The first generation of North American Duck fans to contact Carl Barks, in the 1960s, had ALL graduated from 4-year undergraduate university, and had gone to graduate Schools and had gotten graduate degrees (Myself, Don Ault, Bill Spicer, Kim Weston, Mike Barrier, another, whose name started with letter "A" (whose name I forget, but knew for 50 years), like Ault, had been a professor at The University of California at Berkely. NONE were normal non, graduate school graduates. I think that is NOT a coincidence. Almost every North American Barks or Gottfredson fan I met during the 1950s and '60s was a high academic achiever, and seemed highly intelligent. In The Netherlands, on the other hand, Barks and Gottfredson and, indeed, all Disney Comics fans ran the entire gamut of levels of education. But, all seemed to display above average intelligence. A lot more so-called "low brows" in North America, were reading superhero comics.
In the just-out first issue of "The Unstoppable Wasp," there is a column interviewing two female scientists who read comics (they promise this will be a continuing feature, and ask for nominations!). One of the two is Marina Chanidou, a PhD student in analytical chemistry in the UK. Her response to the questions "How long have you been reading comics? What was your first ever comic book?" is:
I started reading comics when I was around six. My first books were Asterix the Gaul and Lucky Luke. Then I read a lot of Disney comics--Carl Barks was a favorite creator. Finally, when I was 17, I went to an actual comic book shop. And picked up Medieval Lady Death! Sure, she was semi-naked, but she was a woman kicking WAK in a world that wanted her gone!
Marina is greek. In Greece we learned about Barks and stories in the KOMIX (ΚΟΜΙΞ) magazine. It is a magazine about the more top Disney creators like Barks, Rosa, Scarpa etc At fisrt, it was intended to be a magazine version of the Carl Barks Library of Rainbow. But that changed and many other classic artits were included and some new ones like Casty over the years (at the second period of the magazine). At its first period the magazine was considered collectable and had a label saying that... However fans still consider it at its second period even if the label was removed.
Also Asterix and Lucky Luke are very popular here but many if not most who read comics in Greece started by reading Disney Comics (Mickey Mouse/Μίκυ Μάους etc). However, there are still people that consider them childish but this changes for the better over the years and generations.
In issuu you can read some issues of the magazine like 1, 4 and 170 of the first period.
Esko Valtaoja is Finnish professor of space astronomy and big Barks fan. But he also reads all kinds of comics. Huge amount of adult comics, graphic novels, bande dessins are published every year in Europe, and "adult" in this case doesn't mean anything of naughty sort. Valtaoja wrote preface on collection of Barks' space stories, and on top of that all: he also looks exactly like a professor jumped out of Barks' story! Check: coa.inducks.org/creator.php?c1=date&c=Esko+Valtaoja
Edit: And oh.. then there is Finnish Nobel prize winner (chemistry) A.I.Virtanen (1895–1973) who was eager reader of Aku Ankka comic book, he kept reading it right from the start (1951) until the day he passed away (1973). Photo of A.I.Virtanen reading Aku Ankka.