Intro
Forord
Biografi
Freddy Milton
Bibliografi
Poloserien
1)
Historien om en sten
2)
Vagn i Viking
3)
Pest blandt
mennesker
Søren Spætte
1) Klatten kommer
2) Lykkevandet
3) Rejsen til Ramashanka
4) Opstand i Storskoven
Familien Gnuff
1) Ballade i Nørregade
2) Den store Teknokrak
3) Grafitti-mesteren
4) Gribedyrets hemmelighed
5) Truslen fra kæmpetræerne
6) Superstjernen
7) Med ballon til Nordpolen
8) Gammel kærlighed...
9) Poltergeisterne
10) Storeglams kur
11) Gnips 100 år fødselsdag
12) Genfærdet fra Roxy
13) Det sidste eventyr
14) Kampen om Hakketårn
15) Den ulyksalige Dimitrius
Villiams Verden
1) Villiams Verden
2) Villiams anden verden
1)
Villiams Värld
2) Villiams Värld
Dekalog over Janteloven
1) Hitlers Krig - i det nye Europa
2) Snehvide møder King Kong - i Gyngemosen
3) C-holdet - i Totalturneringen
4)
Fælleskorps Dannevirke
5) Broen mellem øst og vest
6) Rottefængeren fra Høng
7) Dybbøl Mølle maler...
8) Knud og Signe i Japan
9) Tør du undvære "Livskraft"?
10) Den gamle Gartner
Supplementsbind:
Venus fra Maglemosen
Spillebøger
Hvem dræbte Koch-Robin?
Drøje dage i job-junglen
Rig eller ærlig?
Jagten på den vise Sten
Video eller Virkelighed?
Da landet forsvandt
Musebogen
Musene fra Rynkeby Præstegård
En familiehistorie
Musemor fortæller
Musefars historie
Musekvaler
Broder Benedikt
Broder Benedikts beretning
Broder Benedikts byggeri
Jomsvikingerne
Svend, Knud og Valdemar
Harald Blåtand
Solvognen
Guldhornene
Diverse
Gustav
Sheerluck Homes
Drømmen og Vagn
Sanne og Pamfilius
Svenderix og de gæve Danere
Svennerik og gylledrikken
Karl Stød
Den grimme ælling
Mastodont
...Og det var Danmark
Donald Duck
Hakke Hakkespett
En dåres försvarstal
Gnuff skitser
CD-rom
Musene fra Rynkeby Præstegård
Den vise Sten
Magasiner og øvrige bidrag
Sejd
Carl Barks & Co.
Kalle Klodrik
Danske tegneserier
Gale Streger
Miltons Verden
Critters
Søren Spætte
Woody Woodpecker
Stripschrift
Bild & Bubbla
Strip!
Kilroy
Prøvesider
Olsen banden
Zenit magasin
The Travers
Tobias Z Fastshooting
Kåre Kvastunge
Dick Svensson
Bestillingsopgaver
Krimihjørnet
Klenodiet
Kuppet
Pigebarnet
Hvem dræbte Lord Strawburn?
Gys & Gru
De 10 små håndværkere
Det lumske lager
Mosefundet
Maskinen
Skæbner på en
grill
Kampen mod hygiejnen
Kalendere
Juleaften
Julegaver
Julemanden
Julesange
Juletræ
Skoleskema
Klassens kalender
Mad
Diligencen
Ranchen
Rodeo
Skattejagt
Ostemaden
Pølsemaden
Pålægschokolade-maden
Æggemaden
Søren Sømand
Rice Crispies
Du bli'r hvad du spiser
Lidelser
Huslægen
Glaxo
Brok & Børge
Muskelkraft
Handicappede
Blodbanen
Diverse
Anton på eventyr
Cirkus
Puslespil
Læs om...
Te for To
Andelogien
Lego
Knapsler
Tarzan
Lille
tegneseriekursus
Amor & Psyke
Andet
Video
Bag Stregen
Kommentarer
Sjove tegninger - fra
andre
Breve
Barndom
Tegninger
Modelbygning
Index
Albumoversættelser og egenproduktion
Artikler
Interview
med Freddy Milton
Tegneseriestil i anden sammenhæng
Læsermekanismer
English
Stuff
Doing It the Barks Way
Illos for Doing It the Barks Way
Freddy Milton Interview
Woody Woodpecker's finest hour
Knowing
women
Daffy Duck
Barkshjørnet
Barks analyse 1
Barks analyse 2
Barks analyse 3
Kontakt
Kontakt og credits
|
|
Carl Barks has influenced many cartoonists, some of whom went on to build
their own careers with Disney, but none has captured the look and feeling of the
classic duck ten-pager as successfully as Freddy Milton and Daan Jippes. Like
all fans who grew up on a diet of duck comics, these men found they could return
to the stories they had loved as children and draw new inspiration from the
master’s themes and techniques. Working together in the 1970s for the Dutch
publisher Oberon, they produced a series of tales that is unrivaled for its
Barksian flavor. Here Milton explains how they did it.
