Here's another oldie, while we tread the blogging equivalent of water, until we get to the promised Barks and Gottfredson posts...
And YES, I know Geox had already done this but - believe it or not - I'd actually done the post and sent it to my Reserve Archives well before his post appeared.
Then, for a long while, I hesitated posting my version, so as not to compete with his... or (horrors!) be considered a plagiarist! Anyway, at long (delayed) last, here it is! Enjoy!
I'm Not an Artist, But... let's examine a cover I've liked for a very long time... until I thought a little too hard about it as a writer... that of DELL GIANT # 38 Uncle Donald and His Nephews Family Fun (Dell Comics, Cover Date: November, 1960).
First of all, shouldn't it have been "UNCA Donald and His Nephews Family Fun", given the uncountable number of times that the WRITERS of these comics have referred to the character as "UNCA Donald" vs. calling him "Uncle Donald", but I'll chalk that up to a matter of branding and get to the heart of the matter.
To give you a peek into my mind (...dare you accept the invitation?), this first occurred to me when updating the index to the issue at GCD.
At a first glance, I gave this cover a synopsis of "Each member of the Duck family indulges in the reading preference of their choice.", because that's exactly what it looked like. In furtherance of this, whoever indexed the original issue for GCD gave it an "Unofficial Title" of "All reading" - a seemingly accurate, if uninspired, description of the cover illustration.
But is that earlier title, as well as my later synopsis, truly accurate?
I'd say not... Why? Because not all the ducks ARE READING!
The nephews are putting together a jigsaw puzzle... and Uncle Scrooge is just admiring a thousand-dollar bill! I suppose you could argue that Scrooge *could* be "reading" the bill's serial number, name of the Secretary of the Treasury, or the line about "In Whomever Ducks Trust"... but sorry, Scrooge, I'm not buying it!
You could even make the tenuous case that Daisy is WRITING in her Diary, and Grandma Duck is REMINISCING over her old photo album, leaving DONALD as the only one actually READING... but, since he's "reading" the "Investment News", he's probably just daydreaming, or something!
Now, I'm Not an Artist, But... I must lay a goodly amount of the blame on the (choke!) writer (gasp!) - or more likely the editor, or designer who came up with and/or approved this particular image - and not artist Tony Strobl who, as he once told me, had little or no input into that stage of the creative process.
While "I'm Not an Artist, But..." I am a WRITER, and here's how I would have "written" this scene... if, indeed, things like this are ever actually "written"...
Donald would be reading the latest issue of "Super Snooper Comics"! ...'Nuff said!
Grandma Duck would be reading farm reports - or something touting these "newfangled electric cars" to come in the future, and wondering what all the fuss is about since she's had an old electric car since about 1910!
Daisy would be reading a romantic novel... and becoming increasingly displeased with Donald over his lack of romanticism.
Scrooge would be reading "The Web Street Journal", or some other financial publication... provided he found a discarded copy on the street. Scrooge gets free info AND there's less litter on the streets of Duckburg? Win/Win, I'd say!
And anyone who thinks that Huey, Dewey, and Louie would be reading anything other than The Junior Woodchucks Guidebook is banned from my Blog for at least a month!
...Aaaaand, maybe I wouldn't put Donald so far in the background of what purports to be his own comic book! Switch him with Scrooge, maybe!
...Your thoughts?
16 comments:
I'll go with Donald reading Super Snooper, Scrooge reading a wrinkled (scrounged from a trashcan in the park) Web Street Journal, and the boys reading the Guidebook (the better not to be banned from the blog!!), though I'd be happy to have a pile of Marvin Monkey comics by their side. Grandma Duck is reading a Farmers' Almanac, of course, unless we're prevented from using an actual publication, in which case she's reading a catalog of tractors and other farm equipment. In Daisy's case, I'd prefer to avoid the gender stereotypes which have forever defined her. In Janet Gilbert's "Crime by the Book" it is established that Daisy is an aficionado of detective stories, so I'd go with her reading "The Mystery of Mallard Manor." (I really like the story of Crime by the Book, but unfortunately the art makes my eyes hurt.)
