theeuropeantourgermany

Thursday
A few co-workers and I were granted special permission to drive our limousine directly to the plane when Barks landed at the airport. As we drove up to the aircraft coming from Warsaw, Barks and his crew were already waiting as it turned out that the plane had been 10 minutes early! We then went to fetch the luggage which came through without delay. Then Barks, professional as ever, sensed what awaited him behind the nearby door. He combed his white hair, put on a charming smile and entered the next room. Flashes from lots of photographers' cameras greeted him, and shortly after his first interview in Germany took off.
Then on to more tranquil surroundings at Hotel Schlossgarten. No fans. No photographers. At least not for a while. But at 5 p.m. we met with two TV-teams who came to film for the evening news.
Barks enforced a clever trick which he used to overcome the stress of his travels. He did his best to maintain a daily rhythm. That meant dinner at 6 p.m. The food was excellent - vegetables at last, our American guests exclaimed with joy - and the atmosphere was relaxed. We tried to solve the puzzle about Barks' origin. He told us about English, Swedish and Dutch ancestors but as for the latter he was not entirely sure if they had been Flemish or German-Dutch. We also talked about our national dishes and it turned out that Barks' mother had used the very same sort of seasoning spices as my grandmother and that he once used to gather the herbs.

Friday
At 8.30 a.m. Barks held his first radio interview at the hotel. He was in a terrific mood. I will always wonder about the great old man's physics. He seems to have better condition than I and nerves like steel. Now he was taken for a small sightseeing while I hasted to my office at Ehapa to check that all was ready for his visit. How could I ever doubt it?
As the limousine drove up in front of the steps the entire staff was waiting in the brilliant sunshine to greet The Grand Old Duck Man. Barks inspected Ehapa with great enthusiasm and promissed to autograph any comic books that my colleagues wanted signed.
Then I drove to Württembergischen Kunstverein where Barks would inspect the exhibition of his own paintings at little later. As I arrived some of the 7 TV-teams who had been invited to attend were already busy filming the paintings. When Barks arrived late in the afternoon he was met with warm applause before the press meeting started. Afterwards Barks had the opportunity to walk around among his paintings and he willingly commented upon them through a microphone while the TV-cameras were working.

Saturday
At 9 a.m. we drove to the TV-studios of SDR where Barks were seated in some kind of replica of Donald Duck's house. After the interview we had time for a quiet cup of coffee before going once more to the museum. The visitors - today many children and fans - received Barks as was it a rock concert. Barks greeted them all before entering the great hall called the Kuppelsaal. After two speeches, Barks replied briefly and the exhibition was opened.
We lunched in restaurant Kleine Teehaus. Beautiful surroundings, tranquillity, cool drinks, a plate of spaghetti - total relaxation. Then Barks decided that he would like to return to his hotel in order to autograph the remaining number of comic books from my colleagues at Ehapa.
Precisely at 6 p.m. Barks had a meeting with a group of Donaldists in the hotel lobby. He had a good time and impressed everyone with his great memory. He had all the details from so long ago safely in his head and the meeting lasted for twice as long as stipulated.

Sunday
A day of relaxation. I was busy in my office preparing for the stay in Munich, and Barks was preparing for dinner at Eckhardt Bültermann's residence. It had been decided to serve American food as a remedy for homesickness, and the evening turned out to be a complete success.

Monday
At 9 a.m. we went for a walk down the Königsstrasse. The passers-by behaved brilliantly. They all recognized Barks and smiled at him but he was tactfully left alone. He was even able to exchange some money and to buy mines for the pen which he used for all his signing.
After a hasty freshen-up back at the hotel we drove to the lord mayor's office. Once again, we were met by hordes of photographers who almost managed to trample Barks down. As the lord mayor Manfred Rommel and Barks later reappeared I managed to hand over a large Donald Duck plastic figurine that I had taken from my boss' desk the day before, and Barks autographed it for the mayor. He, in turn, presented Barks with a silver medal of the city. A reporter asked Rommel, if he would like to have been the mayor of Duckburg, and he responded that the difference might not be that big. He was promptly quoted by the newspapers!
We then went to the train station to catch the train for Munich. Barks obviously enjoyed the ride and we had lunch in the dining car. Not too bad, really.

