The National Donaldistic Magazine

Disney Made in Finland 03 With 19 illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

4 Photographs LAURI NURMI

Publishing History of Disney Comics in Finland 12 With 12 Illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

Romano Scarpa The Italian Master of Mice and Ducks 17 With 10 Illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

Man Behind the Wolf - Gil Turner 23 With 6 Illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

1 Photograph TOMI KUIVAMÄKI

Gaze Upon Barks Oils 27 With 12 Illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

Screaming Cowboy Donaldist Anthem 32 With 6 Illustrations TIMO RONKAINEN

Thirty-six Pages of Illustrations in Black and White

Ankkalinnan Pamaus 20B

National Donaldistic Magazine. Special English issue of Ankkalinnan Pamaus, Finnish fanzine for donaldists and barksists.

Editor: Timo Ronkainen, Suvilahdenkatu 4 A 3, 00500 Helsinki, [email protected].

Publisher: Ankistit ry. (Finnish Donaldistic Association) 2010 http://www.perunamaa.net/ankistitCopyright: Articles © writers. All the Disney pictures and material are ©

the Walt Disney Company, unless otherwise noted. They are provided for pur-poses of study and reference and falls into category of fair use. Disney copyright is acknowledged and respected. National Donaldistic Magazine is fanzine in-tended for mature readers and is unconnected with the Walt Disney Company. ISSN 1456-8853

Second printing released through Issuu.com.

EDITORIALNATIONAL DONALDISTIC MAGAZINE

Readership of Donald Duck comics in Finland is higher than anywhere else in the world. Each week one million people reads Aku Ankka comic book, it is one fifth of whole population. In USA same percentage would mean a readership of 61 million! Figures have been high for decades. Still, the Disney fandom have been quite sporadic and unstructured in here.

Fanzines about comics is not new phenomena, though. In USA Mike Barrier’s Funnyworld started 1968 and Jerry Bails’ Alter Ego 1961. In Europe there have been several comics fanzines in France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, etc starting from late 1960’s. The term ”fanzine”

was coined already in 1940 in science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet.

Studying Disney comics started at the same time as serious study of the history of comics in general, in mid and late 1960’s. Societys and clubs concen-trating on comics were formed at that time all over

the Europe. Finnish Comics society was founded in 1971 and it’s magazine Sarjainfo started 1972.

Some fanzines were more specialized, concentrating solely on EC, superheroes or funny animals. Fanzines for Duck

comics were founded in early and mid 1970’s, like John Nichols’ The Barks Collector (1976) or Gabbards’ The Duckburg Times (1977).

In Europe Danish artist and Barks fan Freddy Milton launched Carl Barks & Co. in 1974, Swedish Donaldist Society started their NAFS(K) in 1976. In Norway, the donaldistic society Gammeldonaldismens Ven-ner (Friends of the Early Donaldism), founded 1968, has published a fanzine, Donaldisten (The Donaldist) since 1973. German donaldist movement have also been very strong. Their society D.O.N.A.L.D. (Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus or the German Organization of Non-commercial Devo-tees of the true Donaldism) have published fanzine Der Donaldist from 1976. New group of Danish donaldists started their DDF(R)appet in 2002.

In Finland there have been no formal donaldism or any kind of organized fandom until Ankkalinnan Pamaus fanzine started in 1998. It is still very loose and thin organization, almost non-existant except for the randomly published fanzine. Anyway, 2008 marked the 10th anniversary of AP-fanzine.

To celebrate the anniversary we created this special English issue. The purpose of the issue is to provide some of the articles we have published in Finnish to wider audience outside Finland, but also to present and introduce the history of Finnish Disney publications and comics plus bring forth some Finnish creators of Disney comics.

Timo Ronkainen 2009.2.2.

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In the 1930s Mickey Mouse became popular in Finland, just as the char-acter did around the world. The Dis-ney films arrived in movie theatersin Finland and the Mickey Mouse cartoon strip appeared first in Aamu-lehti just few months after it pre-miered in the USA. Soon it switched into Helsingin Sanomat and stayed there for several decades.

Suomen Gummiteollisuus Oy (roughly translated as The Finnish Rubber Industry Ltd.), currently known as Nokian Tyres, manufac-

tured rubber figures in three differentseries: animals, dolls and fairytales. The manufacturing began in 1937, and the company made miniature figures of Snow White and the sevenDwarfs while the movie was at the peak of its success in 1939. Besides these the company also made rubber miniatures at least of Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and the Big Bad Wolf.

Unofficial Disney illustrations arerepresented by numerous illustra-tions in adverts and sheet music covers. They can also be found in postcards dating from the Second World War in which Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters mocks the Russians in a big way. The iden-tities for most of the artists are left in the dark.

Artist Martta Wendelin (1893–1986), who is very famous for her Christmas illustrations, is mentioned to have made at least one Mickey postcard.

Timo Ronkainen Translated by Lauri Nurmi

istory of Finnish produced disneya-na, Disney related collectibles and comics is longer than one might expect. Earliest efforts are prob-ably semi-officialin nature or even pirated stuff.

Slightly edited and updated from Ankkalinnan Pamaus #5 (2000)

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SOK, a large chain of co-opera-tive retail stores, printed in its cof-fee packets a series of 12 pictures of Mickey in exotic coffee countries. The poor quality of the illustrations hints that they were probably made by a commercial artist not familiar with the cartoon style. SOK also published a series of collectable pictures with portfolios to advertise margarine.

The Finnish-American photogra-pher Kosti Ruohomaa (1913–1961) worked in the Disney Studios for a few years, starting from 1937. Ruo-homaa, who had studied painting and drawing in a school of art in Boston, became more and more in-terested in photography while work-ing at Disney. Later he broke into fame with his photographs, which where published in such magazines as Life and Time. His career was cut short by paralyzation and he died at the age of 47. The photographer is remembered, especially in the Unit-ed States, as a reformer of pictorial journalism.

Comics scripts and picture books

Disney comics remained popular in Europe even after their circulation figures in the United States began to fall. The Danish publishing house Egmont had acquired publishing rights for Disney comics in Scan-dinavia already in the 1940s. As the U.S. production began to decline, Egmont needed to look elsewhere in able to fill the weekly magazines. Italian Topolino strips were avail-able, but they had to be resized to fit the publications. That might have been one reason why own production was initiated. The Danish publishing house acquired production rights and amassed artists from Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

In Finland the local Disney maga-zine Aku Ankka (Donald Duck), which was launched in 1951, had a substantial readership. In the early 1970s there were 300,000 subscrip-tions in a country with only four mil-lion people. The curious thing about it was that there were no Finnish Disney artists.

There was although one artist in the verge of becoming one in the be-ginning of the 1970s. He was Mauri Kunnas, who broke into publicity

with children’s picture books in the 1980s. In the turn of the 60s and 70s he had drawn cartoons in a music magazine found by his colleague student.

”After I took my A levels I needed to find something to do, and that cartoon was that something. It was around this time that I began to no-tice how the quality of the Donald Duck magazine had worsened, so for the fun of it I tried if I could draw better than those Duck artists”.

And so Kunnas practised the Dis-ney style to the smallest detail; he studied the background, trees and other detail with precision. Origi-nally Kunnas had planned to study law, but his sister, who was studying music in the Sibelius Academy, en-couraged him to continue drawing. Kunnas followed his sister’s advice and was admitted to Ateneum (Finn-ish Academy of Fine Arts) at his sec-ond try.

”And there Markku Kivekäs (edi-tor-in-chief of the Finnish Donald Duck) gave a lecture about Don-ald Duck and there he told us that Carl Barks was ’that one good Duck artist’. I recall Kivekäs saying that Donald Duck is drawn also in Den-mark, so why couldn’t there be a Duck artist also from Finland.”

Nokia’s Snow White and seven dwarfs, made of rubber.

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okian kumiteollisuus

SOK published series of collectable pictures with their coffee boxes during 1930’s. Here Mickey is in Abessinia (Ethiopia), so the soldier in this picture is Italian fascist!

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”That is where I got the idea. I drew a three-page story, coloured it in and took it to the editorial officeof the Donald Duck magazine. The staff was very enthusiastic about it, although when I now think about it it was very badly drawn.”

The story was sent to the editorial office in Denmark, and they repliedthat I should begin with writing manuscripts.

”I set to work and wrote scripts and drew trial stories, but it never developed further with the office inDenmark. They bought two manu-scripts of which one is drawn.”

Kunnas drew and carefully final-ised one more story and sent it all the way to the Disney headquarters in California.

”They sent me back a most encour-aging letter and they told the Dan-

ish to get in contact with me. Well, I hadn’t mentioned anything of my correspondence with the Danish to them. The office in Denmark nevercontacted me, so that was the end of my Disney career. (Interview made in 1983).