"And anyone who thinks that Huey, Dewey, and Louie would be reading anything other than The Junior Woodchucks Guidebook is banned from my Blog for at least a month!"
My, my, Joe, would you dare to ban Mr Carl Barks himself? :) In the sketch he provided for this cover, the nephews are not reading the Guidebook, either (but in my opinion, their choice of reading is excellent)! I must say, though, that Barks's initial cover was much better than this final version: it actually stuck to the joke and made EVERY member of the Duck family read something - with Scrooge reading a bill, just as on the final cover. I think this works beautifully in the sketch owing to the contrast between Scrooge's greenback and more standard books and magazines of other ducks.
As you've noticed, the final cover muddles this joke by giving HDL a jigsaw puzzle, having Daisy write in her diary rather than read it, and assigning Donald an unusual reading choice in the form of an economic newspaper. The note in the revelant volume of my Carl Barks collection says that usually Carl would ink his covers before he handed them over for coloring, but this time he only sent a pencil sketch, presumably because the cover was to be painted rather than colored in a standard way. This enabled other artists to make more changes to Barks's art than they would have been able to otherwise.
Here's a link to the cover sketch as designed and pencilled by Carl Barks, for everyone to marvel at and compare!
https://imgur.com/a/iKKQNTj
But what's wrong with the cover? Seems to me the issue is not with the cover, but how we interpreted it. I say we because when I saw this cover online a few years ago, I, too, thought they were all reading. But, as you make clear, the only one who is possibly reading is Donald, and even he is likely not actually reading! I've always liked this cover, but, now I like it even more, thanks to this optical illusion!
Ah, such lively comments and all on a post’s first day! This is why I’m glad I chose not to give up Blogging!
Let’s get to them in order, shall we?
Elaine:
You know me well enough to know that (despite my outsized appreciation of the work of a certain Western Publishing writer with the initials “V.L.”) I don’t deal in gender stereotypes… BUT this was a rare opportunity to “write” (if that would be the correct word to use in this case) as if I WERE IN THE YEAR 1960!
This amounts to doing the opposite of what I did in IDW’s UNCLE SCROOGE #3, when I brought a story centered around an outmoded plot device (walkie-talkies, now in an age of cell phones) into the time period in which it was published by creating Captain Retro Duck, and the whole mythos surrounding that made-up-by-me television character! I especially LOVED creating the fictitious TV episode details!
In this case, as it was a 1960 cover, I relegated my tweaks to those I would have done in 1960… if I wasn’t only five years old! …And, even at half-a-decade, they STILL would have been better than some of the non-Team-Gerstein stuff at the (bitter) end of the IDW run! Yeah, yeah, I know… Sorry – NOT sorry!
Thus, the gag/trope that would have been used THEN, as opposed to now! Even staying “in the THEN”, I avoided the temptation to have called Daisy’s book “A Dolly Quinn Romance”, let alone the anachronistic urge to go with “A Harley Quinn Romance”!
I believe all the other alterations would have worked in 1960 – even if the concept of “Super Snooper” hadn’t been used in years, and was instead a generic comic book, it’s still much better than “Investment News”! After all, what has Donald to invest?
T.:
That I would ban Mr. Carl Barks from this humble Blog? Heaven forfend!
It is that “muddling of the joke” which is my point of the whole thing! Can’t blame the Duck Man for that, and we probably can’t blame Tony Strobl as he was strictly a pencil artist at the time. He would write some things for the Disney Studio Program in the 1970s-1980s after leaving Western Publishing (I even re-dialogued one for a Fantagraphics hardcover. A nice thing for me, since I actually knew the man!) – but never in 1960!
Strobl most likely drew what was sent to him by Chase Craig or Del Connell… and it may not even have been *them* who made the changes! Just more stuff we’ll never truly know, alas!
HERE is T.’s link to Barks’ original pencil sketch.
All of the Ducks’ reading choices are acceptable… even if they differ from mine! JOKE! JOKE! OKAY? JOKE! You know like “remove the “k” from my name” JOKE!
