WILLIAM VAN HORN

The American William Van Horn started his career by writing and drawing children's books but he soon became a Disney comics creator. His best known achievement so far is his project 'Horsing around with History' working with Carl Barks. Van Horn has to date made well over 800 pages of duck comics - mostly 10-page comedies.

Also, see Van Horn's article on Garé Barks HERE.

HORSING AROUND WITH CARL BARKS

If somebody had told me in October of 1987, when I sold my first fumbling pages of Duck script and art to Gladstone, that within a few years I'd be teaming up with Carl Barks to do his last Uncle Scrooge yarn, I'd have told them their hat was on too tight! But it happened, and I thought that now, in the wake of Carl's passing, I'd share some of the story about that event.
To be honest, I must say at this point that the two individuals who were to compose the 'Carl Barks Studio' and who at that time were still thought to be friends have, for legal reasons, been edited out of this brief narrative. In any event their involvement in the actual story and art development was of no consequence, once Egmont had bought the project. Nonetheless, the developing fiasco of the 'Carl Barks Studio' was a sub-context that caused a number of naggy, though not critical, problems for both Carl and me as work progressed.

In the spring of 1993 I heard that Carl Barks had been commissioned by Steve Geppi to do a large Uncle Scrooge mony bin painting. It was to be the largest painting of its type that Carl had done.
While brainstorming for a suitable theme, he came upon the idea of the Golden Trojan Horse filled with Beagle Boys. But, because it seemed to be a very story-specific theme, and Carl had never written such a story, he abandoned the idea for something more general in nature. I was asked through an intermediary if I wanted to take the idea and run it for a story, and I said, 'Sure! Why not?'. It seemed to me to be a pretty good idea to play around with. However, I never got around to committing anything to paper, and, the next thing I knew, the idea, in outline form, had been sold to Egmont in Denmark by what was soon to become the 'Carl Barks Studio'.
Easy come, easy go!
It was decided by Byron Erickson, editor in chief of Disney comics at Egmont, that I should both write the actual script as well as do the finished art under Carl's supervision. Carl had expressly stated that he had no interest in having to write anything more than the outline itself.
Fair enough!

Fast forward to September 1993.
By the time of our visit, Carl had discovered, much to his dismay, that there had been an announcement in a magazine that he was writing his first Uncle Scrooge adventure in more than 20 years. The upshot of which was that he felt honor bound to do what had been announced, like it or not!
Later that day Carl gave me a verbal rundown on what he figured he'd do with the plot. Then he laughed and said, 'If it turns out to be a great story, Bill, I'll get all of the credit, and, if it's a turkey, you'll get all of the blame!'
Because of his commitment on the Geppi painting (Carl, in September 1993, had a small mountain of coins to paint - estimated work time of four to six weeks), the script would be delayed until early 1994.

Indeed, by early January, Byron Erickson received the typed script for a 24-page Uncle Scrooge story titled 'Horsing around with History'. Byron had told me that the prospect of receiving a script from Carl Barks had him a bit nervous. After all, what if he had to reject it? Fortunately, and to his everlasting relief, he didn't, and a copy of the script was soon forwarded to me. Carl had already tinkered a bit with the opening couple of pages, and it was then up to me to do as he put it, 'All the hard work!'
Carl had typed the script himself, and, other than the narration and dialogue, he made only very brief notes as to the picture needs. For my part, I, too, did some minor editing: rewriting three or four lines and beefing up several others. These adjustments were ones I felt Carl would have made himself, if he had been doing the art. Sometimes, the strength of a picture would make a line of dialogue redundant, so I'd tweak it a bit. Carl had no problems with any changes of that sort.

In March of 1994 I went to Grants Pass to appear in a television documentary that the Norwegian Broadcasting Company was doing on Carl. I was able by that time to bring along the first 18 pages of the full-sized pencil work-ups with lettering. It was the first stuff that Carl had seen, and he seemed very pleased with it. In fact, Carl and I were supposed to 'fake' a working session for the camera, but, when Carl saw the drawings, he was off and running! The session in the film is real!
Later that day, after Carl had a chance to digest what he'd seen, we sent several more hours in an 'off-camera' work session.

