50YrsCollctngCmcs

Some of the details

Last two.

And some more photos.

Thanks to a tip over in the comic events section from Steve Borock, my daughter and I headed over to the newly opened Heritage Gallery in Beverly Hills to view a number of Barks' paintings from the Kerby Confer collection on display. It being the Saturday morning of the 3 day weekend, what is normally a one hour drive only took 30 minutes each way from the Pasadena area. My daughter who is eleven and a big fan of Little Lulu took all the photos. She got a big kick out of the paintings and maybe a bigger kick out of some of the other rare collectibles on display including actual dinosaur fossils. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos as we had to do our best with a flash, the gallery lights and a handheld camera with only about 30 minutes for our visit. Hopefully, you will get a sense of the mastery of the works but there is no alternative to seeing them in person. As you look at them you can tell that Barks really understood and lived these characters. There is a fullness and richness to his paintings that brings the characters into three dimensions on the canvas. It was great to be able to get close and look at the detail of his brushwork as well as his layering work that really achieves this three dimensionality. My personal favorite was "A Christmas Trimming," which positively oozes mood and Scrooge's miserliness. My daughter loved that one too. Some of the duck portraits are rather great too though. Enjoy.

Cool to see this collection of Gold Keys. I am still sitting on all of mine bought from '72 to '80 mainly off the newstand. They are under appreciated books, good to know someone else likes them.

Great book, be sure to read it. My copy bought many years ago has a cardboard square pasted in the upper side binding colored red. Funny thing is I saw a copy at San Diego restored in exactly the same way in the same place!! Must be a weakness in the printing or binding. Also, saw a great collection of Animal Comics in San Diego and picked up one of them. Will post somewhere later.

Then as timing would have the framing shop called and I picked up the following piece. I bought this back in 1976 or 1977 for the princely sum of $13, and paid over ten times that for the framing! Anyway proudly hanging on my wall today.

OK, I didn't plan it that way but it turned into a Cap themed weekend. First up my pickup from San Diego with a couple of interior shots included from reading the book this morning. I have to say that this book was much more readable than my only other GA CAP - issue 11 which left much to be desired in the story deparment.

Love the 100 pagers! I have a great memory of buying the classic Adams Superman wrap around cover off the stands one beautiful summer day and walking home feeling like I had just found treasure. Well, there was Gold in those books, Golden Age reprints anyway! To a kid in the early seventies who was fascinated with the Golden Age but couldn't afford or find them (they were always expensive and hard to find) having those reprints brought me to another time and place. Another memorable issue was the Detective issue that reprinted the original Two Face stories. I took that book down to Florida on vacation that year and got a huge kick out of reading it. I still have my dog-eared copy in my collection and still enjoy paging through it. Now I am in search of mid-grade copies of some of those Golden Age originals to bring it all home. Greggy, if you are compiling a collection of these books; I think you are a smart man. Some of these (not all as the concept got diluted as the years wore on) are classics and deserving of respect in any collection.

Probably Alice in Wonderland!! Honky Cat, thanks for posting that great collection of Quality Comics. That is a collection you don't see often. I got turned on to some of their characters back when DC starting reprinting their stories in the back pages of the 100 page issues in the 70's. I really enjoyed Kid Eternity. If you recall DC even had the Justice League meet the Quality gang in one of the summer team ups back in the early 70's. Then Freedom Fighters came out which was the JLA of the Quality Gang. I was loving it! I even had a letter published in issue #4. It is interesting in that Quality seemed to have had a line of books with a consistent look and feel; they must have been a good competitor to DC, Fawcett and Dell in the quality (groan) department. Production values seem high based on the two books I have; curious on your thoughts in regard to the line. It makes me want to go back and read their history in the Steranko books; I recall there were some details in there. Thanks for sharing again, made my morning. Frank

you say 'lots of work; Yeah, we have lots of work going on down at the Disneyland Resort. You need to connect with the contractors doing the work though. But it is one place in Socal with a lot of work going on these days. Also, have you been following the news in regard to the new high speed rail system in California? It is a ways away but it should result in some big contracts with big work. They want to have functional by 2020 and I have heard others say even sooner.

Thanks, always good to know these things.

Anyone been following this dealer on E-Bay: jj4802002 He has a lot of Duck four colors for sale as well as lots of early WDC & S. Has anyone dealt with him before. If you need a Pirate's Gold there are something like 4 available right now.

