Hi Don!
I've been your fan ever since you were still working on new regular chapters of Lo$ back in the 90s!
To be precise, I think it was during the half-year break between the publication of
The King of the Klondike (October 1994) and
The Billionaire of Dismal Downs (February 1995) in German
Micky Maus Magazin that I got aware of you. Currently, I'd say that at least a quarter of the current English-language Wikipedia article on you came from my keyboard (not to mention starting or expanding a number of articles on particular stories you did, plus uploading downsized covers and a few panel sequences to illustrate all the articles), and in case you haven't spotted it, my user name that I'm also using on this forum is made up of the initials of your magnum opus (whereas "Tlato" kinda works like a first name, and "SMD" like a last name).
So far, the only time I've had the chance of meeting you in person was around '95 or '96 in Hamburg, when you were signing German editions of your comics at a big comics and animation trade fair at the
Hamburger Kunsthalle art museum. In any case, it was the time when you still had your beard. You being there had been my only reason to go there, but when we first arrived, the line was so long that my father and I decided to stroll along the rest of the fair for a few hours first.
When it was my time in line at the end of the day, you were already reaching for the next copy to sign, but my father immediately said in English "The number
one, please!" because I'd told him that was the issue I was still missing. That very day when we arrived home, I sealed the copy with your signature on the cover in airtight wrapping to preserve it for the ages, and to this very day I still have it like this!
I've been enjoying this thread for a few weeks now, and I've read all of about the last 150 pages of it. When I first got aware that you were posting on a regular internet forum where we can all talk to you and ask you stuff, I was all like "OMG, OMG!" I've been so excited that it even felt like this scene out of
Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ42IMu7HIQMy first pack of questions for you is Python-related, even. Also being a huge Python (and especially Terry Gilliam) fan as I am, I've spotted those two Python references you've put into
A little something special (where one Beagle Boy tells another to not mess with Magica, "She'll turn you into a newt!", one reference that the German translator definitely
couldn't do justice to in a Disney publication even if they would've spotted it, as in the German dub of that Python line, the peasant says, "She's turned my dingaling into a bong!") and in
The Three Cabelleros Ride Again (where Donald says, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!", during that train ride that for some reason has always reminded me of that just-as thrilling, also nearly-falling-off-a-dead-track-into-a-canyon-with-special-fuel-enhancing-ingredient equivalent during the climax of
Back to the future, part 3).
Anyway, are those all the Python references you've put into your Duck stories, Don? Or did I miss any? Also, how do you justify the Python references with all your stories set in the 50s when it's still at least 15 years up until
Monty Python's Flying Circus will pop up on British TV? Or doesn't it have to make much sense, and the awesomeness of the greatest comedy troup in history justifies references to them in any piece of art? As it's Donald quoting the Pythons kinda anachronistically in the second reference, do you think he would enjoy the
Flying Circus with him being as much of a TV junkie as he is, or wouldn't it be his kind of humor?
Also, the Python references have surprised me a bit. Based upon all that I know about your tastes from interviews, editorials, and this thread, you seem to be more of a fan of the times of "classic Hollywood" films and TV series circa 1930s-1950s where men were still tough and all that, which being as, uh, elegant and majestic as it was, was certainly a different generation than the whacky, unconventional, and irreverent countercultural types of the Woodstock Generation that was also epitomized in the Pythons and their humor.
I also remember that you said in the
The Life and Times of Don Rosa documentary that this Woodstock Generation didn't have much of an impact on you, even though it was happening at the time you were in college. On the other hand, many people have noted your drawing style's curious, apparent affinity towards the underground comics of the period, and you yourself even did one parody of the Ducks in that wicked very vein around 1970 with your story
Back to Duckburg place (I'm really looking forward to its upcoming publication by Egmont, even though 500 Euros for a single story is pretty steep even for such a huge fan as I am). Now, most people cite Robert Crumb when it comes to the likeness of your style, but to me, it's always seemed much closer to Gilbert Shelton (who is renowned especially for his two series
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and
Wonder Wart-Hog), in fact (or maybe, I repeat *MAYBE*, Bill Griffith with his
Zippy the Pinhead). I'm pretty certain if I had the time and energy, I could copy-paste single characters drawn by Shelton (with his two inkers/collaborators Dave Sheridan and Paul Mavrides), put them next to your Ducks (and partly Beagle Boys, too), and see some obvious likenesses in poses, grimaces, and style of drawing ankles and facial wrinkles.
So, regarding your "wicked" "underground" style, your one very-underground-in-themes parody way back in college, and in spite of your often saying that Crumb and the Woodstock Generation never had much of an influence on you, I've been wondering if maybe people just kept asking the wrong question and maybe it was Shelton rather than Crumb who at least had
some influence on your way of drawing the Ducks?
