Donald Duck's Letter to Santa by Carl Barks! A Christmas Eve Treat from Cartoonist Kayfabe 

This stuff is awesome. Carl Barks Duck comics taught Finnish kids to read before grade school for half a century and that's not even an exaggeration. Donald Duck has been published here continuosly since 1952 every single week and at the height of its popularity in late 90's and early 2000's they had 300,000 subscriptions. That's not even readers, its a number of homes delivered, so actual number of readers is way higher. And that is a number of nation of 5 million people, so about every fourth person in Finland read Donald Duck, weekly. That number is still 100,000.

The connection to Manga is 100% there because Carl Barks is PROBABLY the biggest influence to Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori because those Donald Duck comics were brought over by GI's after the second world war so THAT was kind of the formative influence for Manga. Barks is one of those incredibly odd creators who's kind of like (to find a fitting point in another field) Dan O'Bannons influence on late 20th century fiction. Like this guy is STILL getting looked at and revered as one of the greatest comic book artists and story tellers of the modern age. Though my favourite thing ever is that Carl never left the US until he retired from comics (I think his most famous stuff was drawn from a corner of a single bedroom somewhere in Oregon). There was a brilliant interview where he mentioned that he would collect National Geographics for decades and THAT was his reference library for the big splash pages of just gorgeous background scenery. Also that he had to live with his mistakes a lot because the kind of paper he'd get from the office was chalk coated and soft so once you drew into the things, it left indents in the paper which made erasing and inking over stuff a nightmare because he would just be inking these valleys of pencil that had been left behind by his heavy hand. So he didn't use erasers after a while which is totally batshit to me. I don't think he ever got into colouring his stuff until he did his oil paintings and water colours. Edit - Just got to the part where Jim mentions making it up as he went. Barks mentioned during an interview in the 70s he started off every story he did with a final page gag so he always started with the ending and worked backwards. That was based on Barks' time as Disney where the story department would try to think of the last gag of the cartoon first and then work backwards because they were ostensibly gag cartoons that were made to be filler for theatres between news reels and the feature films.

There was a lot of hubris and greed at the core of the original split between Dell and Western that resulted in Gold Key Comics and the downturn in the market in the late 70's eventually finished them off. Western, as I understand it, had the licensing and a strong distribution network, and Dell was basically the packager, having started with their own titles at the very beginning of comics. Two Morrows did, at least, do an issue on Gold Key Comics. But the guy to seek out would be Mark Evanier, through his interviews or columns, or even a shoot interview, so he could also talk about Kirby, TV animation and all of the other facets of a multi-media career.

Is it just me or does that second page layout look like a christmas tree? The wavy panels are the branches that lead to a straight tree trunk in the bottom two panels.

I still just cannot think that Ed won’t be there next Christmas and every day till then. Thank you again for all you did for Comics and for us 🙏

Rock em Sock em robots have only been around since 1964, so that was really inventive of Barks

Fantastic story by Barks. Great video by you guys. It would be cool to see a video on Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey. The Phantom Blot is a lot of fun. Merry Christmas!

When my siblings and I were young, one of the highlights of Christmas was reading and re-reading our father's old collection of Dell Disney comics (including this story) at our grandparents' house. They were wisely stored there - very few of our own childhood's Gold Key comics survived the year-round access. Thanks for the timely video.

There’s an excellent book by Michael Barrier on the history of Dell called “Funnybooks” 👌

I remember reading this story as a kid. Magical! Guys, please make this "Carl Barks Christmas Story" a tradition, and more Carl Barks during the year!!

Rember when it came OUT WENT Of MY WHY TO GET IT. MR.BARKS WAS A GREAT PERSON TO TALK TO. WHEN I WAS STATIONED IN WEST COAST. HE LOVED HISTORY AND BASED SOME OF HIS STORIES ON IT.

Fun story and art! I have that SMITHSONIAN book and the newspaper comics book. Quality stuff. Have a great holiday, everyone.

Perfect choice for Christmas Eve! Thank you both for another great year of waking us up every day with upbeat enthusiasm and sharing your love for the medium of comics. So good!

Yes!!!!!!! More Carl Barks ducks!!!!!!!

I’d love that book

Please do a rdview of Don Rosa The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.

Suoerdope Holidayfabe! My mom was a golden age comics fan who supported my love of comics as a kid. It was a freaking joy pulling out my second copy of this Smithsonian tome and checking out Ducks with you. Keep the Barks and Stanley coming, please throw some Pogo down the channel too!!

Thanks for all the great content this year guys! You've inspired me to read more comics this year than I have in a long time. Would love to see an episode on the Trevor Von Eeden issues of Thriller. Keep on truckin and happy holidays.

Carl Barks is the number one. \o/

Merry Christmas guys.

I’ll help anyway I can. I was super have to contribute to Wizerd and I watch everyday, but I recently thought to myself I need to be commenting. Got to tell people you did the content they make. Thanks guys!

Carl Barks rulez!

This is one of my absolutely favorite comic book stories. Really great.

Evidently Scrooge McDuck first appeared in Dell Comics Four Colour Comics #178 "Christmas on Bear Mountain" Dec 1947

its so sad that Bark and Rosa never got the same popularity in usa compare to Europe. each time Rosa come to europe, this is an event, (i mean newspaper and tv station would talk about it) there is line forming in the street to see him but i've seen a few video of him in american convention and there is nobody there and i remember Rosa telling that the person that did show up in american convention were most of the time European. ps : i remember going see some family in the French caribean more than 20 years ago and even my grandma and uncle would read scrooge comic ( picsou magasine and super picsou geant ). before the internet it was everywhere and it was a way to spend some good and cheap quality time.

Fantastic book. I loved this, and my son would love it too. Nothing like those classic OG comics.❤

I checked this book out at my local library Sooooo many times. Thanks for the gift and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the Kayfabers!

Thanks guys! That was utterly fantastic. What a delightful way to spend a Christmas eve day - Carl Barks is simply great!

Thank you. Merry Christmas!

I have that book! I found it at the thrift store.

Merry Christmas fellas

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots came out in 1964.

Merry Christmas Eve boys

Great post ! Thank you for this channel. Merry Christmas to you both.

Merry Kayfabe Christmas!

Such a master. Seems like a random choice to spot blacks on the right side of the page? Notice the candle centrepiece between the top panels. He’s using a shadow motif across the entire page.