Take it away, Dana!
__________
This post shares scans of a heretofore nearly forgotten corner of Barksdom -- a Western Publishing Barks deluxe reprint project that advanced as far as producing a prospectus shared with Carl Barks fans in the early 1980s. The origins of this project lay with John Nichols, who was both a dealer specializing in Barks and the publisher of the leading Barks fanzine, The Barks Collector. At that time (the late 1970s) certain classic Barks stories in English were only available in the U.S. via the pricey original editions. Nichols found an affordable alternative to offer his clients by importing Australian reprints of stories such as "Adventure Down Under" that were otherwise too expensive for most fans to afford in the original printing. Nichold did a brisk business in the Barks reprints and evidently wished that a new series of deluxe Barks reprints a la The Best of Walt Disney Comics series issued in 1974 was published by Western Publishing and which he could then market to his burgeoning customer base eager to have access to classic Barks at an affordable cost.
Then by chance at one of
the two Barks Cons Nichols held in New York in the early 1980s (one was
also held in the same period in Oakland California) among the attendees
was the comics editor for Western's New York office, Wally Green. Green
evidently was impressed with the gathering of fans he witnessed and
Nichols' pitch that unlike the previous attempt Western had made to
enter the collectors market (which the company must have seen as a
failure since a second set of volumes in the Best of Walt Disney comics
series had gotten as far as advance publicity aimed at the then nascent
comic book fandom with mockups of the cover much like the Green memo
before the project was without explanation cancelled) there was now an
established distribution network serving comic book shops nationwide
that featured non-returnable wholesaling. That must have been music to
Green's ears as Western was in a downward spiral at that time as to
sales of its newstand comics. This memo outlines the new deluxe Barks
reprint series Western was contemplating.
It was distributed by Nichols
to the mailing list of Barks fans he had built up as a dealer and
publisher soliciting their expression of interest in such a series. And
that was the last anyone heard of the proposal. Why it didn't happen is
a mystery but not soon after Western got out of the comic book business
and shortly after that Gladstone stepped into the breach and began what
is now seen as a Disney comics renissance featuring both classic and
new material that garnered wide acclaim from fans.
It
is thanks to Brent Swanson (who held onto the memo all these years and
supplied a scan of it after my faint memories of it prompted him to
retrieve it from storage) that this memo is now recovered from being
hidden in the dark corners of history.
--------------------------
Thanks for sharing the info Dana!
And as an extra Barks-bonus to this post:
here's a watercolor by the duck man.
Looks like a 1940's piece and judging by the hair style it might be his daughter Peggy.
And as an extra Barks-bonus to this post:
here's a watercolor by the duck man.
Looks like a 1940's piece and judging by the hair style it might be his daughter Peggy.