So Kunnas never became a Dis-ney artist, although he officially isthe first Finnish to write a script to aDisney comic. The strip, ”A Space-man on Stilts” was drawn by Vicar and was published in 10 countries in 1973.

In 1982 an entirely Finnish-made Disney book was made, but it wasn’t a comic. The picture book Aku kor-vatunturilla (roughly translated as ”Donald Duck meets Santa Claus”) was written by Ritva Toivola, who has translated several Disney books into Finnish. It was illustrated by Masa Pulkkinen, who had done several children’s books before. Pulkkinen copied ducks from Carl Barks’ stories to the illustrations,

and the looks and gestures are eas-ily recognisable to be taken from the duck master’s work. The book was released as part of the ”Children’s Own Book Club” and as usual no names of authors were mentioned. Masa Pulkkinen illustrated another two Disney picture books. Bambi goes hiding came out in 1986, writ-ten by Toivola, and Lil’ Donald, written by Pirjo Helasti, in 1988.

SOK made also chocolate wrappers to collect. Mickey appears in characteris-tically very Finnish situations, in these examples white water rafting and cow milking.

Postcard made in WWII period, pro-bably early 1940’s. Dwarf is wearing Finnish soldier’s uniform. Text contains anti-Russian propaganda. Handwritten text says: Merry Christmas, aunt Alma.

Aku Korvatunturilla children’s picture book by Pirjo Helasti and Masa Pulk-kinen.

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Bears and ducks

In the same year Tarmo Koivisto, a Finnish cartoonist, drew a dou-ble page picture for Donald Duck, called ”Traffic Corner”. Its was donefor children’s traffic education andthe text was written by Esko Rii-helä, who is famous for his trafficprogrammes for the radio. Koivisto made the picture in his own lively style that would also suit the duck stories.

In 1985 Sanomaprint (presently known as Sanoma Magazines, the publisher of Donald Duck) asked Harri ”Wallu” Vaalio and two oth-er Finnish cartoonists* to make five-page Winnie the Pooh comics.

”As far as I know people in Sa-noma were not satisfied with the ma-terial they received from Denmark. They wanted to produce comics also here in Finland. And so I drew a story and it was sent, along with the stories from the two other drawers, to the United States”, recalls Wallu.

His story was approved, although he had to redraw it. This first storywas then published in the Finnish Nalle Puh (Winnie the Pooh) maga-zine in 1986. It was followed by ten more stories by Vaalio which were published in Finland only. Besides the stories, Wallu also drew illustra-tions for Winnie the Pooh magazine and Winnie the Pooh activity maga-zine.

The Danish Egmont didn’t approve that Vaalio drew solely for the Finn-ish Winnie the Pooh. They threat-ened to stop providing material for

the Finnish Donald Duck unless this business came to an end.

”In the end Sanomaprint didn’t sack me; instead they directed me to Egmont. I wrote one story for them and was permitted to draw it. I finished the story (Winnie the Poohgoes Woozlehunting) and sent it to Denmark. I had to wait a long time until they sent me a reply. They said that I didn’t draw as Disney comics

were supposed to be drawn. They also mentioned that I drew in an old American style, and that nowadays they had a new style. They never even paid me a thing, and I was feel-ing too indignant to even ask.”

Duck “defector” at Disney

Jukka Murtosaari (b. 1963), who had drawn book illustra-tions and comics for newspapers, moved to the United States in the 1990s to work on a Finnish-produced animation called Sinbad. It collapsed on its own grandios-ity, but while in the States Murtosaari used his opportunity

Harri Vaalio’s Winnie the Pooh, 1986.

Duck artist Vicar met Mauri Kunnas during his visit in Finland 2004. Here they examine their mutual collaboration made in 1973.

©Ve

sa K

atai

sto

The other was Rauli Nordberg, creator of the ”Punaniska” comic, the other’s name Vaalio can’t remember.

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to offer his work to American comic publishing houses. He then ended up doing a whole lot of covers for Dis-ney.

”In 1989, as I was offered an op-portunity to go to work on the Franck Films animation Sinbad in Califor-nia, USA, I decided to look around for some work on comics to gain experi-ence. The yearly San Diego Comic-Con was the best and nearest place to find work contacts. In 1989 I wasn’tlucky and anyway I spent my time to get the big picture of the event.

”In 1990 I was familiar with the practices of the convention, and it was easier to find work while I couldconcentrate fully on it. I sought for a cover illustrator’s post, because I wouldn’t have had time to make sto-ries while working also at the anima-tion studios.

”I was in contact with agents from several publishing houses, but they were all looking for either super hero drawers or makers of postmodern painted art comics. I didn’t have sam-ples of either of these and my work was considered so old-fashioned that they advised me to try also Disney. The company had started to produce its own magazines just a couple of

months earlier.”At Disney they liked the diversity

of my works, although I didn’t have a Disney sample within. They sim-ply asked me if I could draw Disney characters. I said that I could and so we arranged to meet right next week to negotiate things further. I was hap-py to notice that the editorial office of

the Disney magazines was just a fiveminutes’ walk from my workplace at Franck Films.

”I bought right away some new Disney magazines (by the way they weren’t easy to find!) and drew, un-asked, a new version of a cover of a Roger Rabbit magazine which I thought was badly done.

Cover sketch idea by Bob Foster and Jukka’s finished artwork.

Jukka Murtosaari’s work from Dutch Donald Duck 17/2008.

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”The whole gang was there: The editor-in-chief Len Wein (famous for his stories written for super hero pub-lishers, e.g. Swamp Thing, made for DC with Berni Wrightson) and three editors subordinate to him. These three actually put the magazine to-gether after which the editor-in-chief had to approve it. By then Disney had eight magazines in production, later the number increased to twelve.

Bob Foster, the editor of Disney’s ”duck” magazines, was the only one who liked my 50’s and poster style cover sketch. The others said that this is the 90’s; there has to be much more detail and action. All the same they asked me to do a finished, print-ready work sample for the meeting next week.

”The comment got me fuming and so I drew three cover samples: one with Donald Duck, one with Mickey and Goofy and one with Roger Rab-bit. In the next meeting the editors were all smiles, the company bought all my samples and offered a contract for follow-up work to be signed.

”As for me, working for Disney was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had! Contacts with the Disney of-fice on work commissioning workedsmoothly, and because I was foreign I was treated with American hospi-tality by the editors. As I came from Finland I was also generally treated with curiosity and respect, like an al-ien. I soon found out the reason for it: the people knew only a random fact about Finland apart from its name and assumed that I had defected from some communist state! The Ameri-cans’ picture of Finland was as red as it was in the maps and books I saw where Finland was part of the Soviet Union!!

”It was funny when, as soon as I had signed the contract, Bob Foster began to talk about awesome picture books done by a Finnish artist that were in the building’s Disney library (At Disney’s there was a large room full of all kinds of foreign pictorial works, all in good order - one has to gather the ideas from somewhere!).

”Bob Foster tried desperately many times to pronounce the name of the artist, but I hadn’t the faintest clue who this artist with a Chinese-sounding name would be. I asked him to show me the works and Bob said it was a good idea; he’d also show me the library around. I couldn’t help burst out laughing as the artist was finally revealed to be Mauri Kun-nas, of whom half a dozen children’s picture books were there, including Santa Claus!”

From the work Jukka has done in Finland it has to be mentioned the fine cover for the ”Silly Symphonies”-book.

Jukka, who has done a lot of illus-tration work, from book covers to

Moomin cartoons, has again since the end of 2006 started to make Disney comics for a Dutch Disney publisher that is owned by Sanoma Magazines. Jukka lives in warm Portugal nowa-days.

Ducks full time

Thus Kari Korhonen (b. 1973) came to be the first Finnish artist towrite and draw especially Donald Duck stories.

Kari ended up to Egmont Comic Creation towards the end of 1992, after he met Bob Foster, the AD of Egmont at that time, and Byron Erickson, the present comics editor-in chief, in the offices of the FinnishDonald Duck.

”I had known Markku Kivekäs and other people from the office backthen for years already and had also worked for the company, so I had the courage to ask if I could show the gentlemen from Egmont some pictures. By time it developed into

Illustration from Jukka’s try-out portfolio.

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a freelance relationship and later on practically into a full-time work. Dreams fulfilled? A damn enjoyablejob!”

The making of a comic is a lengthy process: It can take months until a script is in the form of a printed sto-ry. First a 1-2 page synopsis is done which outlines the story.

”On basis of the synopsis the story is either approved or refused - every script writer works with his own editor and the stories are finally ap-proved by the editor, who is responsi-ble for the scripts. After the approval the story gets its own D-code that sticks with it to the end. After these phases the script drafts and the actu-al script are written. After the script is approved it is taken to the artist who draws a sketch with pencil. Af-ter they’ve been eyed by the AD the story finally gets inked.

