Look how sarcastic Donald is in this Carl Barks drawing! This is a panel from Only a Poor Old Man, the first story from Uncle Scrooge's own comic book. Carl Barks is a well regarded storyteller and deserves to be. His stories have a level of sophistication rarely seen in the comics medium at all, let alone funny animal books. You can find a whole lot of amazing old Disney Comics online here: http://disneycomics.free.fr/index.php
5 comments:
Steve, thanks for that link! I had almost forgotten what a master storyteller Barks truly was!
Cheers,
Tom
He blows me away. I really wonder what he could have done if he had ever decided to write something for adults. He could have given Will Eisner a run for his money!
For Barks, I suspect he never seriously considered it. Having looked at those links over the weekend, I can say his storytelling skills are enough to satisfy even the most jaded reader.
New design looks great, by the way.
Tom.
Oh, I'm sure he never planned a 'serious' graphic novel, but he certainly would have been capable of it.
I was going to let this thread end, but I just had a thought: If you really wanted an example of Barks' level of storytelling grafted onto an 'adult' sensibility, look no further then the 'mature' work of...
Osamu Tezuka!
Particularly the 'Buddha' series, which struck me as having a lot in common in formal terms with Barks' style. Sure, Tezuka's more 'cinematic', overall, and his characters tend to express themselves more broadly then Barks' characters do, but I'm sure Tezuka must've been familiar with Barks' stories at some point...
Anyways,food for thought.
Cheers,
Tom
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