WOLFGANG J. FUCHS

Fuchs is Germany's leading Disneyana expert and he has written numerous books and articles on the subject.

CARL BARKS IN GERMANY - 1994

Carl Barks arrived in Stuttgart on schedule on June 23rd and went to visit Ehapa Verlag, the Disney publisher in Germany. Here the entrance hall had been decorated with actual size reproductions of original Barks artwork. (In fact, those marvellous pieces of work remained on the walls afterwards.)
A reception was given for the grand old duck man and editors working at Ehapa got a chance to chat with Barks and to get autographs. It was a happy occasion for all concerned, no doubt. As I am living in Munich where I do freelance (translation and editorial) work for Ehapa and for other publishers, I was not there that day and can only give this meagre description of the goings-on.

The first chance to see Carl Barks came on the evening of Friday, June 24th, when the exhibition of Barks' oil paintings was to be officially opened in the museum of the Württembergischer Kunstverein in downtown Stuttgart. I had taken the two-hour train ride from Munich to Stuttgart. I walked through the downtown section to the Schlossplatz looking for the museum. After a while I finally made out which of the museums was going to show the Barks paintings. It had flags with the Barks signature in huge letters in front of it. Outside the museum, sitting in the museum cafe, I met several Ehapa staffers, among them Ehapa's press officer, Marion Egenberger, who - along with Michael F. Walz, editor in chief of the German version of the Carl Barks Library - had been instrumental in organizing Barks' visit to Germany.
When the invited guests were ushered into the museum, they were met by a stunning sight: The Barks paintings (28 oils, 3 pencil sketches and a color copy of the painting made for Donald's 60th birthday) were arranged along the walls of a giant circular room which narrowed towards the top giving the impression you stood inside a giant egg.
People were walking around inspecting the paintings. There was a buzz of excitement in the air as people milled around talking in hushed awe, expecting the duck man. On one side of the hall several rows of chairs had been arranged, there was a speaker's platform with microphone, there were lights and TV camera teams.
Finally, people started sitting down, with many more standing there, facing the speaker's platform. It is hard to tell just what went through people's minds. I felt my heart beat slightly faster as word finally came that Barks would come any moment now.

And come he did. He was guided in by Ehapa people and by his managers Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby. The first impression was that of an elderly gentleman with a bright smile on his face. You would never have guessed that he is 93 years old. He was greeted by a standing ovation.
After a few welcoming words Bill Grandey went with Carl Barks to explain some details about some of the paintings. Then Barks and company were whisked away for some official function or a dinner, while the guests invited for the opening of the exhibit stayed around to enjoy canapés and cold beverages, and to continue marvelling at the Barks paintings.
After talking to some Ehapa editors and to Marion Egenberger who all told me just how impressed they were by Carl Barks' stamina, his willingness to please and his being a nice guy, I found out about how the arrangement for the guided tour through the exhibition was supposed to be the following Tuesday and Friday. I also got my first copy of the catalogue for the exhibition which looked very nice.

On Monday, June 27th, at Barks' hotel the moment of personally meeting him for an interview drew near. Finally, the big moment came. Carl Barks and Bill Grandey came in. We - my fellow interviewers and I - were all introduced, shook hands and sat down. (Incidentally, the Carl Barks handshake deserves special mention here. It was a very firm and strong handshake, almost like a lumberjack's handshake. Many younger people would envy him this youthful strength.)
There we were, meeting an idol, a comic icon, one of the greats. We were enthralled and enchanted by the nice person, Carl Barks is. Whenever Barks did not understand a question he was asked, Bill Grandey sort of re-asked the question so Barks would be sure to hear it.
We didn't lack questions. Neither did Barks lack answers. In fact, we got the impression that he knew every miniscule detail of his work. And he came up with details many people would never have thought of.
When I asked him about his sources for some of the stories I wondered if he had read James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon before doing his 'parody' about Trala La (instead of Shangri-La). I got the - classic - answer: Well, I didn't read the book. But I had seen the movie. Barks went on to say that he had written the story because the movie was so popular that he wanted to spoof it, but he also used it for a slight lesson in economics.