”After the story is finished it endsup to a department where the stories are picked for the weekly compila-tion which is sent to the publishers. Years may have passed from the ap-proval of the synopsis until the story is printed in the paper. Even the compilation alone has to be at the publisher three months before the

release date. The first numbers ofthe D-code indicate when the story is made. The code can be found from the bottom left corner of the firstpanel.

”About 95% of my story ideas are approved; even I think that the rest 5% are not good. The stories are completely my own making, al-though sometimes I have to take into account that the story is published in Finland as well as in China, e.g. the

editor might have to change some expressions which a translator who is not so skillful in English might not know.

”When you add to the above-men-tioned a reasonable salary, and for every story a guaranteed million people audience, you could say that a comic artist could have it much worse...”

Besides his work for Egmont, Kari also draws Disney-related covers, ad

Kari Korhonen’s selfportrait.

Kari Korhonen’s story Can I Bring You Anything? (D 2000-007). Dummy sheet copy includes speech balloon marker tags.

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graphic etc. for Sanoma Magazines. These are produced with a special license from Disney covering spe-cial covers, posters and ad material. Every drawing is approved individu-ally either in Disney’s Denmark of-fice or in Creative Center in Paris, and the supervision is stricter than at Egmont. Most of these works have mainly been published only in Fin-land.

The most recent add to the Finns working for Disney is a young script writer Kai Vainiomäki (b. 1979). He offered a story he’d drawn for a Dan-ish Disney comic producer in March 2003. The editor Byron Erickson didn’t think much of the drawings, but liked the story so much that he

bought it and asked for more. The first to be published was a ten-page story, ”Telly Trouble”, drawn by Danish Arild Mithun.

”First I was employed as a sort of a trainee, working for them from time to time. The stories I made then will be published in the Finnish Donald Duck with a D/D code. After four stories I was ”promoted” to an official script writer (one D) and was permitted to produce as many stories as I liked as long as the quality stays the same”.

By now Vainiomäki has already had twenty or so scripts approved, although as writing this only three of them have seen the day of light in Scandinavian Duck magazines.

Although there are only a few actu-al Disney artists in Finland, it is easy to notice how the ducks and Disney comics have fitted in the Finnish

Kai Vainiomäki in the middle, his script and final art by Arild Mithun. Story Telly Trouble.

©Tim

o Ronkainen

111111

mental landscape for over 50 years. The Finnish painter Kaj Stenvall could be counted as a ”pseudo” Dis-ney artist. His duck paintings have gained huge popularity and at least in some older ones there are some figures straight from Barks. Mostly his art is toying as much with the conventions of the history of paint-ing as well as with comics. Other Finns have used ducks as well, e.g. Olli Lyytikäinen in his watercolour paintings. And you can add to these two the whole lot of comic artists who have in some point of their ca-reer parodied the Disney ducks in one way or another. But that’s an-other story.

On the right: Olli Lyytikäinen’s ”Donald Duck by a Shrink” (1974) part of the series ”Ankkalinnan museon kokoelmat (The Collection of Duckburg Museum of Art), and below Kaj Stenvall’s classical-ly executed painting ”Hilton” that has silent urban solitude mood of Edward Hopper’s famous ”Night Hawks”.

©Es

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Mickey Mouse from the ”Darkest Africa”

Mickey Mouse comic strip ar-rived in Finland just few months af-ter it’s launch in the States. Mickey appeared in newspaper Aamulehti March 12th 1930. Short introduc-tion on the paper presented Mickey as being from ”the darkest Africa”. This strange characterization might be explained by the fact that paper picked up the strip in middle of it’s run, when Mickey was in tropical cannibal island amongst black na-tives. Mickey wasn’t great success yet in this paper, Aamulehti can-celled the strip in August same year.

Finland’s main paper Helsingin Sanomat picked it up soon though, and after that it proved to be huge hit – thanks to Mickey’s short ani-mations viewed in many theaters by now. Donald Duck’s own strip

appeared in Helsingin Sanomat as early as 1938.

Many illustrated Disney books were published during the 1930’s. First comics -only book was Kol-men pienen porsaan uudet seikkai-lut (New Adventures of Three Lit-tle Pigs). Snow White premiered in Finland November 16th 1938 in midnight and it created a flood ofmerchandise and by-products, col-lectable pictures in margarine pack-ets and so on. Illustrated book of Snow White was published also.

Three Names of Donald Duck

Donald Duck was published in Seu-ra -magazine starting 1937 translated as Ankka Lampinen. (Seura had Silly Symphonies Sunday episodes featur-ing Donald). Seura published also

Finnish Big Little Book, WSOY 1935. Mickey Mouse Sails for

Treasure Island.

This is the way Aamulehti introduced Mickey to it’s readers March 12th 1930.

Timo Ronkainen

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one collection of their Ankka Lamp-inen Sunday comics in 1938. Seura discontinued their Donald version as those Silly Symphonis episodes ran out. They did go on with other Silly Symphonies. Donald appeared with different name on picture book ”Mikin pienet serkut” (Mickey’s lit-tle cousins) published by Kuvataide in 1937. In this translation he was called setä-Aaron (Uncle Aaron). Helsingin Sanomat -newspaper (pub-lished by Helsingin Sanomat, called nowadays Sanoma Magazines - part of huge SanomaWSOY corporation)

published at the same time Mickey Mouse strips and they had translated Donald as Aku Ankka. Translator was Sirkka Ruotsalainen. Aku An-kka as Donald’s Finnish name stayed when Sanoma aquired the rights to print Aku Ankka -comic book in De-cember 1951. Sirkka Ruotsalainen was appointed as Aku Ankka’s firsteditor-in-chief. Originally Aku An-kka was planned to launch as early as 1949, but it was delayed because of lack of decent printing facilities and paper shortage after the war.

Duck Comic Book Becomes Hit

Finnish Donald Duck comic book started December 5th – on the 50th birthday of Walt Disney, by accident perhaps. It soon gained popular-ity and eventually came the most popular magazine in Finland – of any magazines, not just comics. It has now about one million readers weekly, it sells around 320 514 cop-ies each week. For example Finnish edition of Reader’s Digests ”Valitut Palat” gets circulation of 224 654.

Most of Aku Ankka’s circulation is

subscription based, very few single copies are sold in newsstands and other places like that. Aku Ankka was published first in monthly ba-sis, it became bi-weekly in 1956 and finally weekly in 1961. Circulationgrew fast: 1952 it sold 45 000 cop-ies, 1960 it was already 145 000.

Aku Ankka was inline with other Nordic Disney comic books, Danish Anders And, Swedish Kalle Anka and so on. Exactly the same material appeared in all of them. Only excep-tion being that comics stories in Aku Ankka had been published in it’s Nordic counterparts a year earlier.

The reason why Finnish people are so avid readers of Aku Ankka have been studied many times, but most-ly in vein. It have been speculated that the character of Donald – sore looser, but stubborn and persistent - somehow resonate in Finnish mind, because Finns tend to see themselves as headstrong as Donald. Neverthe-less Donald is much much more popular in Finland than Mickey.

Finnish edition of Snow White picture book. Fourth printing 1947, Kuvataide.

The first issue of Aku Ankka, Decem-ber 1951.

Mikin pienet serkut (Mickey’s Little Cousins), published by Kuvataide 1937.

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Pantless Banned Duck

False news traveled around the world in 1977, when youth council of Helsinki city decided discontinue subscription of Aku Ankka they had for youth centers. An urban legend which grew bigger the further the ”news” wandered: Donald Duck banned in a next-to-Soviet-Russia country because Donald didn’t wear any pants and cavorted with an un-married female duck! What a scoop!

All begun in late 1977, when the city of Helsinki found itself in a bit of a financial crunch. With monetaryresources limited, Mr. Markku Hol-opainen, a local Liberal Party repre-sentative, proposed at a meeting of the board of youth affairs that the city could save money by discon-tinuing it’s purchase of Donald Duck comics for youth centers in favor of hobby and sport publications. His suggestion was approved. One argu-ment for discontinue subscrition was that Donald Duck is too childish for youngsters. Nevertheless Nakke Na-kuttaja (Woody Woodpecker) comic book stayed subscribed.

