Customer Reviews

Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity (Great Comics Artists Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Certainly Carl Barks is well-known for his vivid, singular drawings of the Donald Duck characters in the Disney comics and cartoons. He would have a place in the pantheon of 20th-century comic illustrators for the imagination of his portrayals and scenes on the basis of their entertainment value alone. But beneath the prodigious output were deep undertones reflecting concerns and mores of popular culture and an implicit critique of many of these--which aspects of Barks's comic illustrations Andrae fully brings out. "Barks's tales are inextricably linked to the politics of his time and offer one of the most trenchant critiques of patriarchal capitalism in any popular media." One sees this inhering in the character Uncle Scrooge with his boundless love of lucre and joy in diving into his swimming pool filled with coins. Born in 1900, Barks lived to be nearly 100. He teamed with Disney in the 1930s. In his later decades, Barks evolved from implicit perspectives on general foibles such as greed and materialism to criticisms of specific aspects of U. S. politics and its effects. Many of these later strips "call into question the tentacle-like homogenization of both the Third World and the United States by consumerism and global capitalism." Andrae covers amply all of the layers of Barks's illustration art from unique style with lasting appeal to incorporation of issues of popular culture and often critiques of these. Readers will look forward to subsequent books following this first in the publisher's Great Comic Artists Series.

I got this book for my college history senior paper and I actually enjoyed reading it. I am only using an actual chapter out of it for my paper the book in its entirity is great.

I grew up on Carl Barks comics and stories. I read many articles about the man and his work. His primary purpose in writing and drawing a cartoon story was to make it interesting and fun. " Something I would enjoy reading myself", he was quoted as saying. The author of this book has made Carl a political dunce, proclaiming the political propaganda that the author appears to prefer. Mr. Barks does play up the stupidity of war in a couple stories, but it was part of the plot not some agrandizing political ploy. Carl was writing for children roughly 12 years of age though he appealed to people much older, myself over 70 years of age as an example. Once asked if his stories were morality plays he laughed and said, "I write and draw stories that appeal to me and I hope the kids like them too." "I never have any purpose in mind but entertainment." That his stories generally showed middle american values was a result of the times not some political experiment being foisted off on children. If you wish to read about Carl Barks, the man, this is definitely not the book to read. I plan on burning my copy. I gave it one star because the field wouldn't accept no stars.

Althought the book is interesting in many parts, it tends to bog down too much in academic diversions.