I've been thinking of doing some actual real-life scholarly research into Disney comics, but from what I can gather the literature on the subject is pretty diffuse. You've got your Carl Barks Conversations, your Inducks (ever incomplete), your Hamburger Donaldist fanzines and articles in the Barks Library in Color or the Gottfredson Library. I've heard of Alberto Becattini's The Whole Story, but I can't find a preview and it comes with a bit of a price tag. (I don't have a stable enough income for this sort of thing...) That book, as well as others he wrote earlier, seem to be my best bet for anything comprehensive -- can anyone who owns some of these books corroborate? He seems to have written some Disney indexes as well, but right now is the first time I'm hearing of them.
Anyone willing to share their wisdom on where the heck I might want to begin?
I don't have any good answers on where to start for general books about Disney comics. One big problem is that many books are only available in one language (and not English).
On the very top of my own whish list for books to be translated (because I can't read the language) are:
Both I can highly recommend, but can be hard to get hold of even if you can read the language.
A series of books called "Walt's People" (in English) have some interviews with comic artists in-between but would be expensive to get if you don't have any interest in the rest of the content.
"Disney Comics: The Whole Story" could be a good start, but personally I didn't find it that interesting. I felt it was mostly listing up what had been published around the world without much background information about the things I wanted to know more about. But you can actually read quite a bit of it to get an idea about the content using "Look inside" on Amazon.
Alberto Beccatini´s book is really amazing. It´s the result of a lifetime-research and you will know really all about the developments of Disney Comics in all over the word. If you are interested in the history of Disney Comics this book is an absolute "must".
I don't have any good answers on where to start for general books about Disney comics. One big problem is that many books are only available in one language (and not English).
On the very top of my own whish list for books to be translated (because I can't read the language) are:
Both I can highly recommend, but can be hard to get hold of even if you can read the language.
A series of books called "Walt's People" (in English) have some interviews with comic artists in-between but would be expensive to get if you don't have any interest in the rest of the content.
"Disney Comics: The Whole Story" could be a good start, but personally I didn't find it that interesting. I felt it was mostly listing up what had been published around the world without much background information about the things I wanted to know more about. But you can actually read quite a bit of it to get an idea about the content using "Look inside" on Amazon.
Yup, the language barrier is a real issue.
I Disney Italiani has my interest: it's high on my list but it's also pretty expensive. I'm less interested in France at the moment, as their domestic production has never been all that high. But they do make some quality albums. The Danish album looks interesting, but I can read next to no Danish so it's just going to look like gibberish to me. I've been aware of the Walt's People series for a long time, but it's pretty much impossible to get your hands on in Europe. The German book is potentially interesting, but not what I'm after right now.
Didier Ghez is a big name in general, IMO. I'd rate him together with Mike Barrier, our own David Gerstein, and the Becattini/Boschi duo as one of the most prominent Disney scholars-cum-editors. (There are many more I could mention, from Dave Smith to Wolfgang J. Fuchs, to I have to stop somewhere!) I have one of Didier's They Drew As They Pleased volumes -- I'd like to get into the Golden Age of American Animation, but if I'm being honest I find concept art just a bit more exciting than the animation techniques themselves. Pretty much all of Theme Park Press would be right at home, I think.
I've looked into the Amazon link and I can see where both you and corrado are coming from. It looks like a solid reference book, but it could do with a little more depth (and some more images!).
That one appears to be aimed specifically at Barks, John Stanley and Walt Kelly. As someone who's never read Little Lulu or Pogo, it seems both too wide (in that a book about Barks alone would be better) and too narrow (I can't help but feel many authors are being left out! but maybe I'm thinking of mid-century comic strips, rather than books).
If I have some time later, I'll make a list of the books I have in my own collection. It's not much, but I'm coming back from an eight-year period during which I developed other interests. If only you could find these kinds of books in (university) libraries!
Last Edit: Mar 30, 2020 13:50:44 GMT by That Duckfan
You must know about Thomas Andrae's Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity. I don't find it convincing on the whole, but it's certainly something you need to look at if you're going to write about Barks in English. I also recommend Barrier's Funnybooks.
That one appears to be aimed specifically at Barks, John Stanley and Walt Kelly. As someone who's never read Little Lulu or Pogo, it seems both too wide (in that a book about Barks alone would be better) and too narrow (I can't help but feel many authors are being left out! but maybe I'm thinking of mid-century comic strips, rather than books).
If I have some time later, I'll make a list of the books I have in my own collection. It's not much, but I'm coming back from an eight-year period during which I developed other interests. If only you could find these kinds of books in (university) libraries!
Honestly, even if you don't care about Stanley or Kelly, the book is worth it for the Barks chapters alone. They are really well-written and interesting, with plenty of criticism and analysis of what makes Barks' best comics as good as they are. (All three of these cartoonists are favorites of Barrier's, but it's clear that Barks is his number one.)
And yeah, you might make the criticism that many of the creators working for Western were left out, but Barrier's intention with the book was to focus on the ones he found most significant. Regardless of that, though, the book also offers plenty of interesting information about Western Publishing's history in general, and about how they operated as a company.