A year later, while Holopainen was in the midst of an election cam-paign for a seat in the Finnish parlia-ment, word was leaked to the press

that he was ”the man who banned Donald Duck from Helsinki”. The chairman of the board of youth af-fairs failed to come to Holopainen’s defense — not surprisingly, since he himself was a candidate as well. Holopainen explained in vain that the decision to discontinue the pur-chase of Donald Duck comics with city funds had passed unanimously and was made solely for economic reasons. Holopainen lost his bat-tle with the press — and he lost the election to the now-silent board chairman. When a similar incident had taken place in the Finnish town

of Kemi a few years earlier, the in-ternational press had gleefully ex-aggerated the story with headlines such as ”Finland Bans Donald” and ”Donald Vanishes from Libraries,” reporting that Donald’s banishment was due to concerns over his lack of pants and questions about his marital status. As the foreign news reports about the alleged banning of Don-ald Duck filtered back to Finland(and neighboring Sweden), the lo-cal tabloids didn’t attempt to verify the story — they merely ran articles about the reaction it was receiving abroad. News agency AFP spread the ”news” around the world. Headlines in Thailand papers shouted: ”Donald Duck Expelled from Finland!”, The Times: ”Donald in disfavor”. News-papers even in Kenia picked it up on their pages. News about presidential elections in Finland were shadowed by Aku Ankka.

More and More Books

Aku Ankka was up to early 1960’s the only Disney comics publication in Finland. It was only matter of time when spinoff by-product type publi-cations would be added. Aku Ankan Aarreaitta published in 1960 was first of 100-page annual publications.Comics contents was very similar to usual Aku Ankka, American com-ics mainly made by artists like Tony Strobl, Paul Murry and al Hubbard. In addition to comics this soft cover Aku Ankka -sized book featured also puzzles and short stories.

It took another ten years until new addition to the Disney comics pub-lications was made. In 1970 firstissue of Aku Ankan Taskukirja hit

Finnish version of Topolino d’Oro series was cut short, only four books were published.

Advertisement for huge Carl Barks collection (1974). ”Outstanding books for gifts”, it announces.

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the newsstands. It presented Ital-ian material collected mainly from Topolino comic book. Great stories made by Romano Scarpa, Giorgio Cavazzano, Giovan Battista Carpi among others were featured in this digest sized 256-page book. At firstit was published quarterly, but soon it became bimonthly and today 12 new books is published annually. Few of them each year have 512 pages. Taskukirja has equivalents in other countries, e.g. Swedish Kalle Ankas Pocket or German Lustiche Taschenbuchen.

One of the most notable publica-tions in Finland is Mikki Hiiren kulta-aika, published 1971—72, which was Finnish edition of Italian Topolino d’Oro, collection of early Mickey Mouse comics done mainly by Floyd Gottfredson. It was sadly cut short, only five of them was pub-lished when the original publication had 44 albums. It was especially im-portant because it was first Disneycomics publication in Finland that introduced it’s real authors. Unfor-

tunately it’s material was badly al-tered and from poorly printed Italian newspapers and early Topolinos.

Another notable Italian origin publications were huge hard cover books. Minä Aku Ankka (1972), Minä Roope-setä (1973) and Minä

Mikki Hiiri (1974) were known in Italy as so called Io-books

(Io Topolino = I, Mickey Mouse). They introduced

best stories of Carl Barks, but unfortunately in heavily altered form.

Nevertheless forewords for these books made Barks and few other Disney-artists familiar to Finnish readers, ”the good art-ist” had now a name and face. Big books featuring Mickey Mouse (Io, Topolino) were better since their ma-terial didn’t need to be cut into it’s rigid giant format.

Assorted and Finally Complete Barks

In 1974 new series of albums was introduced, Aku Ankan Parhaat con-

tained Barks’ best ten-pagers. Similar publication was launched simultane-ously in all Nordic countries, Ger-many and in Holland. Finnish and the Dutch one were only versions that gave credit to Carl Barks. Series ended in 1994 after 48 albums.

Starting from early 1990’s Carl Barks’ stories were now collected into hard cover books. Aku Ankan Juhlasarjat were published between 1991—2000 and it introduced in it’s ten volumes previously either incompletely published stories or never before translated works of Barks. Books also had expert prefac-es about Barks. In a way series were continued under different title ”An-kalliskirjasto” (Duck Library), now Barks’ stories were collected under some specific theme.

Series of Don Rosa’s Duck comics were also published in hard covers starting 1995. Very special books are also hardback facsimile reprints of Aku Ankka’s volumes starting from

Finnish edition of Carl Barks’ Collected Works.

Chronological Taliaferro.

Facsimilé of Aku Ankka 1962. Highly popular books consists by now (2008) years 1951—1966.

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the very first year 1951-52 (1994) and the series of book have reached now the late 1960’s. Each double volume have over 1600 pages. On the top is of course the most ambi-tious complete comics collection ever published in Finland, The Col-lected works of Carl Barks. In a way it’s the new edition of Carl Barks Library. Ten slipcased boxes have 30 books in all - colored, annotated, complete and unabridged. The whole collection is already published in other Nordic countries and in Ger-many, Finland started about year late and is few volumes behind at the moment. It was fortunate enough, as Barks fans were not pleased for the coloring of the comics when the first box came out. It was considered to be too loud and flashy. Publisher Eg-mont adjusted coloring for the later boxes and Finns got the first box also with the new corrected colors.

Many other publications and books have been published over the years, too numerous to handle in this con-

text. However one should mention the conventional publications that appear regularly besides weekly Aku Ankka. Roope-setä is monthly digest sized 100-page book which contains selected material from Ital-ian Topolino. Also monthly is Aku Ankka Extra which is available only to subscribers of Aku Ankka. It fea-

tures Donald Duck -material from Holland. Dutch Disney publisher is part of SanomaWSOY corporation. Iines (Daisy) is one of the newest ad-ditions and targeted for young female audience. Then there is also highly popular W.I.T.C.H, Italian origin comic book and even for younger girls there is Keijut -magazine (Fair-ies). Never have Disney comics been more popular in Finland than today.

Heiskanen, Jukka: Elämä ennen Aku Ankkaa(Life Before DD)Sarjainfo #84, 1994 (pp.14—15)

Rislakki, Jukka: Suuri Aku Ankka -hölmöily (The Great Donald Duck Hoax).Sarjainfo. #18, 1978 (pp. 8—9)

Hänninen, Ville: Housut pois! Eli kuinka Aku Ankkaa luettiin 1970-luvun Suomessa.Maailman hauskin kuvasarjalehti. Sanoma 2001 (pp. 81—83)

Hardcover book series ”Ankalliskirjas-to” collects Barks stories under themes. This book #4 has Barks’ animal stories.

Disney, Aku ja minä (Dis-ney, Donald and I), memoirs of long time editor in chief of Aku Ankka, Markku Kivekäs (1947—2008) was published 2007. Lifelong Disney fan and collector became celebrity by winning popular TV quiz show two times on the subject of Dis-ney. First in 1962 on Aku Ank-ka comic book and in 1965 on Disney animation. 18-year old Kivekäs met Disney in early 1966. 1970 he became editor

of Aku Ankka, and he took a position of Editor-in-Chief in 1988. Kivekäs compiled highly detailed Barks index in early 1970’s which was published in Sarjainfo magazine, and he was in key position to make Barks known to all public in Finland. During his leadership Aku Ank-ka reached record high circula-tion of 320 514. It is the biggest selling magazine of all maga-zines in Finland with nearly one million readers weekly.

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Topolino went on brief cessation during the WW2 because of Musso-lini’s strict appeal for cultural autono-my. All comics should be solely Ital-ian. Topolino had proper comeback when it was changed into digest-sized comic book in 1949. By early 1950’s it had published all the Gottfredson material available. More was needed badly and one of the artists to create domestic Disney comics was none other than Romano Scarpa. And he handled the job better than good.

Romano Scarpa was born in Ven-ice on 27th September 1927. Raised by the comics he was interested in drawing and art from the early days of his childhood. He attended to the art school and graduated from Art Academy of Venice. He had learned fine arts and architecture but as beingastounded by Disney’s Snow White

talian Topolino, tabloid sized Disney comics magazine started as early as 1932. It published lots of Mickey Mouse newspaper strips drawn by great Floyd Gottfredson. One certain youngster called Romano was avid reader of Topolino Giornalino (as it was called). Romano Scarpa was huge fan of Mickey Mouse strips and he even sent his drawings to the reader’s mail column early 1940’s. He already toyed the idea of drawing his own Mickey Mouse comics; one of the drawings he sent to the paper portrayed Mickey.

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he was more interested in animation and comics.

So Scarpa learned the trade of ani-mation and comics by himself. Be-tween 1945-53 Scarpa had his own animation studio in Venice in which he produced his first professionalworks: some commercials, and few short films like one titled La piccola fiammiferaia (1953, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl), which was distributed in Italy together with Robert Aldrich’s Attack (1956). Scarpa even built his own multiplane camera in 1945; firstone of it’s kind in Italy. Still, ani-mation at those circumstances after the war couldn’t guarantee him the economical steadiness needed. So he was glad to find an opportunityto work for Mondadori Publishing house that had the licence to produce Disney comics in Italy. Scarpa start-ed in 1953 with Snow White story written by Guido Martina.

