Carl Barks was an unparallelled
duck comic book artist as for writing and drawing, but he was
never really interested in thinking up titles for his stories.
Lucky for him titling was not mandatory at Western Publishing,
for whom he worked. Still, Barks did churn out titles for many of
his stories (see a complete listing HERE), and several of
them were explanatory, powerful, and witty (see more HERE and HERE).
As for his paintings things were different. In painters' circles
it is costumary to give titles to the paintings and Barks most
often complied, although he would probably have preferred to just
number them. This page offers you a unique glimpse of the
difficulty Barks had titling just one of his many paintings as
well as the brainstorming process behind the undertaking. Any of
Barks' paintings (whether it be the earlier Non-duck paintings or
the later Duck paintings) could easily have had different titles
depending on the motif, the ingredients, or the action, but Barks
always had to choose one among several durable. Below you are
presented to one example of the titling of a specific Duck
painting from 1976.
PRELUDE In 1953 Barks made the long adventure story in FC0456 titled Back to the Klondike. He also furnished the front cover for the issue. Little did he know that he would transform the motif into an oil painting 23 years later.
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BRAINSTORMING Barks worked on one of his so-called Klondike paintings in 1976, and he experienced the usual trouble inventing a precise title for it. His suggestions are presented below in the same order he thought of them. Notice how diverse Barks' suggestions are despite the fairly simple motif. DISPUTED YUKON CACHE UNWELCOME STRANGERS UNWELCOME PROSPECTORS OLD CLAIM, NEW OWNER TRESPASSERS WILL BE VENTILATED! OLD CACHE, NEW TROUBLE YOUR MINE IS MY MINE TRESPASSERS WILL BE PERFORATED SECOND DISCOVERY PRIVATE PROPERTY REMEMBERED CACHE OLD GRUDGES NEVER DIE THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE '98 WELCOME BACK, MCDUCK WELCOME BACK TO THE KLONDIKE PERIL ON THE KLONDIKE IS NOTHING SACRED? SO IT'S YOU AGAIN? DISPUTED NUGGETS FINDERS KEEPERS? LAW OF THE KLONDIKE |
RESULT When Barks finally decided the title of his new painting he wound up with yet another solution:
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EPILOGUE Barks did not scrap his brainstorming list. In fact, he dug it up again 11 years later in search of a title for a similar painting motif:
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| http://www.cbarks.dk/THETITLESESSION.htm | Date 2009-11-05 |
