| INDEX | ART | ANIMATION | [COMICS] | CHARACTERS | QUOTES | DIARY | PHOTOGRAPHS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | LINKS | SOURCES |
| One Shots | Comics and Stories | Our Gang | Giveaways | Donald Duck | Uncle Scrooge | Junior Woodchucks | [Various] | Europe |
| Miscellaneous | Barks Library | Illustrated stories | [Text stories] | Newspaper strips | -X- |
| COMICS | Various Text stories |
Additional credits: Story outline of three and a half pages, written in 1968. Requested by Carsten Jacobsen of Guthenberghus, a Disney publisher in Denmark.
CBL-notes: Transcription. No original paperwork is shown.
Additional credits: Apparently, Barks ended the story outline with a comment, which reads "NOTE: May, 1974, POPULAR SCIENCE has a well-illustrated article on hang gliding."
CBL-notes: Transcription. No original paperwork is shown.
Congruences:
Description: In 1985, one night after dinner, Barks came with a short idea for a story containing Gyro Gearloose and Gus Goose. As Bill Grandey quoted in a December 17, 1985 letter to Geoffrey Blum: "Wouldn't it be great to have a pill that would negate calories? Gyro could invent one. Initially it would be a great success: formerly large people could be normal size without any effort. Picture various pig people becoming svelte. Then - as demonstrated by Gus Goose - a good thing can be overdone. Picture former fat people blowing around in a light wind!"
Correspondence:
CBL-notes: Transcription. No original paperwork is shown.
Backstage: In a November 3, 1990 letter to Don Rosa, Barks wrote about the difference in the creation of comic-book stories during in his time and nowadays, saying that his "plots only took the ducks to the politically safe areas of the world. Since the decay of communism there's all of Russia and Siberia and China to use for locales." Labouring this point, Barks wrote down a rough idea for a story. Detailed information
Correspondence:
Additional credits: Part of a March 31, 1991 letter from Carl Barks to Don Rosa.
Correspondence:
Additional credits: Part of a April 22, 1991 letter from Carl Barks to Don Rosa.
Correspondence:
Additional credits:
Barks composed this poem for his own pleasure and to pass it out to his friends.
On April 1, 1999, Michael Naiman received the poem from Barks, and forwarded it
by e-mail, to the Disney Comics Mailing List, on internet.
(Disney comics Digest
Changes: When it was first submitted to internet, the poem contained some transcription errors. ("scar" instead of "scars"; and "read ducks" instead of "read of ducks"; "be bought" instead of "we bought")
Surviving material: A xerox of the poem circulates among fans. It was part of a of [1999?] reply from Carl Barks to an unidentified fan
Reconstructions: Later, a corrected version was put onto internet, based on a xerox circulating among fans.
Backstage: Barks accompanied the poem with a hand-written note: "So many fans write to say my stories set the pattern for the duck universe, I tried to write an ode [to] the ducks."
In a May 11, 1999 letter to Markku Kivekäs, Barks wrote: "Am glad you like the short poem I wrote about the Disney ducks. I was inspired by letters I often receive from fans saying they like the way I taught little lessons in human decency and sensible behavior in my stories. Believe me, my first aim in constructing scripts was to make the situations funny. The little lessons crept in as part of the fun."
Answering the question if Barks had any reasons or plans to write this poem,
his friend Gerry Tank replied in a February 16, 2001 e-mail:
"There is nothing unusual about Carl's "Ode". Carl was an unusual person and
he sat down and decided for his own pleasure and to pass it out to his
friends to compose a poem. There was no ulterior motive. He did not have
e-mail, so there was no thought of forwarding it to the web. He did it for
his own pleasure.
Among the other things that he enjoyed were three deck solitaire, a version
that he invented and kept meticulous scores, crossword puzzles, diacrostics
(especially some very difficult ones which required much knowledge of
literature) and reading (until his eyesight failed). I see no reason in
trying to develop some ulterior motive."
Research: Strictly speaking, and to be ultra-pedantic poetically, this is not an ode but a ballad: a ballad comprises quatrains where the lines are in iambic pentameter, and the lines alternate between 8 syllables and 6 syllables, and this is what Barks has produced.
Correspondence:
Other views:
Questions:
When did the correct version make its debut on internet?
Has the circulating xerox been released by Barks himself, or has it been
made by others? (For example, by pasting Barks's note onto a transcription
of the poem?)
Sources
| Miscellaneous | Barks Library | Illustrated stories | [Text stories] | Newspaper strips | -X- |
| One Shots | Comics and Stories | Our Gang | Giveaways | Donald Duck | Uncle Scrooge | Junior Woodchucks | [Various] | Europe |
| INDEX | ART | ANIMATION | [COMICS] | CHARACTERS | QUOTES | DIARY | PHOTOGRAPHS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | LINKS | SOURCES |
|
|