The Comic Book

When exploring some of the original comic books I saw a huge sift in story telling take place when compared to the comic strip. With the comic book the narrative of the comic is able to evolve in much more complex ways. With the rise of the comic book medium, authors are able to bring a lot more to the table when it comes to the narrative.

As I read “Uncle Scrooge Back to the Klondike” by Carl Barks I found myself whole fully engaged in the story to a degree that I found surprising. I did not expect to find myself deeply interested in an old Donald duck comic from the 50’s, but I was wrong.  I was expecting a line of cheesy gags, but Scrooge McDuck’s story was extremely well paced and leads me through the story in a manner that grasped my attention. What impressed me the most was the comics ability to move back and forth between flash backs seamlessly with out any confusion on my part on what is going on. It almost felt like watching a movie. What probably gave me that feeling was the ways Barks transitions between panels. The way the panels where organized seemed to follow the many of the rules applied to good film editing. Which includes all aspects of cutting to continuity.

In the visual sense many of these comic book panels reminded me of a story board for a movie, but the writing pushes narrative so well that it feels like reading an actual book or novel, hence “comic book”.  I would love to know what the writing team looks like for one of these Donald Duck thrillers looks like, because the story must have to go through mill a few time to get it so polished.