It was Martina who wrote Scar-pa’s first Mickey Mouse story 1954called Topolino e le delizie natali-zie (Not published in English yet). Soon Scarpa got very Gottfredson –like scripts, like Topolino e il dop-pio segreto di Macchia Nera (The

Blot’s Double Mystery - Mickey and Donald #4 - 6) that had many charac-ters picked from old Mickey Mouse newspaper adventures. Martina’s script was about the return of the vil-lain Phantom Blot and it had many references to the Blot’s first (and only) appear-ance in Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip. Story has many “gottfred-sonian” elements: dan-

ger, mystery and suspense. Moody, dark atmosphere with humorous relief is typical of golden period of Gottfredson’s Mickey strip.

It didn’t take long to make Topolino’s editor Mario Gentilini convinced Scarpa’s ability to make his own scripts. The very first onefrom 1956 Paperino e i gamberi in salmì (not published in English yet) was already full-fledged mas-terpiece, humorous Cold-War era thriller with twist. Well-written and balanced script introduced new character, Uncle Scrooge’s brother Gedeone, Duckburgian newspaper editor, who was modelled after Gen-tilini. Gedeone is minor character in Duckburg universe, but interesting as Scarpa’s first addition to the cast.

Later he

Dark and moody suspense in Topoline e l’unghia di Kali (1958). English version of Kali’s Nail is published in Mickey Mouse #254-255 (1989).

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created many more important char-acters. Most significant of them isprobably Scrooge’s lady admirer Brigitta who often was even his ri-

val in business. Atome Bleep-Bleep, strange

creature ap-peared 1959

in Mickey story Dimen-sione Delta (Mickey Mouse in the Delta Di-mension, MM Adventures 11-2006), and is clearly inspired by Gottfredson’s character Eega Beeva.

Atome Bleep-Bleep is super sized atom from fourth dimension created by professor Einmug, Gottfredson character from 1936 story Island in the Sky.

Even though Mickey is Scarpa’s favourite character, he made many nice stories especially about Uncle Scrooge. Whence other writers, especially Guido Mar-

tina, kept old skin-flint’s per-

sonality grumpy and vicious, Scarpa made him softer just like Carl Barks did at the very same time in USA. In stories like Paperino e la leg-genda della Scozzese volante from 1957 (The Flying Scotch - US #315 – 316) and Fondazione De’Paperoni from 1958 (The McDuck Founda-tion - US #241) Scarpa portrayed Scrooge who had a soft spot hidden somewhere deep inside. Stories, al-though farcical and humorous, had a melancholy and wistful side.

Scarpa was at his best during this period in late 1950’s, early 1960’s.

Runaway ducklings in Pa-perino e la scuola dei guai, cinematic camera angles and dark mood. ”Goodbye, Duckburg!”, ”Goodbye, uncles!”, ”Goodbye, stupid school!”

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He used bold, cinematic camera-an-gles and lightning. Mickey Mouse adventures were filled with film-noirinfluences and Donald Duck comicsgot ideas from many American mov-ie-comedies. In story called Topolino e la collana Chirikawa (1960, not in English yet), the quality of the art-work and the use of visual narra-tive language is really inspired and highly skilful. Mickey is stricken by recurrent feelings of dizzyness and being drowned. Spells are triggered by standing close to wet cement and on unstable surface. The real cause fore these episodes are reveald when Atome Bleep-Bleep is getting Mick-ey on regressive hypnosis. Reason is reveald to be suppressed memories from childhood, being hidden in Mickey’s subconsciousness for dec-ades. To depict repressed memories brought back in hypnosis, Scarpa employs inventive camera angle commonly called a subjective shot. To intensify the scene further he also uses slightly altered naivistic drawing style appropriate for small child’s cognition.

Workload for doing both story and illustration with inks was getting big and demand for new comics growing

all the time. Scarpa gradually relied inking to others; first inker was hisgood friend and known Disney art-ist Luciano Gatto. Rodolfo Cimino inked his drawings during early 1960’s and young Giorgio Cavaz-zano started 1962. Scarpa also start-ed to use more scripts from other writers. Mostly he did little more than sketching the pencils. It made huge impact on his page rate. In late 1960’s he produced over five timesmore pages than ten years before.

Scarpa’s drawing style also changed rapidly in early 1960’s; characters became slimmer, drawn with dy-namic, elegant stroke. Some routine was clearly visible too, but it’s quite expected when you have to create hundreds of pages in a year. Scarpa was still capable to turn out enter-taining great comics; he created lots of classic episodes constantly. There is no point to list them all here. Best of them were almost always Scarpa’s own scripts. Guido Martina contin-ued writing verey good stories too. Martina was ex- high school teacher who had two university degrees, one in Philosophy and other in Literature. His stories were filled with referenc-es to classical literature, but also to some more popular ones too. Mys-tery story Il doppio mistero di Slim Magretto e la casa degli svedesi (not yet published in English) refers at least to Georges Simenon’s Maigret books. There were also huge batch of adaptations of literature classics in comic strip form. Some of them

Mickey’s recollections in regressive hypnosis are presented with subjective camera shot. Topolino e la collana Chirikawa.

Famous French inspector with his pipe, baguette and double beers. Jukebox shouts French chansons. Il doppio mistero di Slim Magretto... (1967, not in English).

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were most certainly unknown to the young kids reading Topolino. Older and mature readers found these pa-rodic and hilarious versions of Hom-er’s Odysseus or Goethe’s and Italo Calvino’s novels. Scarpa illustrated for example Martina’s parody of Te-ophile Gautier’s book Capitan Fra-cassa, classic French novel of 1863 (Paperin Fracassa, published not yet in English). Martina produced amazing amount of scripts from late 1940’s to early 1990’s.

From the mid sixties always in-dustrious Scarpa started to work for Disney Studio on Burbank USA. Studio had started project that pro-duced comics to fill demand for newcomics in European Disney comic books. These stories by American scriptwriters were seldom published in the USA. Cross-Atlantic joint work was bilateral in nature; Ameri-can scriptwriter and Superman’s other creator Jerry Siegel worked for Italian Topolino publisher Mon-dadori. Siegel wrote many stories for Scarpa during the seventies.

Growing co-operation with Dis-ney Studio lead into Scarpa’s visit in

USA in 1975. There he met Carl Barks who liked

Scarpa’s work, espe-cially Brigitta im-

pressed Scrooge’s creator so much that he came up an idea for a story using this character. Barks drew quick sketch where Brigitta tries to lure Scrooge with money-aromatised perfume. From this sketch Scarpa built a story Zio Paperone e il casco d’oro (published not yet in English). In the Disney Studios Scarpa met also Mickey Mouse Sunday-page illustrator Manuel Gonzales. For a long time fan of Disney comics this was of course fascinating.

In the seventies Scarpa amazingly managed to find time for animationtoo. In 1972 he made a film calledAihnoo degli Icebergs, it was about an Eskimo boy. An American-Ital-ian co-production Il Quarto rex (The Fourth King) was

finished in 1977. It is short musi-cal fantasy with Christmas theme. Both were made for television. He was also involved with actual Dis-ney animation while he designed an animated theme for a television programme on Disney cartoons like Italian Topolino-show or DuckTales in 1986.

In 1980’s Scarpa returned heavily as writer making Mickey stories in classical vein. They were the same kind of stories that he loved in the comics and the movies when he was a child. Story called Topolino e l’enigma di Brigaboom (1989) was partially

Scrooge fears for recession, depression and impoverishment. Paperino e l’euforgasaur (1966, not in English).

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based on Vincente Minnelli’s movie classic Brigadoon (1954). He also wrote one of the longest Disney comic stories ever; Paperolimpiadi in 1988 running 249 pages long. This special story is about Seoul Olympic games with Duckburgian view.

Scarpa lived is his later years in Spain where he moved in late 1990’s because of health reasons. Venice’s moist climate didn’t do well for ag-ing artist. In Spain he continued pro-ducing wonderful stories now for the Danish producer of Disney comics, Egmont. First one of these was made in 1998, as John Lustig wrote a sto-ry called Remotely Impossible (Not yet published in English). Scarpa’s capability to tell stories perfectly hasn’t abated; experimental story almost completely without dialog A Quiet Day At The Beach published in WDC 691, is good example of it. Scarpa even created characters for new TV series, The Adventures of Marco and Gina, about two lit-tle birds (Sopra i tetti di Venezia) in 2001.