Anyway, there's two beloved features of your style that do remind me of Crumb like so many others, and that's particularly your style of putting so many wrinkles on clothes (which Robert's brother Charles did even more excessively than Bob himself, and thus probably closer to you in that respect), and your hatched shadows. It's especially your brilliant use and style of shadows that keep make me suggest your style's proximity to high art, especially to copper and steel engravings of the Early Modern Period up until the 19th century by artists such as William Hogarth, Gustave Doré, Honoré Daumier, and Albrecht Dürer. Although generally following the style, the only two times Crumb actually did reach this level of artistic brilliance and refinement as yours in his shadows were in his biography
Introducing Kafka (also published as
Kafka for beginners,
R. Crumb's Kafka, or simply
Kafka), and in his illustration/comic adaptation of a certain 1886 psychiatry book by Austria-Hungarian physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing, the title of which I better not dare mention here, where Crumb in spite of the controversial content matter employed a style like directly lifted from vintage 19th century engravings or etchings.
So, your shadows have kept me wondering what influence artists such as Hogarth, Dürer, or Doré might have had on your style?
And while we're still more or less on the topic of underground comics, has
Howard the Duck had any influence upon your drawing style? Of course, I'm talking about the comic, not that awful, awful movie. I'm also a huge fan of the comic, especially the b/w
Howard the Duck magazine which had art by Gene Colan, for instance.
Now, while we're deep into matters regarding your style, let's get to the one question I've had ever since I've gotten aware of you and you've become my favorite Duck artist of all time. You've said you never noticed much change in your style over the years. However, as much of a visual person as I am (which is also why among directors, and since we've mentioned Python already above, Terry Gilliam is my absolute favorite with his epic, bizarre ultra-wide angle lenses), I've always been marvelling at the one fundamental change in your style. As brilliant gems there are in storylines in your earlier works, it's those of your stories after that significant change in style that I keep reading and re-reading at least once a week or month ever since I've gotten aware of you back around the mid-90s and to this day.
Even though your style kept slowly evolving ever from your Duck debut with
Son of the Sun, it seemed to remain of the same "breed" or "school" up until
Super Snooper Strikes Again. Then came your first chapter of Lo$,
The Last of the Clan McDuck, and your stories have never been the same again! Although you've kept saying throughout the years that you're just an amateur and a fan like so many of us, it's ever since the fundamental beginning of Lo$ that I definitely regard your style as fully professional, and my favorite Duck style of all time. (Granted, it's changed again later-on due to your eye trouble, which I think begins to show in your stories around 1997-'99, which pains me at times when I see how your brilliance in panel and page composition even still kept growing but your eye trouble kept you from executing your designs to their full potential in the exact proportions and details, to a degree that your Ducks seemed to look more and more, um, pointy or angular?)
My question is, how did this sudden change, this fundamental quantum leap in your style come about so abruptly between two stories? Did you purposefully clean it up beforehand, practicing and practicing again, before you went to start on
The Last of the Clan McDuck, so you could do justice to Unca Carl's legacy as one of 20th century's greatest creators and storytellers also in the visual department? I think this change is so undeniable, and yet you've said that you never noticed much change in your style; and yet I've never come across anybody else beside me mentioning this sudden change between
Super Snooper Strikes Again and
The Last of the Clan McDuck even among other Rosa fans.
More on visual qualities. I also deeply care about coloring, which of course I realize hasn't been your job with your published stories. I know you've had your trouble with incorrect colors by publishers such as making your 1950s b/w TV sets all colorful, but that's not what I mean. As I understand you seem to also be collecting prints of your own stories from all over the world, how do you feel about their coloring?
What I'm talking about here is specifically the marvellous color sense the people at Gladstone used to have, with their breathtaking full rainbow of soft gradient colors and all that, especially in their second generation after regaining their full license (as in, not only Barks reprints) from Disney Comics in 1993 (I also think their lettering is the one that looked just spot-on). It's also the main reason why over the years I've switched to reading your stories exclusively in their English original, after all those brilliant Gladstone colors really make them come to life. Disney Comics, from 1990 to 1993 and in spite of their rather, uh, "special" re-designing of series logos on the covers, looked kinda promising in coloring at the start (such as in their editions of
The Duck who fell to earth,
The island at the edge of time, and
On stolen time), but with the infamous Disney Implosion in 1991 it seems to me their coloring degraded over time. Gemstone, while mostly sticking with gradients, often looked much colder in color temperature, not as warm and comfy as Gladstone, whenever they weren't smart enough to keep Gladstone's original colors in re-prints.