It’s also very likely that Barks didn’t know the book’s title was going to feature DONALD, and probably thought it was for just another DUCK ALBUM, which would account for Donald taking a literal “back seat” in a book titled for him!
Sergio:
Just goes to show how we all can have different interpretations of the very same thing!
I zeroed in on the non-reading by some characters, while the cover never really implied that it was *about* reading! So, the focus on reading was only in my mind, yet I viewed it as a notable flaw!
They are all relaxing and “having fun” in their own inactive way and that may have even accounted for the changes that were made… simply to VARY the types of “stationary fun”, rather than restrict it to reading!
I just LOVE stuff like this, don’t you?
The WSJ parallel in Duckburg was always the "Gall Street Journal" in the past.
I'm going to argue... because I've thought a little too hard about it as an EDITOR... that wordplay-ish uses of "web," without an obligatory "-foot" or "-feet" added, bring SPIDERS, not ducks, primarily to mind.
Unless you can think of an example I've missed, adding/swapping "web" into a word simply wasn't done in Duckburg storytelling prior to DuckTales—for exactly this reason—and when first done there, it felt genuinely strange to me, especially as a kid.
A school friend and fellow early DuckTales viewer remarked to me in 1987 that "Webby is a name for a tarantula," and I still think he was right.
(It got even stranger when recurring DuckTales bit player "Webra Walters" was given an ostensible duck-name but drawn as a dog; this showed that from the get-go, the basic un-duckiness of "web-" puns meant that people even inside the system weren't always realizing they were duck references.)
David:
You write: "The WSJ parallel in Duckburg was always the "Gall Street Journal" in the past."
Yes, indeed! And, believe it or not, I *did* briefly think of that - but that pesky micro-piece of Vic Lockman in that resides in my brain had me go with the comparative alliteration of "WALL" and "WEB"!
And, as it was (again) 1960, I "Voted Vic" and went with the alliteration!
Though I won't deny perhaps being influenced by DuckTales' (over)use of "WEB" without realizing it! (...Scary! ...Even for a person with a micro-piece of Vic Lockman ensconced in his brain!)
The issue of the title is quickly settled for me in that the book itself has not been titled by HDL but is titled for benefit of the readers who are not likely to call Donald " Unca". There is also a precedent in the cartoons in the title of the short "Uncle Donald's Ants" which is there primarily because of the play on words involving ants, since he is not an uncle in that film as HDL are nowhere to be seen in it.
My biggest concern about this picture is that everyone is so sedentary. It seems static and almost lifeless. "Family Fun" could be a backyard BBQ or a rousing game of ping-pong or rowing on a lake, etc. However, thanks to the glimpse of Barks' original sketch, I wish there had been less interference as the sketch has an "authenticity" which is lacking in the finished version. One thing that strikes me as particularly odd is that Donald seems disproportionately small in comparison to the others. Clearly Daisy is scrunched up in her chair so it's evident why she is not at her full length, but Donald looks almost equal in size to the nephews, which for me throws the whole image off. And as you said, since he is the title character, he should have a more prominent place. Yet I can understand why Scrooge gets the prime spot as his comic book was a best seller in those days and plus his gag seems to be the primary focus of the drawing. My main concern though is that if "Family Fun" is being promoted, they should be doing something active together rather than sitting amusing themselves. One could argue that they are "together" in that they are all in the same space and clearly all compatible with each other, but the lack of energy in the picture is off-putting to me.
Donald is probably hiding a comic book or a book of Cowboy stories behind that financial newspaper. He doesn’t want Uncle Scrooge to start lecturing him about saving money or becoming a financial success again on a quiet afternoon.
As I don’t have access to the comic in question, does it have a lot of activity pages in the book along with the comics? That may have been part of why the editors changed the nephews’ activity from reading to doing a puzzle.
Deb:
Oddly, I “don’t have access to the comic in question” either. Now that all our main living space is properly set to right, I’ve only begun to properly set up “my stuff” divided between upstairs and the finished basement. I essentially have only full access to issues from 1960-1974 and, of course, the new (current) comics as I get them. The project will continue as I acquire additional shelving units, two of which are arriving tomorrow (Saturday, June 27, 2026). ...Yay!