Would be fun but work is kicking me these days. No time for nothin' but work. Building new attractions at DCA in the Disneyland Resort. Fun work but lots of it!

Now that shot consists of ten of the best stories in all comics! OK, I exagerrate a bit, issue #3 (495) isn't that great but the rest are downright genius.

Another of the European artists who found employment at Disney was Albert Hurter. He was the first of the studio's "inspirational sketch artists." As noted in one online biography: "His job was to draw and sketch, to play with images and ideas. They'd tell him, "The Three Little Pigs" and he'd be off for days doodling and drawing and designing and the results were quickly passed to the other departments to be mined for ideas. His sketches were the foundations for most of the Disney films of the Thirties. He designed characters and settings for Silly Symphonies, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Reluctant Dragon, and even films that were to be made long after his death." He died of a weak heart caused by rheumatic heart disease in 1942. In his will, he arranged for the publication of a book on his work. Very interesting! I had not heard of him. Walt really had an eye for talent.

See below for the Barks - Foster comparison - Who can blame Barks for swiping that! He was surrounded by some pretty amazing artists at the Walt Disney Studio and he must have seen some amazing things. Last year I picked up an original sketch by Hovarth who was considered one of the great artists at the studio. He was very old school European though and didn't fit in with the other artists so he didn't stick around. Too bad; as his work is phenomenal although very dark. I will try to post someday. Yesterday, I got to view the painting that Walt Disney used to introduce America to Disneyland on his TV show. A couple amazing things about this painting by Peter Ellenshaw is that it was literally painted on a board torn off the wall, such was the speed with which it was needed and the transitory nature of the work at the studio. Another wild aspect of the painting is that they added flourescent paints to it so that under black light it appeared as though Disneyland was illuminated as at night. We got to view it under both normal and black light conditions. You can actually see it in the following You Tube video and then understand how they achieved the effect which is quite good for it's day:

there was a thread (maybe even in this thread) where we saw quite a few examples of this... imitation is the nicest form of flattery (unless copyrighted ) A cover swipe is one thing, but I think most artists use some form of reference for what they draw whether it be a photo or something else. I lived with an artist and his prof. would always convey how important it would be to find the right reference source. These are some fantastic examples. I wonder how many more there are out there? Rick, I remember seeing that thread as well. I distinctly remember the Action 8 and I think an Action 2 was found as well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carl Barks is well known for using National Geographic photos as reference, but at least once he was obviously 'inspired' by a Hal Foster panel (in The Golden Helmet). The Mummy's Ring (Four Color 29, 1943) has panels drawn almost straight from the October 1941 National Geographic and the inscriptions in the Pyramids comes from an earlier issue. The McDuck castle at Dismal Downs (FC 189, 1948) has elements of three different castles (including Macbeth's Cawdor) from NG issues the year before. Etc etc. I can scan some from the Barks Library if anyone is interested. 500th post Would love to see the Barks reference material either here or in the Duck thread!

Thats a nice picture. I always did like Ducks in rows It would actually make a great shooting gallery using the old fashioned arcade games where things flip back and go under. Points would be based on Overstreet NM values!

I think you clip the order coupon from the bottom of the book and send it in with a silver certificate dollar. Then they will send you a poster and 12 issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Quite a deal, really.

I had posted this on the Duck thread but thought a photo belonged here as well. A cascade of ducks for your viewing pleasure!

The sea of fate was angry, my friends. Part two to follow. Gonna have to call you BustedGeorge after that last line!

Yes, I need a nice Ghost in the Grotto. But those are easy to find compared to the first two Barks issues. Then I have to upgrade some of the other copies, there is no end to this Barks collecting!!

The Frozen Gold has come home to roost, here is the scan of it flat. I don't know how long it will last in it's case. I suspect it won't make the month! Busted Flush will be posting pictures later of an impromtu Frozen Gold party and telling tall tales of how two Frozen Golds criss-crossed the mail and then the Los Angeles freeway system to arrive in one place at one time! Now it's on to Mummy's Ring and Pirate's Gold!

That's quite a cascade! Thanks, about half of my cascade came from an original owner collection back in '78. I saw a classified and went to a guys house and wiped him out of his duck four colors. Too bad I didn't pick up the super heroes but I was focused on ducks back then. I still have a bunch of doubles resulting from that purchase, all lower grade. Should I post them for sale here on the boards??