Show Us Your Ducks! 15 15

[tth2]

Another book to keep this thread active, Uncle Scrooge #42.

 

[Arty]

Edit: Sorry for the poor photos.

 

 

 

Now we are talking!!! (<---- first time I'm using this graemling on these boards)

 

For those who don't know... this is ultra rare stuff. If my memory serves me correctly there are only ten existing pages of Barks art from the forties.

(9 1/2? from this story ("silent night") plus one? page from the donald vs. rat story from wdcs 52.

 

Dammit we need better scans....is it a new acquisition?

[tb]

Thanks, Arty. Glad to see other people appreciate this. I've owned

this page for several years but never found it worthwhile to

take photos since people here are more into comics (thus also the

halfbaked attempt at the pictures). It hardly makes sense to talk

about a market for early Barks originals since they rarely surface.

To my knowledge, this page, along with another halfpage from the

same story which sold at Howard Lowery 1997, are the only examples

from the 40s to have surfaced in the last decade. I bought it

instantly when it came up for sale to the chagrin of a couple of

my "rivals". Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg owns another "Silent

Night" page. Another collector I know was in Helsinki recently and

told me that he saw another halfpage there.

 

The page is in perfect condition, btw., and appears never to have

been displayed. As with all my other early originals, it doesn't

have a spot of whiteout except for deliberate use (eyes, buttons,

...). Barks' craftmanship is just completely unbelievable - you

have to see it in person to fully appreciate/believe it.

 

Normally, the page is safely stored away in a safe deposit box and

I use the excellent lithograph shown on the right for display. To

me, the OA is just too historically important for private use.

 

Edited November 9, 2005 by hkp

[tth2]

Now we are talking!!! (<---- first time I'm using this graemling on these boards)

I did a before you did, plus I threw in a for good measure!

[tth2]

So after hkp's post I feel like someone trying to follow Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, but I guess I'll have to take one for the team. Just a plain old SA duck book.

 

[tb]

Thanks tth2; beautiful books as always! There was a longer period where I didn't have time to post so I am working my way through the pile. I'll stop spamming your thread soon.

 

Here's a cool and quite scarce comic I've never seen discussed around here. Large Feature Comics 16 (Series I) which came out late 1940 or early 1941. This book came out just at the time when Mickey Mouse Magazine turned from a childrens' magazine into a standard comic book. Its format was one of the many unsuccessful experiments that make the last half of the 1930s such an interesting period. I've never seen an unrestored copy of this book better than VG/FN or so.

 

 

Edit:

 

> One sold on ebay in Fair condition (maybe poor...) recently for maybe $500?

 

I think this copy cost around $1,300 about a year ago. A file copy around the same condition sold for almost twice that a few months later.

 

Edit 2:

 

Nicer scan of March of Comics 41 (CGC 9.2). Too bad the composition and coloring of the US edition is not very attractive. The Scandinavian editions (see below) are much prettier.

 

Edited November 11, 2005 by hkp

[tth2]

I'll stop spamming your thread soon.

Just joking, we should all be so lucky to get this kind of spam in our emails!

 

Great stuff as usual! Please keep them coming!

[ft88]

That book and FC #4 never seem to be up for sale, and if they are, the price is in the $1000's

[Psiknight]

Large feature 16 is the first appearance of Daisy Duck, no?

 

One sold on ebay in Fair condition (maybe poor...) recently for maybe $500?

[tb]

What makes the period 1935-40 so interesting to me are all the more or less successful experiments that eventually culminated with Action 1 and the modern comic book format. One thing that made Disney stand out from the other early publishers was that they were producing cartoon shorts. It was therefore quite novel and clever of Kay Kamen to try to use his publications to promote the shorts, many of which were still experimental. While quite a few Mickey Mouse Magazine covers with iconic images of Donald and Mickey have appeared on hundreds of products over the years, all of these promotional covers are now long forgotten ("Snow White" being, as a full length feature, the one possible exception). Still, to me the latter are even more interesting because of the thought process that shaped them. It is fascinating how magazines promoting now classic shorts at the same time were experimenting with comic strips. Today, the winner of that race is obvious, but it probably was not at all clear back in 1939. Another reason why I like the shorts is that I used to work for Pixar Animation Studios. From the very beginning, the brains behind Pixar used their shorts to do the research, storywise and technical, that eventually allowed them to make "Toy Story". Just like Disney experimented with shorts to create his movies back in the late '30s.

 

The file copy below features the movie poster illustration for "The Practical Pig" (1939). The image of the poster (bottom) is courtesy of the Heritage archives.

 

 

Edit:

 

After I realized (with the help of ft88 and Scrooge) that FC 379 had a controversial pre-"Poor Old Man" appearance of Scrooge by another artist, I had to have a copy of this interesting book myself (CGC 8.5):

 

 

Edit 2:

 

One of the hardest-to-find issues of Mickey Mouse Magazine in grade. I bought this copy from moondog (which speaks for its quality) 5 years ago and it is by far the best one I've ever seen. Gary told me he had kept it for many years in his own collection.

