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Blast from the Past: Donald Duck vs. Bombie the Zombie
Blogs are supposed to be topical, but dishing up hullabaloo about a Donald Duck comic book first published in 1949 isn't at all topical nor is it likely to rack up the retweets.
Win Wiacek, owner of ComicsReview (and past chairman of the Comic Creators Guild), could give a duck's behind about retweets: earlier this week he reviewed a Disney comic book first published in 1949, namely, Walt Disney's Donald Duck Adventures: Voodoo Hoodoo.
The comic book, though interesting, isn't as noteworthy as its creator, Carl Barks, described by Win Wiacek (who looks completely bonkers in his picture, by the way) as a reclusive but inveterate Duck storyteller who developed a 'cohesive Duck universe' for Donald, his nephews, Scrooge McDuck (a Barks creation), and other webbed denizens.
Despite his statute in the comic book world, I had never heard of Carl Barks. One of the greatest pleasures I derive from the Disney Dispatch is discovering new sites, new things, and new people as I track down interesting topics to hullabaloo. Thanks to Win Wiacek, I found Carl Barks, and you can learn all there is to learn about him from an unusually thorough Wikipedia article, which includes a nice picture of the gentleman at a comic book convention.
First, though, make sure you read Wiacek's equally thorough review of Voodoo Hoodoo, an assembly line tale of zombies, devil dolls, and witch doctors - heady stuff for 1949 - given unexpected heft from Barks' vigorous pens and unintended controversy from what Wiacek describes as 'racial undertones', most likely arising from the Ducks' expedition to Africa.
Strangely, Barks never did the obvious sequel: Bambi vs. Bombie. That would've been money.