I have always regarded Carl Barks as a pioneer breaking ground where other
writers and artists could follow, using his characters and plots as a vehicle
for their own skills. The duck stories that Daan Jippes and I produced together
for the Dutch market represent an attempt to keep a storytelling tradition
alive. During the six years and nearly three hundred pages of our collaboration,
we returned frequently to the classic Donald Duck ten-pagers. By studying these
stories and using Barks’ methods, we hoped to capture his style.
Our joint work on "A Clean Case of Competence" illustrates this
approach. The central events of the story were inspired by the 1937 cartoon
Clock Cleaners, in which Mickey, Donald, and Goofy get
entangled in the machinery of a clock tower. The prospect of one small duck
being dwarfed by such a giant mechanism had both humorous potential and moral
possibilities. But we built the plot itself on a pattern that Barks established
in the 1950s in a series of tales featuring Donald as a master at various
professions.
Taking our cue from the catastrophes that typically conclude those
stories, we decided that Donald could do no less that spoil the entire clock
tower. The disaster would be even bigger if the clock were an antique prized by
the citizens of Duckburg. At first it seemed to follow that we should cast
Donald as an horologist. But building a whole story on problems of watch repair
might become repetitious. Then, too, it would be illogical to show Donald
repairing watches successfully for the first half of the story and suddenly
losing his touch when confronted by a larger clock. We chose to keep the
clock-cleaner motif but to work toward it by emphasizing cleaning rather than
clocks.
Preliminary Script
After settling on the general subject for our story, we began blocking out the
script. Because a comic book should flow visually with as little dialogue as
possible, we conceived it in pictures, constructing the action panel by panel. A
ten-page tale requires about eighty panels: eight to a page. Each should move
the plot forward or develop the personalities involved. A balance between these
two elements is essential, and the best stories will develop character and plot
at the same time.
On finishing a first script, we would often find that the frames did
not quite fit onto ten pages. Then we would look for items that could be cut,
gags that were introduced for the pure fun of it without carrying the plot
forward. Sometimes we would discover ideas that needed foreshadowing, so that we
had to add material at an earlier point in the tale. We also strove to place a
gag or small cliff-hanger at the bottom of each page to propel the reader
forward. All these are changes that have to be made in tightening a story.
Polishing the Script
Jippes and I decided that the Barks stories of the late 1940s offered the best
model for our own tale. Donald should be self-assured and egocentric, reacting
angrily to pressures from the world around him. Pride would cause him to make a
fatal error, leading to the disastrous conclusion of the story. The nephews
would take the part of a Greek chorus, commenting on the action as it unfolded
and showing a skeptical, resigned attitude toward the ways and byways of fate.
As this moral aspect of the story grew in our minds, it became less
and less appropriate for Donald just to spoil some silly antique clockwork. It
would be much more significant if his mistake sent all Duckburg into chaos. We
decided to raise the clock to the status of Big Ben, a ticker believed to be
punctuality itself. If Donald could make each of its four dials show a different
time, the four parts of Duckburg watching could fall into some very comic
confusion. This situation would also give us the opportunity for an extra moral:
that one should never trust technical devices blindly.
Four separate instances of confusion could become
repetitious, however. It would be more dramatic to join them into one disaster
by using the city’s transport system. The ensuing wreck would provide a stronger
climax for the story than the simple malfunction of the tower clock. This also
would enforce the principles of classical tragedy. But we had to keep the action
funny. We decided to use two trains: one carrying confetti, the other loaded
with molasses. This was changed to tar and feathers in
the American edition printed ten years later.
To make room for setting up this complex accident, we cut a gag
from the beginning of the story: the sequence in which Donald saves Banker
Brokeman’s garden party by gluing all the leaves back on his trees. Evaluating
it, we realized that it did not add to our sense of Donald’s expertise. The
restoration of the magenta stamp was enough to show that he could handle
impossible cleaning problems.
To vary the tone that Barks had set in his mastery stories, we
decided to give Donald artistic ambitions. Contrasting his genius with the dull
routine of cleaning jobs would provide a further source of humor, and it would
add to the laughs to show him treating valuable objects contemptuously because
they offered no challenge to his artistry. The scene with the rare stamp had to
be convincing, however. In the rest of the story, Donald is a bit of a clown,
but here he gets to demonstrate real talent. By pushing his abilities to the
limit on this one cleaning job, we created respect and sympathy for him.
At the same time, Donald’s artistic temperament is what causes his
final failure. Because of his reluctance to take on a mundane job, he approaches
the clockwork with a casual attitude that gets him into trouble. Ignoring the
nephews’ good advice and the schedules of Duckburg at large, he adheres to his
own values and sense of timing. Thus the collision of trains is caused by a
collision of rhythms—between the individual human being and the machines that
rule our technological society.
Barks often concluded Donald’s failures by letting him run away from
Duckburg in the last panel. We felt that was too easy a solution. It would make
a stronger moral point if Donald were forced to clean up the mess himself. At
the same time, this punishment could be presented in several lights. If we
showed Donald grumbling as he scrubbed the streets, it might mean he had learned
nothing by his mistake. We decided to omit Donald’s comments and let the reader
draw his own conclusions. In the final panel, the master cleaner wears an
expression that could be either weariness or resignation.
