Does anyone know if Barks completely finished the lost Golden Apples story before it was lost? Or did he just pencil it? Or maybe just write the plot?
Also, are there other lost completely inked (or just penciled) Barks comic pages?
According to Blum's text in the European Barks collection, yes it was fully finished and inteded to be printed in WDC 144 – but was replaced by the editors with another 10-pager originally intended for the next issue.
Another completed but never published (and lost) story is "Bobsled Race" created for WDC 196.
Does anyone know if Barks completely finished the lost Golden Apples story before it was lost? Or did he just pencil it? Or maybe just write the plot?
Also, are there other lost completely inked (or just penciled) Barks comic pages?
Material that we know to have existed at some point in time, but has not been found afterwards (either because it is lost, or because we haven't matched a description of the material with a real item) is indexed at Inducks under CZ codes, under which multiple inked pages are listed to have been lost. There is a direct link on the story page of each item to A Guidebook to the Carl Barks Universe website1 where you can read useful information about the item.
In the recent years, two panels that were assumed to be lost are interestingly found back, by the way: a panel for Back to the Klondike and High Rider. Perhaps more will be found in the future!
1 The A Guidebook to the Carl Barks Universe website is not actively maintained anymore, and is in some cases, misleading, confusing or simply outdated: the two found panels above are not mentioned, for example.
Carl Barks never drew final pencil drawings. He simply inked over his blueline pencil storyboard sketches. Both Carl, himself, and Malcolm Willits told me that the original untitled story submitted for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories 144 (September 1952)("The Queen of The Apple Festival"), was fully inked and submitted to Western Publishing's story editor (the one that was in place just before Chase Craig took over that function (I can't remember if it was Carl (von) Buettner or there was a female story editor between Buettner and Craig). The editor accepted the story, and I believe Barks was paid for it. But, long before it would be printed, new editor, Chase Craig took over, and decided that that story involved "unladylike actions from Daisy, which probably would be considered objectionable by too many parents", so that story was shelved (never used- and the original art likely destroyed). Craig had already received letters from parents complaining about objectionable actions of some characters that might be harmful to their children's psyches. I was told that the original art was not sent back to Carl because, originally, he had been paid for the work.
Carl Barks never drew final pencil drawings. He simply inked over his blueline pencil storyboard sketches. Both Carl, himself, and Malcolm Willits told me that the original untitled story submitted for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories 144 (September 1952)("The Queen of The Apple Festival"), was fully inked and submitted to Western Publishing's story editor (the one that was in place just before Chase Craig took over that function (I can't remember if it was Carl (von) Buettner or there was a female story editor between Buettner and Craig). The editor accepted the story, and I believe Barks was paid for it. But, long before it would be printed, new editor, Chase Craig took over, and decided that that story involved "unladylike actions from Daisy, which probably would be considered objectionable by too many parents", so that story was shelved (never used- and the original art likely destroyed). Craig had already received letters from parents complaining about objectionable actions of some characters that might be harmful to their children's psyches. I was told that the original art was not sent back to Carl because, originally, he had been paid for the work.
Jesus. Thanks a million for that decision, Chase.
By the way, I believe Barks' story editor just before Craig took over was Alice Cobb, who raised hell over his adaptation of "Trick or Treat".
Carl Barks never drew final pencil drawings. He simply inked over his blueline pencil storyboard sketches. Both Carl, himself, and Malcolm Willits told me that the original untitled story submitted for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories 144 (September 1952)("The Queen of The Apple Festival"), was fully inked and submitted to Western Publishing's story editor (the one that was in place just before Chase Craig took over that function (I can't remember if it was Carl (von) Buettner or there was a female story editor between Buettner and Craig). The editor accepted the story, and I believe Barks was paid for it. But, long before it would be printed, new editor, Chase Craig took over, and decided that that story involved "unladylike actions from Daisy, which probably would be considered objectionable by too many parents", so that story was shelved (never used- and the original art likely destroyed). Craig had already received letters from parents complaining about objectionable actions of some characters that might be harmful to their children's psyches. I was told that the original art was not sent back to Carl because, originally, he had been paid for the work.
Jesus. Thanks a million for that decision, Chase.
By the way, I believe Barks' story editor just before Craig took over was Alice Cobb, who raised hell over his adaptation of "Trick or Treat".
Thank you Pim and RobbK1 ! I wonder what the chances are that those two finished 10-pagers still exist. Close to 0%? Around 50%? Close to 100%?
Also, how would someone who wanted to make a very serious effort trying to find them go about locating them? Let's say there is a Barks fan billionaire who were willing to spend big money to try to locate those lost comics. How would you advise them to spend that money exactly?
Thank you Pim and RobbK1 ! I wonder what the chances are that those two finished 10-pagers still exist. Close to 0%?
Yes. Logically there isn't any reason why the editors would have chosen to preserve those ten-pagers, as they weren't gonna use them for anything. And nothing from them have ever turned up in all these decades of Barks fans and historians searching for missing material. The Milkman ten-pager was of course preserved, but that's a pretty unique case.
Thank you Pim and RobbK1 ! I wonder what the chances are that those two finished 10-pagers still exist. Close to 0%? Around 50%? Close to 100%?
Also, how would someone who wanted to make a very serious effort trying to find them go about locating them? Let's say there is a Barks fan billionaire who were willing to spend big money to try to locate those lost comics. How would you advise them to spend that money exactly?
At this point, the money would be better spent getting someone like Daan Jippes to draw a new version of the story.
Thank you Pim and RobbK1 ! I wonder what the chances are that those two finished 10-pagers still exist. Close to 0%? Around 50%? Close to 100%?