Scarpa’s significance for Italian Disney comics and in comics in

general, is huge. He has influenced at least two generations of Topolino artists through the years. His style virtually became the house-style of Mondadori Disney comic books during 1950’s, and new artists in the 1960’s modelled their characters af-ter Scarpa. Highly esteemed Giorgio Cavazzano is one of them. He had his apprenticeship under Scarpa in early 1960’s when he was very young; only 16. Now he has developed his own style and have own disciples, but Scarpa’s tradition is still visible throughout the works of new gen-eration. One might mention Andrea “Casty” Castellan, who have cre-ated heavily Scarpa influenced long Mickey Mouse stories from 2003.

Italian comics fans are rightfully proud of their Venetian master and many stylish books have been dedi-cated to Scarpa’s work and life. His comics have been published in numerous prestige-format collec-tions and he is receiver of numerous awards, most notably The Yellow Kid award which he got in 1990 Lucca International Comics Con-vention for his entire career. Scarpa died in Málaga at age of 77 in 2005.

Edited and updated version of the article originally written for Hall of Fame book 2004 (Qno/HOF 2A), contains also fractions from article Romano Scarpa written for Ankka-linnan Pamaus #0 published 1998.

Italian book dedicated solely on Scarpa, his life and art.

Cover for American reprint of McDuck Foundation.

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Barks praised Turner’s writing skills, not in vain, Turner got more kick into his Li’l Bad Wolf stories than usual. Futhermore his drawings were beautiful, foliage of trees he drew with brush and they resemble those painted backgrounds of ani-

mated cartoons, also characters have the liveliness of animation. Turner was qualified animator who didn’tdo his main work at Disney studios, but at Bugs Bunny producer Warner in the change of 1930-40s. Before his animation career he worked as

iceman (still in 1930s most people had an icebox and it needed large block of ice into separate compart-ment) and Disney’s studios on Hy-perion Avenue happened to be in his district. After work he used to drive with his ice truck to show his draw-ings for studio’s animators. Gil said he was hired, so he wouldn’t bother animators every day. Pretty soon he however moved to studios of Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, both Disney’s ex-employees. When Turn-er was arriving to comic business he worked in Warner’s animation stu-dio, which Harman and Ising were founding. Other studios that Turner worked for were MGM, Walter Lan-tz and UPA. 1960s he was directing TV-show called The Alvin Show by Ross Bagdasarian for Format Films production company.

Timo Ronkainen Translated Tomi Kuivamäki

il Turner (1913-1967) did the most and the best Li’l Bad Wolf stories that were published in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories during the 1950s. Turner wrote consider-able part of his wolf stories. He also wrote scripts for few Barks’s Barney Bear comics.

UPA crew, probably in 1956 after Magoo’s Puddle Jumper won Oscar. Gil Turner is circled. UPA won Acade-my Award also in 1950 with Gerald McBoing Boing and 1954 with When Magoo Flew.

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Gil Turner started to do comic work on his free time through ani-mator Jim F. Davis, for Editorial Art Service, owned by Ben Sangor. EAS was in those days typical so called "shop", in other words a comic book studio. EAS has also been known by the name Sangor Shop. Later that company became American Comics Group, medium-sized com-pany which meant that it published hundreds of titles in its best period. Jim Davis (No, not the creator of Garfield.), who worked in anima-tion department of Columbia stu-dios, named Screen Gems, acquired comics from animators who worked in different studios. Animation and comic books lived their financialpeak in the end of 1930s, there was more than enough work.

Many animators from Disney, Warner and Walter Lantz did mostly all kinds of funny animals for San-gor/ACG, that they tried to compete against bigger Western company and its funny animal comics. Western didn’t own production license and publishing rights just for Disney’s, but also for characters of Warner (Bugs Bunny), Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker) and Metro Goldwyn

Mayer (Tom and Jerry).Western couldn’t own the artists.

So these same artists did as Donald Duck as they did Tom & Jerry, or like now forgotten animal characters of Sangor Shop.

Gil Turner drew for Sangor’s ti-tles like Ha-Ha, Coo Coo and Gig-gle. There were all sorts of animals, bears, rabbits, foxes, raccoons, roosters. Many other Disney art-ists moonlighted for Sangor books too, Al Hubbard and Ken Hultgren

among them. Young Frank Frazetta, later famous for his fantasy paint-ings, did his early work there too.

1942 he became full-time comic book artist. Turner did considerable amount of different comics and his Disney comics is only fraction of his whole output.

Turner focused on describing Zeke Wolf’s and his son’s common eve-ryday life. They clearly live some-where in backwoods of America, maybe in Midwest, however in a

Pop’s shameful unemployment gives Li’l Wolf troubles.

Pop’s dishonesty is pretty troublesome too.

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poor agricultural area. Single parent family live in a small modest cabin.

Description of Georgia in Erskine Caldwell’s novel Tobacco Road, isn’t so far away. Roles of parent and child usually turned upside down, as Li’l Bad Wolf has to keep care of the household. Big Bad Wolf was of-ten unmanageable kid and Li’l Bad Wolf’s efforts to keep his father on a narrow path didn’t pay off – Zeke sneaked to Foul Fellows’ Club rather than went out searching for a job. Li’l Bad Wolf usually suffered from his dad’s unemployment and bad manners. Li’l Bad Wolf’s mother, Zeke,s wife, is somewhere and it’s mystery what ever happened to her. Anyhow in one story drawn by Turn-er, Zeke tells his son that he tried to be as father as mother to him. An-other story Zeke would have alibi for committed crime, but no crook with dignity could admit that he’s been attending night school. These kinds of dramatical elements and tensions had dropped off from newer stories done after the 50s. Also in those sto-ries appears Zeke’s well-wishing but strict mother, who often puts his son in order for Li’l Bad Wolf’s enoy-ment. Occasionally stories include Li’l Bad Wolf’s mean duplicate, his cousin Izzy.

Turner managed to get distinctive atmosphere into relationship be-tween Li’l Bad Wolf and his father, in his stories lazy and mean Zeke sometimes glimpses his gentle sides and appears to be more concerned single parent as you might expect.

Stories could have developed natu-rally more psychological deeper tales, but content restrictions that came along with production proc-ess of Disney comics, naturally pre-

vented this opportunity. Alternative was just degeneration into bland ma-chinery like repeating of old themes without original charm.

Turner’s first Disney comic workwas however Mickey Mouse story from 1947. It was a christmas story, which was published in Firestone

This one page comic is clearly to a certain extent autobiographical. Published in Giggle Comics #23, November 1945.

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Giveaway comic book. Otherwise his Disney output is almost entirely Li’l Bad Wolf stories and there were over one hundred of those. Several stories published in 1950s were seen as reprints in Aku Ankka (Donald Duck) during 1970s. End of 1940s he returned to work in animation and

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did his last Disney comics in 1957. His whole output includes also own newspaper strip called “Chico”, which ran just for a year.

According Turner’s son Tom Turn-er, his father’s biggest mistake was to reject work offer from Hannah and Barbera (Flinstones etc.). As an art director of studios he would have gotten in those days a mighty sum of $75,000 a year, but Gil had decided to be loyal to his friends in Format Films and surrended to

be persuaded by sales speeches of Bagdasarian. Stocks of Bagdasarian Film Corporation turned out to be worthless, said Tom Turner to May-erson, editor of animation magazine Apatoons.

Fortunately Gil got work from UPA among Mr. Magoo cartoons and even was with them receiving few Oscars in mid 1950s. Early 1960s animation work thinned out and those were hard to get. Gil worked in early 1960s as a purchasing agent

of camera shop in Arizona. When Gil was let go from that job, he still managed to get work from Hannah & Barbera as storyboard designer. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1967 and died just few months after the surgery at the age of 54.

Sources: Ankkalinnan Pamaus #10 and #19, Apatoons #75 (Tom Turner)

Thanks to Niels Houlberg Hansen

It is quite obvious, that Li’ Wolf’s missing mother is dead. Gil Turner’s story ”Pop’s Mothers’ Day” from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #93, 1948.

Zeke and Li’l Wolf gets evicted. WDC 148, 1953.

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Barks made his first duck paint-ing in 1971 which was requested by duck fan Glenn Bray. Before that he had made few landscapes and exercises with portraitlike pictures. Barks tried with gouache, acryl-ics and watercolors in early 1960’s. He had started experimenting with oils during his retirement in mid 1960’s. Barks did it under guidance of his wife Margaret, better known as Garé (1917—1993). Garé was professional landscape painter, styl-ishly close to so called Hudson River School, American art movement in-

he impression one gets of Barks’ paintings at first glance is that they are slightly saphenous. They are aside from his comics oeuvre and not as important. Closer look reveals that they are surprisingly complex and multifac-eted. The composition conventions of 19th century romanticism and genre painting meets the aestethics of com-ics strips and cartoons. Sometimes they have dose of playful naïvism or even a glimpse of colorful kitsch.