So, I can’t actually verify whether or not it has “a lot of activity pages in the book along with the comics” but I would assume that, as with most or all Dell Giants, it would.
And, if so, that’s as good a reason as any for the nephews doing a puzzle! …Doesn’t look like a hard one either – almost all blue with a few spots of white! In fact, with just a little more care and detail, it could have been a puzzle of THIS VERY COVER!!! Blue background and some furniture, and white for the ducks and book and newspaper pages! At least that’s how my mind sees it!
DIGRESSION: …Ya know, I really should have been an editor! Gold Key’s given me a chance, once they get things going again, and I think I’ve done a good job with what I’ve been given to work with… we shall see!
Finally…. YES! That would certainly explain Donald’s perusing a copy of “Investment News”! Perhaps he’s really hiding a copy of WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES behind that financial sheet – and will move on to the next issue after reading the just first ten pages!
Oh, quick correction... while my REGULAR comics 1960-1974 are fully accessible, the various Dell Giants are in a box of their own sorted by character, title, and year - and that would include 1960. That particular box is not yet easy to reach, pending the installation of new shelving.
Scarecrow:
You write: “My main concern though is that if "Family Fun" is being promoted, they should be doing something active together rather than sitting amusing themselves. One could argue that they are "together" in that they are all in the same space and clearly all compatible with each other, but the lack of energy in the picture is off-putting to me.”
Here’s another “off-the-wall-shoulda-been-an-editor” thought: Perhaps this cover is a PREMONITION OF THE FUTURE or, as Mickey might have put it, “The World of Tomorrow”!
Of late, it’s an all too familiar scene evocative of 2026 with each family member doing their own thing(s) but remaining in the same space, such as our living room! Averi and Cici each with one of my phones watching YouTube, Logan running around wildly wreaking havoc, Esther and the kids’ mom (name withheld for their privacy) looking at “house things”, talking child rearing, and doing the near-impossible job of restraining Logan, the kids’ dad (name withheld for ditto) on or looking at his phone mostly for work and some leisure pursuits – and yours truly sitting between Averi and Cici paying attention to what they’re watching and/or sitting between them and trying the futile endeavor of following baseball or football on the main TV! That’s modern “Family Fun” in these crazy times!
Oh, don’t get me wrong…. Averi and Cici LOVE to play, and I’m the one they always play with (and I LOVE it just as much, if not more, as they do), but the phones are steadily gaining ground, alas.
So that cover drawing could just as easily be MY family in 2026 as the Duck family in 1960!
And, while “sedentary” might be an unusual way to go for a Dell Giant cover, there are enough swimming, rowing, beach balls, carnival rides, hot dog, and baseball gloved Dell Giant covers to scratch that particular eyeball-itch – leaving this to be a notable “Out-of-the-Boxer”!
Finally, I *really* believe that Barks intended that cover sketch to be for another of the then-frequent DUCK ALBUM issues, accounting for Donald (not being the title character) to be background-positioned. He’s not smaller, he’s just further away. …Or, to evoke another famous Disney line “he’s just drawn that way”!
Aww, but if he only reads his own ten-pagers, he’ll miss out on the Mickey Mouse stories.
Deb:
You write: “Aww, but if he only reads his own ten-pagers, he’ll miss out on the Mickey Mouse stories.”
And wouldn’t you expect that from him?
*I* wouldn’t do it! I’ll presume *you* wouldn’t do it! But, Donald? Yeah, he probably *would* do it!
It’s 1960 and he’s still “wak-ed” over all those Mickey Mouse Club “bang-the-gong” gags, and his memories of unsuccessfully shouting his name over Mickey’s in the show’s opening are still quite fresh!
But, don’t worry, over the years he’s come around to admire Mickey – probably through working together during the soon-to-come PHANTOM BLOT series – during which they even vacationed together!
Now pals again, Donald has spent years catching up on the Mickey stories that he ignored in the pages of WDC&S – and like me (and presumably you) is loving the thrills and adventures!
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