Barks may be history's most widely read anonymous storyteller. When he wrote and drew the Donald Duck
Comic Books in the 1950s, they had an estimated monthly readership of more than ten million, and the only real person's name that appeared on the comic was Walt Disney. The lovingly drawn stories, encompassing uproarious comedy and rousing adventure, also expanded Donald's one-note animated-cartoon personality and introduced Donald's awesome skinflint uncle, Scrooge McDuck. In keeping with Barks' obscurity, the 24 interviews collected here come from small-circulation fanzines or are first publications. The earliest was conducted in 1968, after Barks' retirement; he lived another thirty years,
Painting fine-art renditions of the Disney ducks. In the interviews he veers from seeing himself as a nameless hack to revealing how seriously he took his work. His anonymity allowed for no reader feedback, and when he received his first fan letter in 1960, he thought it was a fellow cartoonist's joke. He probably would have been bemused yet impressed by this tribute to his work's lasting significance.
Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader ReviewsWow, I picked up a copy of this book in paperback near where I live and I loved it. Just LOVED it. I'm lucky it made it up here where I am. I'm a big Duck fan, so I wanted to read more about the history and stuff, but I never knew how well-spoken a man Carl Barks was, and this Donald Ault--he's super! He's super because he takes Barks seriously AS A CREATIVE GENIUS, which he is/was. I see from the back cover Ault's written some pretty deep stuff, he's a professor, but he's really readable. I tend to think most (or lots) or people who are really into the Duck are pretty intelligent folks--those I know are. I don't have a heck of a lot of education, like a master's degree or book writing or whatever, but I read this whole book and I understood it and it's truly enriched my experience--and not just of Donald Duck. I can't recommend it enough. ~Rudy C.
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