story and why did you choose to write an other one after all these years ?

CB: I could not outrun these guys who were written stories any longer. They had finally caught me.

SD: What is Horsing Around with History ?

CB: It's about Uncle $crooge's search for a very rare treasure. He finds the original Trojan horse. And I mean the ORIGINAL Trojan horse, not just some corny thing. He finds it , the most valuable treasure in the world. And he carries it back to his money bin.

SD: Do you wish to write an other story ?

CB: I certainly hope that I do not have to write an other one. There is a temptation to try. People beg me to write more stories. It is difficult for me to keep turning people down. But I know that it is an awfully hard job to write those stories two. An other thing is that I know that any story I write will be examined and criticized by everybody all over the world and if that story is not of very superb quality, they are going to say: "Well here is this old hack coming back trying to make money on his reputation; He can't write and here he is getting paid for this kind of rubbish."

SD: After all these years, tell me a little secret: are you now as rich as Uncle $crooge ?

CB: Just in the last two years, I have gotten enough money to get ahead of the income tax people. I never made more money than a carpenter or a plumber. It is just in the last two or three years that I have gotten above the average level of earning and just because of those lithographs paintings I have been doing and the fact that they sell for a big price.

Didier Ghez: Can you tell us as your favorite moment as a Disney artist ?

CB: I hardly have any anecdotes because I was not around enough people to develop any. But I will tell you this about Walt who was a wonderful guy to work for and was very helpful to us on story situations. And whenever we would have him in on a story conference, he was so patient with us in our efforts to try and convince him that we had a good story. And he would let us argue story points. And in these arguments, he would always leave us the last word: "Yes, Walt!" (laughs)

SD: Among all the stories you wrote, what are your favorite ones ?

CB: I guess that among the very best was the one with the square eggs and among the funniest was a little ten page story where Donald is trying to raise chickens and there are some eggs that he stored and a lot of things happen. An other one is a ten page story of Donald where he got to complaining about everything being too noisy and he moves to a very quiet place and he was not satisfied until everything was absolutely silent around him. He went around everywhere seeing if there was any noise he could pick up. An other story I wrote that I like is called In Old California where Donald and the kids went back in history before the Gold Rush. That had a lot of sentimental, easygoing stuff in it. It was not a funny story. It was just based on pathos. An other one I like that I wrote in the '60s was the Micro Ducks from Outer Space.

SD and DG: Thank you Carl.
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Berichtdoor Michiel P » za jun 23, 2007 1:29 am

Ik vond hier ook nog een mooi interview met Barks:

http://www.helnweincomic.homestead.com/carlbarks.html

(Beschouw het maar als goedmakertje voor het stamboom-gezeur.)
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Berichtdoor Rockerduck » ma jun 25, 2007 1:47 am

Bedankt voor de mooie artikelen en interviews. Ik heb er echt van genoten. In mijn verbeelding hoor en zie ik voor me hoe Barks die vragen beantwoord. Hij is zo geduldig en hoffelijk en aardig. Ik vind dit stukje mooi, uit het interview met Helwein:

Helnwein: Do you know, by the way, that your stories were translated into German quite brilliantly by a woman named Erika Fuchs.


Barks: She must have been very good, because in my conversation with fans, I always had the impression that the German readers best understood my humor, in contrast to the Italians, for example, where the spirit of my stories apparently was lost in the translation.

Helnwein: The Italians?

Barks: Yeah, the Italians, they really butchered the stories.

Helnwein: Erika Fuchs did translate the whole spirit, the meaning of the words.

Barks: I don't know how she did it-she must have had a very good knowledge of English.

Barks heeft Erika Fuchs ontmoet bij haar thuis, in 1994. Hij was erg te spreken over haar. Zij is in 2005 overleden. In Duitsland is ze inderdaad een superster voor Duck-fans. Ze heeft de naam 'Dagobert' bedacht (naar een Merovingische koning), die wij in Nederland van haar hebben overgenomen.
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head into a guillotine
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