BRIEF TIMELINE

1878: The enterprising 17-year old Egmont Harald Petersen starts a small printing press company manufacturing business cards and stationery in his mother's kitchen. It is named P. Petersens Bogtrykkeri after his mother Petrine who official manages the company, because her son was not of age.

1882: Young Egmont acquires the rights to the company.

1911: Egmont purchases a vast lot in Central Copenhagen, where the main premises are still situated.

1914: The company changes its name to Gutenberghus (House of Gutenberg), and Egmont dies in the prime of his life from a disease.

1936: The trading company EHAPA (partially named after Egmont's initials) is founded.

1948: The world's first Donald Duck comic book in Northern Europe is published in Sweden and Norway. Barks is represented from the beginning.

1949: The Danish Donald Duck comic book premieres one half year late due to paper shortages after the Second World War. Barks is represented from the beginning.

1951: EHAPA Verlag starts distributing Donald Duck comic books in German speaking countries.

1976: Egmont Publishing Ltd. starts distributing Donald Duck comic books in England.

1989 and 1990: Following the fall of the Iron Curtain Egmont gets a foothold in Eastern Europe and starts distributing Donald Duck comic books in 13 of its countries.

1992: Gutenberghus changes its name to Egmont.

1994: Barks visits Egmont.

THE BARKS CONNECTION

Already in the late 1930s Egmont showed an interest in acquiring the concession for Walt Disney's characters and stories for the Scandinavian market, but the outbreak of the Second World War put a blunt stop to the plans. So it was first in 1948 that Egmont's managing director for the magazine division, Dan Folke, had the opportunity to visit with the brothers Walt and Roy Disney in California in an attempt to get the sole distribution rights for Scandinavia.
The three men hit it off, and the official meeting developed into an informal dinner in Walt's home with the participation of the men's wives. The informality and beginning friendship is underlined by the fact that all 6 ended up washing the dishes together after dinner!
Needless to say that a mutually beneficial contract was signed, and an additional stroke of luck was that Barks was in full swing making his stories. His brilliant work greatly benefitted the sales figures in the USA, in Scandinavia, and eventually in the rest of the world...

THE BARKS RELATED PRODUCTS

Anders And & Co. 1/1949

Anders And på Grønland/1952

Guldbog 2/1985

Carl Barks' Samlede Værker 1

One of Egmont's many divisions deals with Disney's characters as seen in magazines and books, and a few of the Barks related products are mentioned here.
The flagship that started it all is the weekly magazine Anders And & Co. (Donald Duck and Company), which premiered in 1949. The contents of the magazine differed from the American WDCS magazine as the number of pages was restricted to 36, but it still had to contain a number of different Disney characters (hence the appendix '& Co.'). But Donald was the undisputed star from the beginning with a 10-pager in every issue. The first one to appear in Denmark was the story in WDCS086 'Volunteer Fireman'. In a typical issue you would find stories starring Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Chip'n'Dale, Grandma Duck, and Li'l Bad Wolf plus ½- or 1-page fillers with Donald drawn by Al Taliaferro. The magazine would end with a long adventure story featuring either Mickey Mouse (by Paul Murry) or Donald/Scrooge (by Barks). Such a story would typically run for three consecutive issues, which was no problem for Murry's stories as they were designed to run that way, but it was another matter with Barks' stories that were made as close-knitted opuses. This meant that the first panels in issue 2 and 3 had to begin with a summary thus brutally deleting some of Barks' often indispensable panels!
This problem was first solved when Egmont sporadically began to publish Barks' adventure stories in special 36-page issues in 1952. The first one was from FC0256 Luck of the North, which was titled Anders And på Grønland (Donald Duck in Greenland)! Somehow the editors had conceived the strange idea that the events should unfold there instead of north Alaska as in the original (see more HERE).
Over the years Egmont has published more and more elaborate magazines, albums, and books containing Barks' stories so that they have all been published several times. One such series was Guldbøgerne (The Gold Books), where the front covers featured Barks' paintings.
The ultimate publication is the recent Carl Barks' Samlede Værker (Carl Barks' Collected Works), a whopping collection of all the Disney stories Barks made plus a massive amount of relevant and explanatory articles.

THE MEETING

Egmont's official tour poster				The first press meeting				Before leaving Denmark, Barks drew and coloured this sketch. Only 54 copies were later printed
				Photo session on Egmont's rooftop

The two giants, Egmont and Barks, finally met in 1994. The meeting was arranged and paid for by Egmont, that for several years had tried to persuade Barks to pay the company a visit, but due to different circumstances (among others his wife Garé's deteriorating health) it was always postponed. But after Garé's death Barks felt ready to come to Denmark, and the two parties even agreed to make a 'day' of the event by arranging a giant European Tour, where Barks was to visit a number of European nations in a short span of time (see more HERE)!
Barks spent 5 days in Copenhagen going through a packed schedule, but he was able to depart with the memory of thousands of happy and dedicated fans of all ages having cheered him wherever he went.

THE LUCKY DIME

All Barks fans know about Scrooge's Number One Dime, which is supposed to also function as his lucky dime (see more HERE). But the special coin may not be Barks' invention after all...! In fact, young Egmont may have beaten him to the idea:
In 1878 when he went to fetch the machinery for his small printing shop he happened to discover a small coin (a Danish 25-øre) lying between the cobblestones in the street. He immediately picked it up, convinced of its luck-bringing abilities, and it has since been stored in Egmont's safe. Apparently, it still works its magic...