 

 

Edit 3:

 

Original art to the 14th and next-to-last page in Carl Barks' manuscript, "Captains Outrageous", published in Junior Woodchucks 25, 1974. Aside from a few scattered stories co-written in the 1990s, this was Barks last comic book manuscript. Thus, there's a valid argument it is his next-to-last manuscript page. This page, along with the rest of the manuscript, was printed in Carl Barks Library volume VI. In 1992, a good friend and I bought the last 5 pages together. I got pages 11-14 and he got the last one. Unfortunately, my friend suddenly and very tragically lost his life shortly after. I was offered the last page after his death but had no desire to have it given the circumstances. I hid away the art for many years and eventually sold pages 11 and 12 on eBay. I am keeping page 13 and 14 but these will always have a bittersweet spot in my collection.

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2005 by hkp

[ft88]

OK so its not a duck but the Porky Pig story by Barks is an interesting book, I've never heard why he did this book or even why he was allowed to by Disney.

 

Surprising that this VG book 3 bidders over $250.

 

Porky Pig FC 48 on ebay

 

Makes me that much happier with the copy I just bought

 

[tth2]

Makes me that much happier with the copy I just bought

It's a beauty!

[tb]

A couple of early hires Ducks to keep the thread going. Feb. '37 is one of the most classic early DD covers

and very underrated in the guide. Part of a collection that has not been offered publicly since the 1970s.

Look for them on eBay when I retire around 2037.

 

 

PS: Gorgeous FC48, ft88! Is this a Dallas Stevens?

 

----

 

Edit: Fun to see those Mexican editions, lotemo. Here's the Danish edition of Four Color 408 along with a great

Barks cover that never appeared in the United States (the latter is copied from a website).

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2005 by hkp

[tth2]

A couple of early hires Ducks to keep the thread going. Feb. '37 is one of the most classic early DD covers

and very underrated in the guide. Part of a collection that has not been offered publicly since the 1970s.

Look for them on eBay when I retire around 2037.

Those copies are incredible!

[lotemo]

Okay, this doesn't compare with those Mickey Mouse Magazines from the 1930s but here are some early issues from Mexico.

 

If you were a kid in Mexico in the early 1950s you could enjoy great Duck stories too within a year or two after the U.S. issues:

[HouseofComics.Com]

As with all my other early originals, it doesn't

have a spot of whiteout except for deliberate use (eyes, buttons,

...). Barks' craftmanship is just completely unbelievable

 

Why does this not surprise me...

 

He is The Man. Thanks to everyone for sharing these beauties.

 

It's a treat to see the non-regular comics (magazines and MOC) and the Mexican edtions.

 

Marc

[LocoBandito-migration]

hkp, I found your "Land Beneath the Ground" original inked art stunning. I went back and checked my copy of US13 and looked over and over for the panels you posted. Couldn't find them in the comic. I then learned that Barks had to cut 5 pages from the story to make room for a gyro gearloose story and that's why it's missing. Anyway, this is the first time I have ever seen a Barks original inked page. I was surprised to see that he used white out. For some reason I never imagined "the master" using it.

Does anyone know if Barks always drew his comics in half pages? I know there's a B&W photo of him from 1947 where he's inking a half page of "The Old Castles Secret". I have always wondered what the reasoning was behind drawing the comics in half pages was. Is it because he was use to drawing very large from doing the animation storyboards? Perhaps it had something to do with the printing process at western publishing?

What size paper was he using anyway? looks huge in the pics..

[tb]

Welcome to the boards, LB!

 

This page should answer your questions about US 13. Aside from one or two exceptions, the only Barks artwork prior to 1960 known to have survived was cut or censored prior to publication. Sadly, all published art was burned.

 

All the originals measure 41x59.5 cm per full page (don't have figures in inches at hand).

 

Regarding white-out, Barks had his wife Gare, whom he had married a couple of years earlier, fill in black areas to save time. I happen to own the to my knowledge only existing piece of OA where the blank areas were left empty (see below). It would have been natural for Gare to have added the white-out at the eyes etc. as well. In the "Silent Night" original I posted, Barks obviously did this himself since he did not marry Gare before 1952. The two tiers below actually fit together to a halfpage. Barks cut it up and gave it to two brothers when they visited him in 1961. I bought it directly from them some 40 years later.

 

[LocoBandito-migration]

Those are missing pages from "Message at Mysterious Island" if I'm not mistaken. Quite a collection you have. Very impressive! 41x59.5 cm is that the size of the paper or the panels?

 

Here is the picture I was talking about

[Tiziano]

Welcome to the boards