What did Barks think about meeting his German translator, Dr. Erika Fuchs? Well, compared to him he felt that, at 88, she was a young chick as compared to him. At this or another point in the conversation he joked about his hearing aid, making it whistle and telling us that, nowadays, this is the only way he can whistle after girls.
I ventured to say that, while the German translations had a quality of their own, I always especially liked the original editions and their plays on words, their language. Barks added to this that he always had felt his texts were a very important part of his stories. One of the most important tools for a writer is his dictionary. I have often gone over my texts counting the length of words. If there was a word with, say, 13 letters that did not seem to be exactly what I wanted I took a dictionary and looked up synonyms to find a word with, say, 11 letters that was more to the point. Yes, language is very important in bringing a story across.
What is Barks' favorite duck character? Well, Uncle Scrooge is closest to his heart, but there also is a lot of Donald in him, as well as a lot of Gyro Gearloose. Did he ever eat roast duck? Well, just once, but Barks found it was too heavy to suit his taste.
The scene with the bursting dam in Only a Poor Old Man and all of the coins spilling out had always fascinated me as a kid. Why did Carl Barks put it and similar large panels into his stories? Simple. I felt they were a nice change of pace in the stories. However, what those pictures helped save in storyline they easily made up for in additional work. Mostly they took longer to draw than if I had simply lengthened the story.
We could have gone on and on, asking Barks about his comics, and in fact we did. We found out that Carl Barks does not like some of today's comics because he feels they are too violent for kids. Then Kathy Morby dropped into the room and approached our table. She asked Bill Grandey if Carl didn't want something to drink (which he didn't). Everyone felt that, despite the quiet unobtrusiveness of this question, the magic hour was drawing to a close. We pulled out comic albums for Carl Barks to sign and the magic hour came to an end.

The next morning I got up early as I had to go to Stuttgart to give guided tours through the exhibition. Response was fantastic. Every tour took about two hours split into the actual tour and a session of answering any open question. Posters for the exhibition were sold out on Thursday. The cloakroom attendant told me it was fantastic. Hundreds of Barks posters were sold while, for another exhibition taking place at the same time, only three posters had been sold, although they cost only one fourth the amount to be paid for the Barks poster.
While I was in Stuttgart, Barks finally met Dr. Erika Fuchs at her home in Munich. I was told that it was a very nice affair with Barks coming there like a shy caller, presenting Mrs. Fuchs with flowers. Both she and he had been worried about each other. Wouldn't this visit be a burden to him/her at his/her age? In this heat? After all, he/she is 93/88 years old. But, as it turned out, it was a swell afternoon.

On Wednesday I had been invited to see Barks again. I went on to his hotel where he was in a meeting with German and Austrian fan magazine editors. I snapped a few pictures and, not wanting to interfere too much the second time around, I only asked a few questions which had come up while giving the tour of his paintings.
One of my questions was why does Barks use such extremely bright colors, especially in the more recent oils? The answer: In the animated cartoons, Walt Disney wanted us to use very bright colors as he felt that was what really attracted people to them. I'm using bright colors for the same reason. I try to get them as bright as possible. When I'm finished I often feel they are not yet bright enough.
At the close of the meeting Barks cheerfully said goodbyes to all of us, shook hands, and left.

Aftermath.
The Barks visit had come and gone. It had left most of the people who met him highly elated having met a human being of such well being, good manners and high spirits, an artist who remembered most anything about his work and who was willing to share his ideas with all who came to see and to ask him.
To sum up Barks' stay in Germany, I can only say that everyone who met Carl Barks here was overwhelmed by his open-mindedness, his wit, his rich memory and his simply being a great guy.
Oh, one final note comes to mind: The second time I saw Carl Barks in Munich, especially when he was listening to questions or reflecting an answer, I had the weird feeling that he looked very much like what Walt Disney probably would have looked like had he ever grown as old as Carl Barks.

Wolfgang J. Fuchs

Barks

Fuchs and Barks

This contribution was written specially for this website. The photos are the personal property of the author. © Wolfgang J. Fuchs.