Comments on: Color Quandaries #2: The Barks Affair

By: Christian Aldridge

Christian Aldridge — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:07:54 +0000

I agree with Matthew Wivel. I have attempted to colour my own work using Photoshop and have always found the results to be unsatisfactory. I believe one of the reasons for this is the absolute flat ness of the colour. When you create a colour in Photoshop the colour is absolutely uniform. Alternatively if you mix a colour using paint, although it will look flat, if you zoom in you will see it is made up of thousands of inflections and mini gradients that create a much livelier block of colour. That’s my penny’s worth any way!

By: Classic Jack

Classic Jack — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:44:22 +0000

It’s like to have a classic vinil played in a modern jukebox…
There’s people (like me) who likes the “artesanal” and there’s who preferes the hightech stuff… and yes, the brilhant work is most important than apresentation, but… dude, we’re talking about THE CLASSIC, if you know what I mean…

Thanx!
Hug ya’ll.

By: Martijn van Heeringen

Martijn van Heeringen — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:54:54 +0000

Sorry but I think the computer colouring is fantastic, slick and far superior to the original hand-coloured comics!

By: LG

LG — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:29:25 +0000

Here in Brazil the same material got republished… and the new colors are just ugly… do not respect the original… I did not like it but bought the material anyway… the stories still as great as when I was a kid.

By: STWALLSKULL » Interesting Links: April 3rd, 2008

STWALLSKULL » Interesting Links: April 3rd, 2008 — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:36:19 +0000

[...] Color Quandaries #2: The Barks Affair from THE BEAT [...]

By: Chuck Fiala

Chuck Fiala — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:53:33 +0000

I prefer the original colors here, but as neither of these was colored under Barks’ supervision, I’m not sure it should matter to anyone. The new colors don’t look bad at all.

By: Brian Spence

Brian Spence — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:36:24 +0000

I remember visiting Hemingway’s place in Key West and saw a framed Barks donald duck page. It was a page riffing on “the old man and the sea”, and it was in Portuguese or Spanish. I asked the guide about it, they didn’t know its significance.

By: Matthias Wivel

Matthias Wivel — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:28:58 +0000

Hi Heidi — thanks for posting this; the more people who see it and judge for themselves, the better, I should think.

As Ed says, I may be a stickler, but I really do think this colouring is deeply unsatisfying, especially given the quality colour restoration (Krazy & Ignatz, Terry and the Pirates, Little Nemo, Walt & Skeezix, Kirby’s 4th World) seen these days, not to mention great recolouring jobs such as Prince Valiant (another Danish production, BTW). Egmont’s effort is nowhere near this level of quality and does these comics a great disservice. Of course there’s the financial reality for Gemstone to contend with, but I sure hope they think long and hard about doing as much as they can to improve on the material they’re working with.

Two minor details:

* The “original” edition of “Vacation Time” I posted a half-page from, is the original Danish edition. I don’t think the colours are the same in the original American edition. I’m quite sure that colouring job was carried out in Copenhagen. My point is that I’m not necessarily in favour of restoring the original, first colouring — some of the old comics were rather haphazardly coloured — but rather finding something that enhances Barks’ work rather than limit it. The Danish colourists knew how to do this in 1954, but not in 2008, unfortunately.

* The Barks Library in Color that you mention towards the end of the post was actually the template for Egmont’s edition. Susan Daigle-Leach was a consultant on it. Both editions are horribly coloured in my opinion.

All best,

Matthias

By: Blair Marnell

Blair Marnell — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:01:01 +0000

I finally got the last of the Another Rainbow/Gladstone hardcovers earlier this year. I usually prefer color reprints, but Barks pages are so rich with detail that in this case I don’t miss it.

BTW, Ed is right about the way some of the previous reprint colors have turned out. It’s a little early to condemn the new colors, I think. I’d rather see more pages before making a final judgement.

I’m just glad the classic Barks are being collected again, along with the forthcoming Don Rosa hardcover.

By: Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:31:55 +0000

I don’t know. I looked at the examples and they don’t look that bad. Yeah, it’s not as rich as the original colors, but does anyone remember that Scrooge reprint book from the mid-80s that was all airbrushed? This is way better than that.

I think the Euro Duck fans are just incredible sticklers. This coloring won’t stop me from buying and enjoying these books, although I’ll prefer the later editions, I’m sure. But it’s not like this is downright or rather plain awful.

By: Torsten Adair

Torsten Adair — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:54:32 +0000

Hmm… I found the original Barks example to be a bit dark.
Regarding the new editions and technology, how much does the paper itself factor into the colouring process?
How often has Barks been recoloured? How much of the Another Rainbow/Gladstone reprints were recoloured in the U.S.?

Also, given that the costs of production have long ago been amortized, what keeps Gemstone from publishing smaller digest books, similar to the Tintin 3-in-1 volumes?