It was at this point that I had a chance to observe the unique way Carl's mind worked. His attention to detail, even at age 92 (and one week away from 93), was, to me, extraordinary.
In one scene in the story, the boys are taking a sighting on the North Star using an amphora that Scrooge had brought up from the sea bottom. In my pencil work-up I'd shown them sighting at a 45^o angle. I did this because it looked more dynamic in the composition. During the filming that morning, Carl had looked at that panel and stated that, at that latitude, the boys would have to look straight overhead to take a sigting on the North Star.
Now, however, having a couple of hours to think about it and do some research, Carl told me that my drawing was right after all! It would never have occurred to yours truly to even think about such a thing!

It was a detail of the kind that Carl obviously took delight in. Another example involved the story's opening-page splash panel showing the original wooden Trojan horse being wheeled through the open gates of Troy. Carl looked at the human figures I'd drawn that surrounded the horse and told me they were about a third too short in height. As the horse was supposed to be about 18 feet tall, the people I've drawn would have been no more than four feet tall! Live and learn, I always say.

I would note at this point that, although Carl did, indeed, do research when it was necessary, research was never an end in itself. The only purpose was to lend that extra touch of reality to what was otherwise merely intended as good entertainment. Carl's work was character-driven, not event- or place-driven. In his comments his concerns were always what the characters thought and how they would react to any given situation or any given line of dialogue. If I tweaked his dialogue here and there, he understood that the reason was to either strenghten or simplify. That was what really mattered to Carl.

One rather amusing moment occurred during the session. In the story there is a panel that I had to completely rewrite the dialogue for. It was a case of Carl's dialogue repeating what was in the picture, thus creating an unnecessary redundancy. In the scene we see a helicopter in the distance and in silhouette. From it issues two dialogue balloons. In my rewrite the first balloon has Scrooge saying, 'And best of all, nobody knows that we're on our way!'. The second balloon says, 'We hope!'.
Carl frowned, pointed to the second balloon, and said, 'Huey, Dewey and Louie wouldn't say a line like that!' Well, I honestly didn't know why they wouldn't, but, rather than argue the point, I looked at the art and then at Carl and said, 'But that's Donald talking!' Carl scratched his chin and said, 'Oh, well, that's all right then!'

Within a week the last six pages of pencil work-ups were completed and copies sent to Carl. Now, believe it or not, Carl, in his script, had neglected to indicate at which point in the story the Beagle Boys managed to get into the Trojan horse! Byron hadn't caught it either. Since it seemed to me that the only logical time they could have gotten into the horse was when it sat on the dock, disguised as a huge mountain of old rags, that's what I had happen. Carl's only request was that the Beagle Boys remain pretty much in the shadows. That was fine with me, as it made the inking all that much easier.

The finished inks with lettering were sent to Egmont on May 4. I sent copies to Carl, and he sent me a lovely little note. Among other things he wrote, '...you have done a great job with the staging and the timing of the hook-ups.' In a P.S. he added, 'I especially like the way you kept the panels free of clutter!' And that was it.

The story's release in Europe the following October was handled well in most countries and was viewed as somewhat of an event. Unfortunately, the beautifully done Gladstone release in 1995 was met with considerably less enthusiasm - not too surprising when you consider the lack of interest in general for Disney comics in North America. A shame, really, because in my view, however biased, comics of this type have traditionally held up better in terms of character and content than their super-hero counterparts.

To close, I can only say that working with Carl was a pleasure. At the start, I had decided that, if we were to be able to work together successfully, I could not let myself be intimidated by that prospect or by Carl himself.
I needn't have worried, because he was always gracious and seemed to have confidence in my ability. It helped that we had visited together a few times previously and were comfortable in each other's company. But for all of that, he was still the 'Good Artist' of my childhood: an artist whose work I'd grown up with since 1943 and collected since 1946. So in a way, working with this man was a bit like working with a living monument. Sort of like a novice movie actor doing a scene with Paul Newman. Memorable.
It is a time that I often reflect upon.

This contribution first appeared in Comics Buyer's Guide No. 1410. © William Van Horn