Customer Reviews

Carl Barks: Conversations (Conversations With Comic Artists)

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Wow, I picked up a copy of this book in paperback near where I live and I loved it. Just LOVED it. I'm lucky it made it up here where I am. I'm a big Duck fan, so I wanted to read more about the history and stuff, but I never knew how well-spoken a man Carl Barks was, and this Donald Ault--he's super! He's super because he takes Barks seriously AS A CREATIVE GENIUS, which he is/was. I see from the back cover Ault's written some pretty deep stuff, he's a professor, but he's really readable. I tend to think most (or lots) or people who are really into the Duck are pretty intelligent folks--those I know are. I don't have a heck of a lot of education, like a master's degree or book writing or whatever, but I read this whole book and I understood it and it's truly enriched my experience--and not just of Donald Duck. I can't recommend it enough.

~Rudy C.

For those of us who grew up during the 40's, 50's and even the 60's, comic books were our favorite literature. Comic book lovers mostly fell into two camps, the action comic fans of super heros, and the those who enjoyed comics of cartoon animals. But the king of this latter group was Carl Barks who drew Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Western Publishing produced these comics for Disney but really did not credit its artists as the perception that Walt Disney was the artist was an image they embraced.

Carl Barks understood his role, and as long as he had the maximum amount of creative freedom to write his comics, he was mostly ok with his role. He had bosses of lesser talent in charge of his work, yet he managed greatness despite misguided management.

The style of the book is of interviewer and interviewee, which allows Carl to tell his story in his own words. Not being one to seek the spotlight, it is doubtful that we would know much about Carl Barks without people such as Don Ault who were willing to deal Bark's reclusivness by telling the Carl Barks story by way of an interview format.

A word of advice: Reading this book will only be meaningful if one has read the comics in which Bark's stories are found. If you are not familiar with these comics, find a Carl Barks fan and ask him/her to share some of his stories with you. Then if you find yourself enjoying his humor, his artistry, and the depth of his stories, you will want to know more about the man. This book is a great way to gain such an insight.

This is a good book for finding out about Barks' life, but it is very repetitious because different interviewers kept asking him the same questions over and over. As Perry Mason said, "that question has been asked and answered." I would prefer a straight chronological biography that doesn't keep going over the same ground. Also, it could use a few more illustrations and a better discussion of how Barks taught himself cartooning.