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fluenced by romanticism, depictingsubjects of american wilderness and so on. She was accomplished and trained artist and undoubtedly gave Carl lots of tips and pointers during his first steps on painting. Some ofCarl’s early landscapes resembles Garé’s work quite strongly.

Carl’s painting career could be roughly diveded into four periods – first one includes pre-Disney workcreated between 1960—71.

During 1971—76 he created pic-tures based mainly on his old cov-ers. Original lay outs of covers were used exactly as they were. Seldom Barks added some element or detail to make it look fuller.

Between 1976—81 he had to cre-ate non-Disney work, since Disney company took away the license he had previously been granted. Those paintings were slightly disneyesque, but they were more daring and even racy in their subject matter.

Starting from 1981 Barks made paintings to be published as litho-graphs as he regained the license to paint Disney imagery. These paint-ings depicted Ducks in colorful situ-ations derived from most classical stories Barks made in 1940’s and 1950’s. In 1990’s pictures became more polished, with numerous de-tails and characters, as they were composed to please wider audience than before and carried some impli-cations towards naïve art. Holiday in Duckburg and Mardi Gras Before the Thaw are prime examples of that period.

Even on early stage Barks tried oc-casionally with tertiary colors and classical composition to create new original paintings, instead of using just old covers as models. Great ex-

ample of this is beautiful painting Flying Dutchman painted in 1972. Predominant part of the painting is devoted to the huge sea vessel fly-ing majestically over tiny ducks and their boat. Stormy sea is depicted in style of traditional 18th and 19th century sea paintings. Ducks are al-most lost in roaring elements of na-ture as storm hurls over. Barks’ use of color and light is dramatic and well balanced. It is recreation of a splash panel from the story of the same name.

Barks made several paintings us-ing the same motif. In early 1980’s

he created another version of Dutch-man, and now he brought ducks on foreground, in means to make it sell better among lithography buyer au-dience. The composition of Afoul of the Flying Dutchman brings in mind

Afoul of the Flying Dutchman, 1985.

Laocoön.

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famous sea painting by Théodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa. Ducks are positioned on canvas

in same manner, and their poses are duckified versions of Laocoön. Ducks are enfolded with ropes, just

like Laocoön and his sons were en-tangled by sea serpents. The design, layout and composition is outright classical, almost High Renaissance gone through duck filter. With light-hearted interpretation one might take a painting called Sailing the Spanish Main (version of WDC 108 cover) as a whimsical version of tragic Medusa painting. Neverthe-less the similarities are only in sea motif and partly in composition (The vertical mast, clasping figures). It’sobvious that most of the similarities can be explained by general rules and conventions of classical paint-ing arrangements, surely Barks had learned some art history from his wife and books.

Flying Dutchman, 1972.

The Raft of the Medusa, 1818—19.

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Barks’ taste in art was very tradi-tional, he loved pre-impressionist figurative art and loathed everything modernistic. His colleagues in Dis-ney studio even used to make fun of his stark indisposition towards mod-ern art by drawing caricatures of acrimonious Barks. Carl’s favorite painters were either such popular modern day commercial illustrator-artists like Norman Rockwell or old time masters as Dutch Rembrandt. Rockwell created many covers for Saturday Evening Post, magazine

Barks used to read in 1920’s. This in-fluence can be seen in some of Barks’ paintings. For example painting Oh, Oh! made from cover WDCS135 is very much like Ducks á la Norman Rockwell. Other interpretations of covers displaying some sportive shenanigans of Huey, Dewey and Louie brings in mind many Rock-well covers portraying impish kids. Rockwell unerringly shared Barks’ opinion about modern art. It is clear when you see painting The Connoi-seur in which Rockwell’s everyman in gray flannel suit is watching Jack-son Pollock’s abstract painting.

Influence of old Dutch masters in other hand can be seen in some paint-ings depicting the Chiaroscuro ef-fect, the term meaning the way light and dark, highlights and shadow are used effectively. It was usually ap-plied to achieve a sense of volume on three dimensional objects and to create dramatic scenes. Even though Chiaroscuro was originated during italian Renaissance, it were Flemish and Dutch painters of 17th and 18th century like Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt who became mostly

known of it. Aforementioned Flying Dutchman is good example of duck-ian Chiaroscuro, and the nighttime painting in which Scrooge is selling christmas trees to Donald is another example of pretty subtle use of light and dark. It’s a shame Barks never tried to adopt any single-candle light source type of pictures, that were typical for the Rembrandt period.

Most often Barks still used bright secondary colors, which are a bit more sophisticated than primary colors used in comics. The way Barks build up many of his images makes them part of the tradition called ”genre painting” or ”petit genre”. It means pictorial representations of scenes or events from common life, such as domestic settings, parties and street scenes. And that is exactly what we see in most of his paint-ings; they have bright colors, many characters on playful scene and lots of action. Holiday in Duckburg for example has many qualities of such genre. It would be easy to seen them being leaned towards Naïve art. But one could not consider Barks as un-trained artist. Nevertheless he was still mostly self-taught.

Barks’ oil paintings is an extensive subject matter, so vast that it is im-possible to cover them wholly over on short article like this. Besides subjects discussed here, there are for example portraits of duck family, they could be a subject of a whole new examination.

Then there are scenic pictures that does not fit into category of genre painting; they depict episodes from classic duck stories. As they repre-sent events from stories many duck fans have read and reread several times, they might slip into genre

Caricature by colleague of Barks.

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called History painting. Classical History painting depicts scenes with narrative content from classical his-tory and mythology. Barks’ painting depicts duck myhology nonetheless. One could perhaps examine simi-larities between, lets say, Jacques-Louis David’s The Oath of the Horatii and Barks’ Golden Fleece. Barks’ work obviously doesn’t have the grandeur quality of it, but it has the qualities of the original story of itself, and that is the whole point in there. It is true to itself and it’s own roots, yet two mythologies coils to-gether as Barks depicts duckifiedreenactment of Creek mythology.

Books about Barks’ paintings:

”The Fine Art of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks”, Another Rainbow 1981 – the 121 first paintings.Rare nowadays. Worth of one Barks lithography at least.”Animal Quakers”, Another Rainbow 1996 – collects nearly all non-Disney Paintings.”Ölgemäldekalender”, Dreidreizehn – German publisher-comics retailer’s annual calendar (1995-) http://www.dreidreizehn.de/create_e/index.htm

Above: Peasant Dance, c. 1568, by Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Holiday in Duckburg, 1989. Examples of petit genre.Left: Cave of Ali Baba, 1973. Painting illumi-nating Duck Mythos. Duckified Historypainting?

©C

arl B

arks

Est

.

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Donald Duck created a song called The Screaming Cowboy in a

comics story published in is-sue number 137 of Walt

Disney’s Comics and Stories dated Febru-ary 1952. Quickly these words for this

tune were translated in various languages in Europe alone.

Right on first panelDonald rushes in his home with huge bunch of money in his hand, shouting to nephews:

”I’ve sold a song, boys! We’re loaded with cash!”. Right away they head for the deserted

Avalanche Valley ski resort at Soso Mountains for celebration. Donald finds his song at resort’s jukebox.Rest is well known history of cata-strophies. Story has a rythm of pop tune with A and B sections.

But what kind of song it actually is? Where did Barks get the idea for his lyrics? Cowboys were truly popular at that period of time. Hol-lywood churned out horse operas, and riding, jodeling, guitar plucking cowboy was quite common scene at matinées.

Songs like The Happy Cowboy, The Roving Cowboy, The Sporting Cowboy, The Gamblin’ Cowboy, The Lonely Cowboy and The Dying Cowboy - and even The Yodeling Cowgirl were made during 1930’s through 1950’s.

Undoubtedly Carl Barks had no idea how succesfull few lines for a song credited to Donald Duck

would became around the world, when he wrote them in 1951.

Edited and updated from Ankkalinnan Pamaus #8

33

Pretty familiar sounding songs The Laughing Cowboy and The Crying Cowboy are listed at BMI website(http://bmi.com/). They are credited to Gregory Catherine, but they are probably folk tunes and older than BMI says them to be. I couldn’t find any info about theirrecordings, but according to Dis-ney-creator and duck fan Rob Klein, tunes by those name were recorded already in the 1930’s.

Rob Klein:”I had an Uncle whose own ’Theme

Songs’ were called ”The Crying Cowboy” and ”The Laughing Cow-boy”. They were recorded on the two sides of a single American, 10 inch, 78 RPM plastic (or bakelite?) record. He played it once for me in the early 1950s when I visited him in Chicago, USA.