Here's what I've got in terms of hardcover/research books:
From the Netherlands: A full set of Donald Duck Collectie (AD). They look fancy, but that's about it. Not worth the price tag. 10 out of the 15 Donald Duck facsimiles that were produced in the 2000s. Handy resource, little info besides. A few Disney-themed issues of Stripschrift, a Dutch magazine about comics. Carl Barks en de Mythe van Walt Disney's Donald Duck. Published in 1985 when the New Dutch Style was at its apex, this is the only deep analysis of Carl Barks from Holland. Donald Duck: Het Levensverhaal van een Wereldberoemde Eend. Published in 1980, arguably still the definitive history of Donald here in the Netherlands. The original version of this book is American, because of course it is. Ik Mickey Mouse, part 2. In the 70s, two really tall books of Donald (Barks) and Mickey (Gottfredson) stories appeared. The pages are remounted and there's awful garish coloring (Italian?), but these are still pretty sought after. Uit de Schatkamers van Disney. Beautiful pop-up book by Robert Tieman with CD. I saw its sequel years ago at a Disney Store in Disneyland Paris (the only time they ever had something decent on sale IMO), but I've never seen it since. The original is... American, of course. Walt Disney: van Mickey Mouse tot Disneyland. The 1975 biography by Christopher Finch. I've been meaning to get the Mike Barrier one.
From the United States (barring Gladstone publications, for brevity's sake): Four volumes each of the Fantagraphics Barks and Gottfredson libraries. I stopped buying Disney comics in 2013. Two volumes of the Another Rainbow Barks Library. These are the holy grails of my collection. The Dutch publisher also published b/w Barks volumes in the 90s, but the quality of both the paper and the print are so much more inferior that I'm looking to sell them. The Carl Barks Big Book of Barney Bear. Remember that craze in 2011 when Boom!Comics suddenly started making facsimiles from the Disney archives and a Bootleg Don Rosa Library? I've got three out of four (the second Donald volume had a really low print run!). That they never got further with them is a bit of a tragedy, as I was really enjoying the sneak peek in pre-war US material -- the originals of these cost thousands! From Gemstone, I've got Mickey and the Gang (which is beautiful and excellent), the two Walt Disney Treasures (RIP) and the two Life of Scrooge volumes. The latter are literally falling apart, but they're such a bedrock of my fandom that I had Don himself sign them. (He advised me to buy the Fantagraphics "authorized" volumes, but I can justify buying these stories only so many times!) I've got Merrill and Kaufman's Walt in Wonderland, which I recommend because it's a good read. Mickey Mouse: the Evolution, the Legend, the Phenomenon. Disneyana: Classic Collectibles, 1928-1958. I was never much one for collectibles, but I dig the Art Deco aesthetic. The first volume of They Drew As They Pleased, because I found a cheap second-hand version at my local comic shop* when I was living in the US. I've been meaning to get into the Golden Age of American Animation, but I find myself more drawn to concept art than the actual animating techniques. Animation Art by Jerry Beck. See, I do have some credentials. And finally, The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book from the 1990s. I was fascinated with the old MMC when I was younger, but this book proved a bit too dry for my tastes.
I think what this overview mainly proves is that I need to update my library. Half this stuff is from decades ago!
*This is the story of my whole collection up to this point, and one of the reasons why I'm looking to modernize. I used to collect comics the same way Uncle Scrooge collects treasures: above all, cheap!
Last Edit: Mar 30, 2020 20:26:20 GMT by That Duckfan
If you want to enter in extremely polemical territory, you have "How to Read Donald Duck", by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart (arguing that it is imperialist propaganda), versus "Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity", by Tom Andrae (against the former work, arguing that the stories specifically writen by Barks even have elements of social critique).
If you want to enter in extremely polemical territory, you have "How to Read Donald Duck", by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart (arguing that it is imperialist propaganda), versus "Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity", by Tom Andrae (against the former work, arguing that the stories specifically writen by Barks even have elements of social critique).
I'm looking for a topic for a university paper, so polemics is exactly what I'm looking for. The post-colonialist angle is actually one that I have a bit of a feel for, at least compared to the other theories I've studied. But I downloaded a bootleg PDF of Dorfman and Mattelart the other day. For such a "provocative" and "daring" take on the American media empire, it's surprsingly fraudelent. I also saw a recent (2018) Guardian article that regurgitates their points, which is just sad. I'm all for critiquing Disney, but this ain't it.
In this instance, "imperialist propaganda" means something along the lines of "reinforcing the dominant white capitalist ideology". Which, if all you're going by is the Chilean translations of old Western Pub. stories, is at least a little understandable. Western was a little more Vic Lockman than Carl Barks on most days, after all.
In this instance, "imperialist propaganda" means something along the lines of "reinforcing the dominant white capitalist ideology". Which, if all you're going by is the Chilean translations of old Western Pub. stories, is at least a little understandable. Western was a little more Vic Lockman than Carl Barks on most days, after all.
Sorry, I do not understand the context. You mean to say that the book was written by Chilean writers after the Nine-Eleven (1972) US-induced fascist coupe-d'état? And the Chilean military government enforced an imperialistic propaganda thone in the translation of duck comics?