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Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity (Great Comics Artists Series)
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469011 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
For over twenty-five years, Disney artist Carl Barks (1901--2000) created some of the most brilliant and funny stories in comic books. Gifted and prolific, he was the author of over 500 tales in the most popular comic books of all time. Although he was never allowed to sign his name and worked in anonymity, Barks's unique artistic style and storytelling were immediately evident to all his readers. Barks created the town of Duckburg, and a cast of characters that included Donald Duck's fabulously wealthy Uncle Scrooge, the lucky loafer Gladstone Gander, the daffy inventor Gyro Gearloose, the rougish crooks the Beagle Boys, and the Italian sorceress Magica de Spell. Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity is the first critical study of Barks's work in English. From a cultural studies perspective, the author analyzes all phases of Barks's career from his work in animation to his post-retirement years writing the Junior Woodchucks stories. Andrae argues that Barks's oeuvre presents a vision strikingly different from the Disney ethos. Barks's central theme is a critique of modernity. His tales offer a mordant satire of Western imperialism and America's obsession with wealth, success, consumerism, and technological mastery, offering one of the few communal, ecological visions in popular culture. Although a talented visual artist, Barks was also one of America's greatest storytellers and, Andrae contends, lifted the comic book form to the level of great literature.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 306
Dimensions: Length: 0.75" Width: 6" Height: 9.25"
Weight: 1.25 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Jul 6, 2006
ISBN 1578068584
EAN 9781578068586
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Availability 3 units.
Availability accurate as of May 30, 2012 06:23.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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 | sociological perspectives and critiques in Carl Bark's comics Aug 31, 2006 |
| Certainly Carl Barks is well-known for his vivid, singular drawings of the Donald Duck characters in the Disney comics and cartoons. He would have a place in the pantheon of 20th-century comic illustrators for the imagination of his portrayals and scenes on the basis of their entertainment value alone. But beneath the prodigious output were deep undertones reflecting concerns and mores of popular culture and an implicit critique of many of these--which aspects of Barks's comic illustrations Andrae fully brings out. "Barks's tales are inextricably linked to the politics of his time and offer one of the most trenchant critiques of patriarchal capitalism in any popular media." One sees this inhering in the character Uncle Scrooge with his boundless love of lucre and joy in diving into his swimming pool filled with coins. Born in 1900, Barks lived to be nearly 100. He teamed with Disney in the 1930s. In his later decades, Barks evolved from implicit perspectives on general foibles such as greed and materialism to criticisms of specific aspects of U. S. politics and its effects. Many of these later strips "call into question the tentacle-like homogenization of both the Third World and the United States by consumerism and global capitalism." Andrae covers amply all of the layers of Barks's illustration art from unique style with lasting appeal to incorporation of issues of popular culture and often critiques of these. Readers will look forward to subsequent books following this first in the publisher's Great Comic Artists Series. | | |  | Excellent historical look at the work of Carl Barks Aug 21, 2006 |
Thomas Andrae's new book is an informative explanation of the historical and personal backgrounds of the Disney comic book work of Carl Barks. Beginning from the obvious--but often overlooked--premise that Barks did not write in a vacuum, Andrae explored the various social and historical phenomena of the 1940s-1960s. Probably even the most amateur Barks scholar could see that Barks's later Asia-based stories, like "The Treasure of Marco Polo," were grounded in the political turmoil of the day (the Vietnam War, rise of the Khmer Rouge, etc.). Much less obvious, however, is, for example, his treatment of the feminist movement following World War II, or the national shift from an economy of hard-working, entrepreneurs to a bunch of wage-slave desk jockeys. The former is most often represented in Donald's interactions with Daisy; the latter actually is part and parcel to a shift in the theme of Barks's Donald ten-pagers--Donald becomes a downtrodden, one-of-the-masses employee, no longer with any hope for his future. Throughout one realizes that intentionally or not, Barks chronicled history in his stories.
Andrae also delves into Barks's personal background as it pertains to his stories. While largely abstaining from writing a biography, he frequently makes specific note of events in Barks's life that influenced a given story. For example, Barks went through a wrenching divorce in the late 1940s, in which his wife enlisted the help of a lawyer and took from him literally everything except his art supplies, clothes, and a blanket. From that we get stories involving lawyers like Sharky, the shyster of "The Golden Helmet." Andrae also examines less personal influences, like the real town of Hemet that spawned Uncle Scrooge's money bin.
On both of these points, the book is fantastic and well worth reading. There are a handful of criticisms I have to offer, though. For one thing, a great deal of the first two chapters focuses on Barks's cartooning career prior to his career as a comic book artist. While Barks learned a great many lessons from these experiences that are employed in the comics, they do not require nearly seventy pages in a treatise on "the Disney Comic Book." For another thing, Andrae, in his efforts to offer interpretations of Barks's stories beyond the historical, much too often resorts to psychological explanations involving repressed or socially inhibited sexual desires, fears of castration, fetishes, and the like. It is absurd to think that Barks's characters are undergoing such stresses in the majority of his stories. I strongly suspect that the emotional turmoil Donald et al. experience is much more related to simple social anxiety than anything sexual. The main criticism I have of the book, however, is that it relies too heavily on editorials in the Carl Barks Library and on interviews from Conversations with Carl Barks, by Donald Ault. Not so much, by any means, that this book isn't worth reading; just that parts of it can be skimmed by a CBL-owning reader. Andrae was one of the chief editors of the CBL, and therefore can be excused for maintaining the same theories now as then; however, a new book ought to bring new insight, not regurgitation of existing thought. As stated, however, I do not believe the book seriously impaired as a result of this flaw.
On the whole, however, I recommend this book. The historical study is excellent, as noted, but additionally, I came away with greater understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment for Barks's work (which is saying something, since I had though highly of him to begin with), especially the stories I hadn't liked as much. For that alone, it is well worth reading.
Robert Hutchings
North Dakota State University
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