Also, how would someone who wanted to make a very serious effort trying to find them go about locating them? Let's say there is a Barks fan billionaire who were willing to spend big money to try to locate those lost comics. How would you advise them to spend that money exactly?
To which TWO finished 10-pagers are you referring? Barks' "Queen of The Apple Festival" was only one story. Which other lost Barks story do you include in that pair of stories?
Based on Carl Barks' 3 different discussions with me, in 1966, 1969, and 1971, in which we discussed "Queen of The Apple Festival", and he added a few details each time (and so, I had more details to go on than were listed in Barks' published interviews), I drew up the storyboards, and wrote a story that tied them all together, and added more to the plot, so it could fit 10 pages. Daan Jippes agreed to partner on the project with me and we'd submit it to my editor at Oberon (Thom Roep). Unfortunately, he rejected the story, saying that it wasn't enough like Barks would have written it. WE then submitted it to Egmont. Byron Erickson said we needed to wait for Geoff Blum's version of it, so Byron could compare the two, and Daan would draw whichever would be the better story. After Geoff's was finished, Byron chose HIS, even though my version was the same number of pages as Carl's, and was based on more information from Barks than he had told to Mike Barrier (which was all Blum used), and even though Geoff made his version 14 pages, and added Uncle Scrooge and Magica and a second plot line, which were not in Barks' original story.
So, you would like Daan to now draw a 10-page version WITHOUT Scrooge and Magica, but adding in my additional information, as Daan and I had planned?
I DO agree that no complete versions of drawn, but never-before-plublished Golden Age Barks stories will show up any more. They would have surfaced some years ago, when the collections or valuable possessions of people who ended up obtaining the original art, died. There are younger people still alive, who could possibly have gotten copies of Barks' 1960s inked stories, or his 1970s blueline pencil sketched stories, which still might possibly be discovered (but, even those would be a longshot).
RobbK1 The other one I was referring to is the Bobsled Race story: inducks.org/story.php?c=CZ+WDC+196 Are you saying Barks did not complete that? If so, did he just write the script?
And absolutely, I would have preferred your more faithful version of Golden Apples to one that added 4 extra pages and several characters to the story. Also, since two lost Barks panels have resurfaced in the past 3 years (a panel from High Rider and a panel from Back to the Klondike) then there must be at least some chance that those two lost Barks ten-pagers (or at least Golden Apples, if the other one wasn't inked) are still out there somewhere.
RobbK1 The other one I was referring to is the Bobsled Race story: inducks.org/story.php?c=CZ+WDC+196 Are you saying Barks did not complete that? If so, did he just write the script?
And absolutely, I would have preferred your more faithful version of Golden Apples to one that added 4 extra pages and several characters to the story. Also, since two lost Barks panels have resurfaced in the past 3 years (a panel from High Rider and a panel from Back to the Klondike) then there must be at least some chance that those two lost Barks ten-pagers (or at least Golden Apples, if the other one wasn't inked) are still out there somewhere.
In the case of Bobsled race, that story was returned to Barks in blue pencil sketches form, for changing. He was told that the rivalry between Donald and his Nephews was too strong and intense. Rather than throw away all his work, he changed the story from being a rivalry over bobsled racing, to a story about the snow statues(printed in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories 196). He used many of the same backgrounds, and erased the bobsleds, and the Donald and his nephews' figures when in action with the sleds, and drew The Ducks again, in poses related to the snow statues atop the original storyboards. he kept the theme of the rivals trying to win the race to help Widow Umble's two children, and their poses remained mostly the same, but with the bobsleds removed. So, there is no surviving Barks art of the original story.
Jan Gulbransson and I produced a related bobsled rivalry story to help Widow Umble's kids, for Egmont (D2015-004), but with changing Donald's rivalry with his nephews to a rivalry with Neighbor Jones. It has never been published in English, but is available in issues printed from 2015-2017 in Dutch, German, French, All 3 Scandinavian languages, Finnish, Indonesian (I have a few Donal Bebek copies), and Chinese.
Unfortunately, as far as The Golden Apples story is concerned, both Carl Barks and Malcolm Willits told me that the original art and photos of that story were destroyed by Western Publishing along with their regular originals destruction operations near the end of the 1950s, or beginning of the 1960s, several years before my 1966 discussion with Carl, and inquiry about them. I think that the only possibility of seeing any Barks drawings from that story might be a photo of a single or few panels, or, at the very most, one stray page, IF such were made for a friend of Carl's, or a San Jacinto neighbour fan. Very unlikely. Such should have surfaced by now. It is only possible if the possessor had been a child at the time, and his parents made the photo, and he lived till from now to 10 years from now to the age of 80 to 90. There is NO original art to find, as Barks reused his "Bobsled Race" original pages, and was never returned "The Golden Apples" originals.
So this year the German Egmont will start publishing this Fantagraphics Barks Library in German too. This will be the sixth complete Barks Library in German. The previous ones:
Softcover album series (1992-2004) - 133 volumes, finished Hardcover series (2001-2014) - 43 volumes, finished Deluxe hardcover series (2005-2008) - 30 volumes, finished Another softcover album series (2010-) - 77+ volumes, ongoing Pocket Book series (2019-2022) - 20 volumes, will be finished this year
I wonder who the target audience for this sixth German Barks Library is. Doesn't every German who is interested in Barks already have all his works?
Some people have already asked for this - since the adaptations of Fantagraphics' Don Rosa and Floyd Gottfredson Libraries have worked so well. In particular, some people got into Duck comics via the DRL and have become interested in Barks' stories.
I'd be interested if the translations were finally redone or at least reworked to get them more in line with Barks' original intentions (e.g. the poetic way of speaking in Land of the Pygmy Indians) but the Donaldists still seem to have too much of a grip on the discussion for the publisher to do that without risking WAKstorms.