The record was printed on the OKEH label, and I believe it was released in the late 1920s or early 1930s (certainly no later than the mid 1930s). It was a country and western novelty record. A parody of both the typical and popular ”sad” and ”hap-py” cowboy songs of the period. The ”Crying Cowboy” had inane lyrics with a lot of crying, wailing, howl-

ing, moaning and sobbing. The other side was ridiculously happy, with a lot of varient laughing. Unfortu-nately, I cannot remember the Sing-er’s name. And, more unfortunately, by the time my slow mind made the potential connection between it and Barks’ ”Screaming Cowboy”, my Uncle had died - and had been bur-ied WITH THE RECORD!!! He re-ally liked it!

I have since tried to find it, but wasnever able to even find informationon it. I looked it up in the Schwann Catalogue between 1986 and 1990, but it was never listed. That was sup-posed to be the official list of record-ed music currently available. Per-haps it has since been re-released on a compilation CD of Western or nov-

elty songs.” (DCML 12.09.2000)Perhaps songs by Hank Williams

Jr. or Gene Autry were one of many sources of inspiration for Barks, when he contrived his Screaming Cowboy, they were very popular singers at that time. One could imag-ine how Williams’ moaning voice on Howlin’ At The Moon might get the snow fall started, all right. Never-theless Barks always took his ideas from contemporary topics that he saw or heard around.

Barks also gave a little clue on how Donald’s song might have sound like. On page 7 of the story, panel 4, Donald is admiring his own song saying: ”Ah! That jug band!”. Eponymous jug (containing whis-key) provides sound, when someone

Donald’s hit tune.

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blows on it’s mouth. It is low bass like voice. A jug band uses usually home made instruments like wash-tub bass, washboard, and comb & tissue paper -kazoo, but also banjo and guitar. Traditional jug bands performed blues, folk, bluegrass, country & western music.

It’s interesting to note that around the same time with Barks’ story, a Mickey Mouse strip with similar theme appeared on newspapers. Goofy is seen as singing cowboy in Bill Walsh and Floyd Gottfredson story ”Mickey Mouse and Dry Gulch Goofy” (March – June 1951).

Cowboy Around the World

So, Donald’s hit song spread quick-ly outside Duckburg and United States. Oddly it wasn’t about cow-boy anymore. In Scandinavia this cowherd was turned into a seaman. In Finnish translation, ”Itkevä meri-mies” by Sirkka Ruotsalainen, lines goes like this:

”Suo mulle hauta pohjassa meren, kun vanhuuden peikko mun hyytävi veren. Ja suo mulle hauta pohjassa meren, suo nukkua helmassa sen.” (Aku Ankka, Nov. 11/1952).

”Let me have my grave on ocean floor, as old age chills my blood cold. And let me have my grave on ocean floor, let me sleep embraced by the sea”

Change into mariner was intro-duced by distinquished Danish translator Sonja Rindom. Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian translations were probably mady after her text, since the sea motif is present on each of them.

Danish version:”Oh skænk mig en grav, ved det is-

grønne hav, hvor kun bølgerne hører min gråd.” (Anders And & Co. July 7/1952).

”O, bestow on me a grave by the ice-green sea, where only waves will hear me crying.”

German translation by prized Erica Fuchs (1906 - 2005), edi-tor in chief of Micky Maus follows more closely Barks’ original:

”Und lieg’ ich dere-inst auf der Bahre, so denkt auch an meine Guitahre, und legt sie mir mit mein grab.” (Micky Maus July 7/1952).

”And someday I’ll lie on my

stretcher thinking my guitar, bury it with me in my grave.”

At least in Holland, Italy and Greece the protagonist of the song was cowboy. Italian version goes almost over the top when it accentu-ates song’s western mood. All kinds of jodling and cowboy cheers were added to lyrics by Italian translator:

”Oh! Date un posto al cimitero... yuuuu! Al mio cuore di vaquero... yuuuu! Egli e’ morto e lascia sola, ueeee! La sua casa, il cavallo e la pistola, ueeee! Yippeeee!”. (Albi tas-cabili di Topolino 190 Feb. 1952).

Vaquero have died and left his home, horse and pistol alone.

Hymn for Donaldists

Duck fans all over the world were fascinated by the lyrics and they stayed in their hearts. In Germany ”Der rührselige Cowboy” became to be donaldists ”theme song”. Gerhard Hannoschöck composed this donald-istic hymn which is performed in all conventions and general assemblies.

Barks’ cowboy had it’s impact elsewhere too. In Denmark ”Den hulkende sømand” is classic as well.

Danish newspaper Politiken an-nounced contest to it’s readers in

1999 to get more lyrics for the song. Winner of the con-

test was Poul Grinder-Hansen, the inspector of national museum from Copenhagen.

Swedish donaldists made ”expedition” to

German translation by prized Erica Fuchs (1906 - 2005), edi-tor in chief of Micky Maus follows more closely

”Und lieg’ ich dere-inst auf der Bahre, so denkt auch an meine Guitahre, und legt sie mir mit mein grab.” (Micky Maus July

”And someday I’ll lie on my

Danish newspaper Politiken an-nounced contest to it’s readers in

1999 to get more lyrics for the song. Winner of the con-

test was Poul Grinder-Hansen, the inspector of national museum from Copenhagen.

Swedish donaldists made ”expedition” to

1/2 gallon jug.

Dry-Gulch Goofy, Walsh & Gottfredson, 1951.

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Duckburg, Calisota in order to col-late notes and complete lyrics for the song. Students of Bromma high school Stefan Diös ja Greger Näs-sen returned from Duckburg safe and sound and brought along the lyrics for ”Den suckande sjöman-nen”. Swedish donaldist society, Nationella Ankist Förbundet I Sver-ige (NAFS(k)), have performed this song in all donaldistic happenings ever since. Sheet music with Swed-ish lyrics were published in fanzine NAFS(k)uriren issue #4 (1978).

Finnish translator and composer of classical music Jaakko Mäntyjärvi have composed Itkevä merimies for chamber choir in 2003. He was awarded with special prize in Danish Hymnia Chamber Choir composition competition ‘Vandverker’ in 2003 for his Den hulkende sømand.

Surprisingly the ”original” version of The Screaming Cowboy is really recorded by Disney Company. West-ern themed LP Pardners have a track The Song of the Screamin’ Cowboy that carries on it’s chorus Barks’ (well, Donald’s) lyrics word by word. It is performed by ”Larry Groce And The Disneyland Children’s Sing-Along Chorus With Mickey And Friends”. CD-version of 1980’s LP is available: 1995 Walt Disney Records UPC: 5008-60356-7

The song of the screamin’ cowboyWill haunt yew all your days.After I’ve kicked the bucketAcross them pearly gates.Though my wailin’ may sound weirdPlease don’t get skeered.’Cause even when he’s goneA cowboy needs a song. So

[Chorus]

Bury me thar with my battered git-tarA-screamin’ my heart out fer yew.When I pass away, ree-member the dayI told yew I’d always be true.

I said I’d a love fer yew that never would dieEven though I may—some day!So when you hear my shade,Dear, please don’t be afraid,I’m jest screamin’ my heart out fer yew!

Lyrics©Disney

In Ten Years...During the ten year period in

Ankkalinnan Pamaus fanzine we have reviewed 83 Disney related publications and 14 movies. There have been 16 interviews in 20 issues with total page count 836. Presentations of: Vive Risto, Gil Turner, Al Taliaferro, William Van Horn, Ub Iwerks, Floyd Gottfred-son, Marco Rota, Walt Disney, Carl Barks, Romano Scarpa.

Artist Interviews: Marco Rota, Kai Vainiomäki, Evert Geradts, Daan Jippes, Mau Heymans, Frank Jonker, Don Rosa (three times), Cesar Ferioli, Robert Klein, Shaun Craill, Vicar, Kari Korhonen, Jukka Murtosaari.

Full list of issues with contents:coa.inducks.org/publication.php?c=fi/ALP

Daniël van EijmerenF. A. ElliotValtteri HartikainenPentti Hauhiala Vesa HeinoNiels Houlb. HansenAnssi Hynynen Ville Hänninen Vesa Höijer Petri KanninenVesa Kataisto Timo Kokkila Markku Koski Elli Kotovirta Sampsa KuukasjärviIlpo LagerstedtJukka LaineJari Lehtinen Marko Leppälä

P-E MalmströmPekka A. Manninen Jukka Murtosaari Are MyklebustJuri Nummelin Antti PeltolaSauli PesonenMike Pohjola Marja Ritola Timo Ronkainen Don RosaHarri Römpötti Kai SaartoArttu Salminen Ville Salonen Ari Seppi Pekka TuliaraReijo Valta

So Far...

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Ankistit ryFinnish Donaldistsc/o Timo RonkainenSuvilahdenkatu 4 A 300500 HelsinkiFinland

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