Layout
With the script ready, we began laying out the pictorial elements of our story.
Each page had to be a unified composition, and every panel needed to convey its
action clearly and economically. We tried to position the characters in logical
relation to each other, but in such a way that their expressions were readily
visible. Dialogue balloons could not dominate, yet they had to be placed where
they could be read in the right order. Barks generally hung his balloons from
the top edge or corner of a panel, so that the picture below seemed smaller than
the panel itself. To create a greater feeling of space in several panels, we
floated the balloons lower, leaving parts of the drawing showing around them.
We invoked silhouettes both for visual variety and create specific
moods. Seen in black against the setting sun, the figures of the nephews lend an
air of melancholy to the conversation about Donald’s inability to find
challenging jobs. Similarly, the heavy black form of the factory train speeding
down the track to Goosetown creates an ominous feeling, anticipating the
catastrophe one page later.
The interior of Donald’s workshop created problems because we wanted
him to use ordinary tools. The humor of each cleaning job lies in the
discrepancy between the roughness of Donald’s methods and the delicacy of the
object he cleans. A typewriter stuck in concrete is chiseled free with one blow,
an antique vase gets a shoeshine, and a priceless stamp is smeared with glue and
run through a wringer. To increase the humor of the third job, we gave Donald
extra-large pieces of cardboard and a giant wringer in contrast to the tiny
square of paper he restores. Even the expert’s worktable is too large for him,
so he has to stand on a stool to reach it.
When we came to draw the clocktower, it was very tempting to fill it
with cogwheels and levers. But the Barks tradition demanded economy. There
should never be more than is needed to convey the message of any one panel. For
this reason, we showed intricate machinery only in the first interior shot, just
enough to set the mood. Thereafter we kept the wheels, bells, and mainspring
large and simple.
The spring in Clock Cleaners had been horizontal. We made ours
vertical to give Donald trouble in recovering his beret. His climb to reach the
hat adds visual excitement, while the spring’s upright position increases the
likelihood that it will fly apart what attacked with a broom. The toylike key in
the center of the mainspring is an added bit of humor, again playing on the
discrepancy between large and small objects.
Characterization
The last job was to draw the characters, giving the right twist of expression to
their faces and movement to their bodies. As Barks himself found, it is
impossible to follow a model sheet exactly. New expressions are constantly
needed to fit the events of a story. Refining these can take as much time as the
other work combined.
Daan Jippes has a sensitivity for characterization. Though I did most
of the layout and inking, he gave the ducks their livenyness and expressiveness.
In the case of the more difficult poses, this required three or four preliminary
drawings. Jippes would work on separate pieces of tracing paper, starting with a
rough sketch and them refining it. When a pose satisfied us, we transferred it
to the actual drawing paper. There it was cleaned up with a hard pencil before
the final inking.
We probably put more time into the production of the ten-page story
than Barks ever did. After all, the style was his and came naturally to him. We
had to exert ourselves to achieve a script and art consistent with the tradition
he established.
Afterword
-
by Daan Jippes
In the winter of 1976 I visited Freddy Milton at his home in Viborg, Denmark.
There we conceived the idea of making Donald an expert in some trade, in the
tradition of Barks’ tales from the 1950s. Sitting together at a table, we
plotted the story scene by scene, then set to work on the art. In fourteen days,
we had completed "A Clean Case of Competence." I did most of the pencil work,
and Milton did most of the inking.
This was our third joint effort and our closest, for we normally
worked through the mail. Our collaboration began in the fall of 1975, when I was
an art-consultant with Oberon in Holland. Milton sent me a ten-page story he had
written, requesting my opinion and suggestions for improving it. I responded,
and from there it grew into a habit—one to which we surrendered for five years,
until I moved to California in 1981.
Every story we wrote and drew involved several runs through the mail,
so our total output was not large. As a rule, I would give Milton’s first
typewritten script close scrutiny. After analyzing the plot and gags, I
responded with a more focused premise for him to flesh out in a new script. This
does not mean that there was anything wrong with Milton’s original ideas. It was
just that our talents were geared differently. Coming at the same story from two
different angles, we had to pass ideas back and forth for a while before
settling on something that satisfied us both.
Milton’s second typescript would start me visualizing sequences with
thumbnail sketches, staging the action and laying out the backgrounds. I would
also indicate positions for the dialogue balloons on the rough art. After
another two-way run through the mail, I would find a larger envelope in my
postbox, containing the ten-page story pencilled full-size on tissue paper.
My contribution next was largely cosmetic. I would adjust expressions
and poses, clarify perspective, balance dark and light areas in the art, and try
to unify each page as a composition. After that, my involvement in the story had
run its course. The tissues went back to Milton, who transferred the art onto
drawing paper and inked it. And before he was through, we would already be into
the first draft of a new tale.
|