I feel this difference in color quality even between Gladstone and Gemstone is most obvious in
Guardians of the Lost Library, first published by Gladstone and later re-published by Gemstone. For me, like for many of your fans,
Guardians of the Lost Library is one of my absolute favorites of all of your stories (with its essential, distinguishing qualities, I think, returning in the best sense in
The Crown of the Crusader Kings,
The Treasury of Croesus,
The Lost Charts of Columbus, and even
The Once and Future Duck). Gladstone's original publication would have been
perfect, if it wouldn't be for the unfortunate mistake that occured with the story's CMYK printing plates that resulted in more than obvious color fringing throughout the whole story. Gemstone, however, didn't correct this mistake with their re-publication, and resorted to using Egmont's rather bland solid color scheme instead. So if it'd be up to me, the perfect edition to this story still remains to be seen.
I wish we here in Europe would have local-language equivalents of your stories to the soft-cover
Carl Barks Library in Color. The CBLC that I mean (consisting of
The Carl Barks Library of Donald Duck Adventures in Color,
The Carl Barks Library of Gyro Gearloose Comics and Fillers in Color,
The Carl Barks Library of Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge One Pagers in Color,
The Carl Barks Library of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in Color, and one volume of
The Carl Barks Library of 1940's Donald Duck Christmas Giveaways in Color) was published circa 1992-1996 by Gladstone in the US, and
with Gladstone's very own coloring even over here in Europe by local publishers!
It's why the CBLC is still my favorite edition of Unca Carl's stories (although, admittedly, I hardly ever read them as much as your stories, or ones by Italian Duck artists Cavazzano and Carpi). Not even the European
Hall of Fame edition of your stories matched Gladstone's brilliance in color in their English edition. And not only that, other than Egmont's upcoming
Don Rosa Collection, it was even affordable for the average Duck fan at an original cover price of circa 8.50 Euros (or circa $10) per volume, so even if you couldn't afford the whole set at once, you could gradually build up your collection.
The closest equivalent of your stories we have so far to the CBLC, at least here in Germany, is Egmont's
Onkel Dagobert von Don Rosa which at a comparable price, page size, page number per volume, and printing quality only contained Egmont's bland solid colors (my main gripe with the edition), switched between several not-really-fitting speechbubble fonts several times throughout the series, and even was entirely out-of-sequence except for the regular chapters of Lo$ that it started out with, but even in-between those chapters it included others of your stories from all over your career in the same volumes that thus were all out-of-sequence even while they were still running Lo$. That last factor is especially obvious for somebody as visual as me who can tell your drawing style periods right away.
I remember you said in
The Life and Times of Don Rosa that you've met your wife at a Star Wars convention, and that she seems just as nerdy as you about some things. If that's not too private a question, how does she feel about your Barks and Ducks fandom that even led you to become one of the most celebrated Duck artists? I think I remember a few photos where she didn't seem too happy about fans invading your house and leaving their footprints everywhere.
You've recently said that you dislike drawing so much that by the time you got to finish a story, you absolutely hated it for all the hard drudgery and labor it's been on you, giving particular examples every time you mentioned this fact. Are there any stories that you hated less towards the event of finishing them? Also, so many of your stories exhibit so much love and passion for the characters and attention to detail and thrilling action that it comes as a surprise to think of your words whenever reading your narratives.
It's also hard to believe whenever those very special moments in your stories raise goosebumps after goosebumps. I'm particularly thinking of the death of Fergus McDuck, Scrooge's immerging in his beloved memories, his painfully cut-short romance with Goldie (which ended so tragically even in spite of their "playing rummy" for a month in Scrooge's cabin at White Agony Creek), your way of treating Donald in
The Duck Who Never Was in spite of people always saying you value him so little compared to Scrooge, or your heartwarming hommages to themes such as everlasting friendship, parenthood (or unclehood?
), and family sense in stories such as those two relating to Joe Carioca (I think you've really made him the most lovable character next to Scrooge, Donald, and the nephews) and Panchito Pistoles,
W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.,
Gyro's First Invention, and especially
A Letter From Home.
Now, being a die-hard fan of your work also time and again gives you run-ins with the absolute Rosa haters who somehow seem to think your popularity will make people forget about the genius of Unca Carl. Most of their hateful complaints are irrational lies and malignant malinformation, of course, but there's one criticism I've heard from one of them that stuck with me. It's based on the fact you yourself have critized many times the stupidity of American superhero comics, and that Americans know those as the only kind of comics nowadays. You yourself have created superhero parodies, and that's still fine with me, as parodies not necessarily have to be related to huge admiration and high respect for a thing.
But in spite of your criticisms of superhero comics, you seem to be collecting them just as eagerly in your fabled basement collection. How does that work out?
Now, those are all the questions and praises and thoughts (my Ducks and Dimes and Destinies?) I could think of off the top of my head...*SO FAR!* I'm looking forward to your answers, Unca Don!
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