When arriving at Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich we were met by the first press team which obtained an interview even before Barks reached his room. After a brief rest the first official press meeting began. As usual, Barks was in a sparkling mood, telling anecdotes, and the unthinkable happened - the journalists applauded him as he left.
The last thing on the day's program was a meeting with the Barks-specialists Wolfgang F. Fuchs, Klaus Strzyz and Michael Czernich. Barks was still relaxed an in good spirits. But at 7 p.m. Barks had grown tired and preferred not to eat dinner with us.

Tuesday
Barks had the morning off and we strolled along the Maximilianstrasse. At one point Barks decided to buy a Donald Duck tie and the female shop assistants went into ecstasy as they realized who he was. Then we entered the Augustiner Biergarten. Barks has a taste for good beer and gulped it with great pleasure.
In the afternoon we paid a brief visit to the Nymphenburger Schloss where we were met with another TV-team from SDR. They just needed a few additional shots. Barks seemed a bit nervous afterwards as he was just a few minutes away from the historic meeting with Erika Fuchs. He knew that she had been his foremost translator for a great number of years, and he asked how old she was. I answered that she was 87 years of age and he immediately replied: Oh, what a chick!
We all engaged in a nice afternoon coffee session and a few photographers were allowed to take pictures which clearly showed that the two historic persons were on the same wavelength. We even stayed for dinner.

Wednesday
The day started with a press meeting as usual. By now I was used to Barks' sonorous voice and enjoyable laughter. But still I clinged to his every word. Was that the sign of a true Donaldist? Unfortunately, a planned visit to the artist Gottfried Helnwein's Barks-exhibition had to be cancelled due to some unfortunate legal entanglements. Instead we inspected a comic shop before a meeting with the editors of 5 fanzines. I was glad to have been able to arrange this gettogether at the last minute, and Barks obviously enjoyed 'talking shop' with them.
We had Thai food for lunch. Barks and his managers had a craving for rice and we had a quiet meal.
In the afternoon we had a meeting with fans. I was worrying about Barks because of the heat, the crowds, and the photographers, but what did he do? He autographed endlessly, cracked jokes, gave interviews, smiled and waved, and felt like a fish in the water. At a point he approached me triumphantly and stated: This is the way to sell books! I was flabbergasted. He couldn't be anywhere near 93...
The day of departure was imminent. We said our official goodbyes at the evening dinner, thinking back on a most memorable visit.

Thursday
Already at 7 a.m. Barks and his managers left the hotel. In the meantime 4 large boxes filled with presents from fans had arrived. I made sure that the boxes were to be transported to Oregon and then we all went to the airport. At that point I realized that I did not have my camera with me, alas, no photos then, but I received a great big kiss from Carl instead as he went off. I already miss him...

Marion Egenberger

Carl Barks arrived in Stuttgart on schedule on June 23rd and went to visit Ehapa Verlag. Here the entrance hall had been decorated with actual size reproductions of original Barks artwork. (In fact, those marvellous pieces of work remained on the walls afterwards.)
A reception was given for the grand old duck man and editors working at Ehapa got a chance to chat with Barks and to get autographs. It was a happy occasion for all concerned, no doubt. As I am living in Munich where I do freelance (translation and editorial) work for Ehapa and for other publishers, I was not there that day and can only give this meagre description of the goings-on.

