Post by RobbK1 on Apr 23, 2017 17:22:34 GMT
I meant what Loke said. One of Barks's best (long) stories, that's all. Or at least one of my favorites. The main reason is the quality of the storytelling: that story flows in a perfect way, with every page staged the way it should be. Also, the story is funny, evocative and with plenty of surprises. Finally, it has a high density of gags, supported by a very expressive art (give a look for instance at the funny way panel by panel Barks develops the torment of Scrooge at pages 2 and 3).
So, I consider it one of his milestones from a purely narrative point of view. Why would a story require to introduce some great new character, or create a new genre, or upset forever the history of comics in any possible way, to be considered a great achievement? I was not giving such a strong meaning to the word "achievement", Robb. As I said elsewhere, I do not have a personal Barks's story chart. So I do not know, where is The Magic Hourglass for me? In an unordered Top 10, I guess... Who cares, it does not really matter. By the way, when a guy creates more than 500 stories, all of them of much higher quality than the production of his peers...well, maybe even a story in his Top 40 is "great achievement".
(I know the behavior of Scrooge in the story is not consistent with later developments, as well as the magic explanation for his wealth. And I know many among you love to discuss about this kind of stuff. Good for you, and I like reading your discussions. But I do not like to take part in them, since I do not care much about these things. When the story is good is good, and that's enough for me.)