The first chance to see Carl Barks came on the evening of Friday, June 24th, when the exhibition of Barks' oil paintings was to be officially opened in the museum of the Württembergischer Kunstverein in downtown Stuttgart. I had taken the two-hour train ride from Munich to Stuttgart. I walked through the downtown section to the Schlossplatz looking for the museum. After a while I finally made out which of the museums was going to show the Barks paintings. It had flags with the Barks signature in huge letters in front of it. Outside the museum, sitting in the museum cafe, I met several Ehapa staffers, among them Ehapa's press officer, Marion Egenberger, who - along with Michael F. Walz, editor in chief of the German version of the Carl Barks Library - had been instrumental in organizing Barks' visit to Germany.
When the invited guests were ushered into the museum, they were met by a stunning sight: The Barks paintings (28 oils, 3 pencil sketches and a color copy of the painting made for Donald's 60th birthday) were arranged along the walls of a giant circular room which narrowed towards the top giving the impression you stood inside a giant egg.
People were walking around inspecting the paintings. There was a buzz of excitement in the air as people milled around talking in hushed awe, expecting the duck man. On one side of the hall several rows of chairs had been arranged, there was a speaker's platform with microphone, there were lights and TV camera teams.
Finally, people started sitting down, with many more standing there, facing the speaker's platform. It is hard to tell just what went through people's minds. I felt my heart beat slightly faster as word finally came that Barks would come any moment now.
And come he did. He was guided in by Ehapa people and by his managers Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby. The first impression was that of an elderly gentleman with a bright smile on his face. You would never have guessed that he is 93 years old. He was greeted by a standing ovation.
After a few welcoming words Bill Grandey went with Carl Barks to explain some details about some of the paintings. Then Barks and company were whisked away for some official function or a dinner, while the guests invited for the opening of the exhibit stayed around to enjoy canapes and cold beverages, and to continue marvelling at the Barks paintings.
After talking to some Ehapa editors and to Marion Egenberger who all told me just how impressed they were by Carl Barks' stamina, his willingness to please and his being a nice guy, I found out about how the arrangement for the guided tour through the exhibition was supposed to be the following Tuesday and Friday. I also got my first copy of the catalogue for the exhibition which looked very nice.

On Monday, June 27th, at Barks' hotel the moment of personally meeting him for an interview drew near. Finally, the big moment came. Carl Barks and Bill Grandey came in. We - my fellow interviewers and I - were all introduced, shook hands and sat down. (Incidentally, the Carl Barks handshake deserves special mention here. It was a very firm and strong handshake, almost like a lumberjack's handshake. Many younger people would envy him this youthful strength.)
There we were, meeting an idol, a comic icon, one of the greats. We were enthralled and enchanted by the nice person, Carl Barks is. Whenever Barks did not understand a question he was asked, Bill Grandey sort of re-asked the question so Barks would be sure to hear it.
We didn't lack questions. Neither did Barks lack answers. In fact, we got the impression that he knew every miniscule detail of his work. And he came up with details many people would never have thought of.
When I asked him about his sources for some of the stories I wondered if he had read James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon before doing his 'parody' about Trala La (instead of Shangri-La). I got the - classic - answer: Well, I didn't read the book. But I had seen the movie. Barks went on to say that he had written the story because the movie was so popular that he wanted to spoof it, but he also used it for a slight lesson in economics.
What did Barks think about meeting his German translator, Dr. Erika Fuchs? Well, compared to him he felt that, at 88, she was a young chick as compared to him. At this or another point in the conversation he joked about his hearing aid, making it whistle and telling us that, nowadays, this is the only way he can whistle after girls.
I ventured to say that, while the German translations had a quality of their own, I always especially liked the original editions and their plays on words, their language. Barks added to this that he always had felt his texts were a very important part of his stories. One of the most important tools for a writer is his dictionary. I have often gone over my texts counting the length of words. If there was a word with, say, 13 letters that did not seem to be exactly what I wanted I took a dictionary and looked up synonyms to find a word with, say, 11 letters that was more to the point. Yes, language is very important in bringing a story across.
What is Barks' favorite duck character? Well, Uncle Scrooge is closest to his heart, but there also is a lot of Donald in him, as well as a lot of Gyro Gearloose. Did he ever eat roast duck? Well, just once, but Barks found it was too heavy to suit his taste.
The scene with the bursting dam in Only a Poor Old Man and all of the coins spilling out had always fascinated me as a kid. Why did Carl Barks put it and similar large panels into his stories? Simple. I felt they were a nice change of pace in the stories. However, what those pictures helped save in storyline they easily made up for in additional work. Mostly they took longer to draw than if I had simply lenghtened the story.
We could have gone on and on, asking Barks about his comics, and in fact we did. We found out that Carl Barks does not like some of today's comics because he feels they are too violent for kids. Then Kathy Morby dropped into the room and approached our table. She asked Bill Grandey if Carl didn't want something to drink (which he didn't). Everyone felt that, despite the quiet unobtrusiveness of this question, the magic hour was drawing to a close. We pulled out comic albums for Carl Barks to sign and the magic hour came to an end.

The next morning I got up early as I had to go to Stuttgart to give guided tours through the exhibition. Response was fantastic. Every tour took about two hours split into the actual tour and a session of answering any open question. Posters for the exhibition were sold out on Thursday. The cloakroom attendant told me it was fantastic. Hundreds of Barks posters were sold while, for another exhibition taking place at the same time, only three posters had been sold, although they cost only one fourth the amount to be paid for the Barks poster.
While I was in Stuttgart, Barks finally met Dr. Erika Fuchs at her home in Munich. I was told that it was a very nice affair with Barks coming there like a shy caller, presenting Mrs. Fuchs with flowers. Both she and he had been worried about each other. Wouldn't this visit be a burden to him/her at his/her age? In this heat? After all, he/she is 93/88 years old. But, as it turned out, it was a swell afternoon.

On Wednesday I had been invited to see Barks again. I went on to his hotel where he was in a meeting with German and Austrian fan magazine editors. I snapped a few pictures and, not wanting to interefere too much the second time around, I only asked a few questions which had come up while giving the tour of his paintings.
One of my questions was why does Barks use such extremely bright colors, especially in the more recent oils? The answer: In the animated cartoons, Walt Disney wanted us to use very bright colors as he felt that was what really attracted people to them. I'm using bright colors for the same reason. I try to get them as bright as possible. When I'm finished I often feel they are not yet bright enough.
At the close of the meeting Barks cheerfully said goodbyes to all of us, shook hands, and left.

Aftermath.
The Barks visit had come and gone. It had left most of the people who met him highly elated having met a human being of such well being, good manners and high spirits, an artist who remembered most anything about his work and who was willing to share his ideas with all who came to see and to ask him.
To sum up Barks' stay in Germany, I can only say that everyone who met Carl Barks here was overwhelmed by his openmindedness, his wit, his rich memory and his simply being a great guy.
Oh, one final note comes to mind: The second time I saw Carl Barks in Munich, especially when he was listening to questions or reflecting an answer, I had the weird feeling that he looked very much like what Walt Disney probably would have looked like had he ever grown as old as Carl Barks.

Wolfgang J. Fuchs

Egenberger and Barks leaving the runway	Egenberger, museum director Martin Hentschel, Morby, Grandey and Barks	Rommel and Barks outside the Lord Mayor's office
Courtesy of Marion Egenberger	Courtesy of Marion Egenberger	Courtesy of Marion Egenberger

Visiting Erika Fuchs	Interview in a Donald Duck-house setting	Interviewed by Wolfgang Fuchs
Courtesy of Marion Egenberger	Courtesy of Marion Egenberger	Courtesy of Wolfgang J. Fuchs


Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart hosted a grand exhibition of Barks' oil paintings which had been flown in from USA. The oils travelled between Denmark, Italy and France to be displayed as Barks arrived. It was not as hard as would be expected to gather all the paintings from the original buyers, as they were all in the possession of only three American collectors: Kerby Konfer from Georgia, Steve Geppi from Maryland and the Carl Barks Studio in Oregon. Württembergischer Kunstverein and the Danish National Museum joined in publishing an elaborate catalogue depicting 13 of the oils (the official numbers were 50, 61, 70, 81, 91, 94, 100, 118, 119, 121, 123, 125 and 131) but despite the genuine efforts to make them look their best there was no comparaison to actually being able to see the real paintings. And of course thousands of fans and art lovers flocked to see the rare sight for the few days the exhibition lasted.