Carl Barks made more than 500 comic book stories featuring characters from Disney's duck universe, and they were all published in the usual format, in which the panels were spread over pages containing 2-4 panels in a row and 3-5 tiers per page. Except one! It was made in 1947, entitled Donald Duck's Atom Bomb, and published as an oblong, one-tier pocket-size comic book story also known as a strip story*.
Barks had nothing to do with the special appearance of his work, he had nothing to do with the very special distribution, and he had nothing to do with the censorship that Disney soon after enforced on the story, either. To him it was just a story. This is the story of Barks' story.

* Technically, a strip story is defined as a narrative sequence of cartoon panels published in a horizontal layout.

 

 

 

THE PUBLISHING


Copy of the original publication CG Y1 (cover drawn by Carl Buettner)

The first publishing of Barks' story never found its way to the stores, nor was it ever sold! The reason was that it was launched as a so-called Giveaway distributed to specific readers.

In the 1940s the General Mills corporation, owner of the major cereal product, Cheerios, launched massive campaigns, in which they mailed newly-written Disney comic book material to customers who had sent in a cereal box top. In 1947 the Cheerios customers received an oblong, one-tier pocket-size comic book containing stories starring many different Disney characters such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Brer Rabbit. For their campaign Cheerios issued 4 sets named W, X, Y, and Z and each set contained 4 issues numbered from 1 to 4 - in all 16 books with 32 pages in each. Barks' story could be found in the Y-series as number 1.


One of Cheerios' advertisements promoting the Y-set

 

THE STORY

Title: Donald Duck's Atom Bomb
Publishing year: 1947
Code: CG Y1 (Cheerios Giveaway #Y1)
Layout: One-tier panels in a 30-page booklet


Synopsis:
Donald invents a bomb that just goes 'fut' instead of 'boom'. Donald seeks the help of two professors, the kind Mollicule (who insists on calling our inventor Professor Duck(!) and Sleezy, who is later unmasked as a spy eager to possess Donald's invention. His heavy accent indicates he has German roots. As it turns out, Donald's invention makes people lose their hair, but he manages to turn the calamity to his own benefit by selling another invention to grow hair on the bald.

 
               
                     
               

 

THE INSIGHT

Barks made his story in the heated days when scientists tried to create the ultimate weapon. Building an atom bomb is not a job for private persons. At the time, it took thousands of highly skilled scientists to achieve the result that was revealed by the USA in the last months of the Second World War.
The world was horrified by the power of the atom bomb and the devastation it caused in Japan in 1945, and one can only wonder why Barks deliberately chose an atom bomb as the main gadget. Of course, Barks would not dream of letting Donald construct a plausible, devastating bomb, so instead he went for a special one which emanated radiation rays that 'just' made people lose their hair.

But Barks' bomb references were both plentiful and chilling enough. Here are a few pieces of dialogue from the story:
Donald: I've done it! I've invented the mightiest power of the ages! An atom bomb - no less!
The nephews respond with ridicule: That thing an atom bomb? Haw! Haw! - You've been reading too many books! - Up and Atom!*
Donald: Half a drop will make a big enough explosion! A whole drop would wreck all the houses in the block!
Professor Mollicule: The rays from the explosion travel through the air and dissolve whatever it is they dissolve! - If they dissolve steel, the bomb will be the mightiest weapon in the world! - Whole cities could be crumbled! And later, after the bomb has been activated: Run for your life! The rays from the explosion will spread over this whole area!
Narrative comment: The ghastly rays, like a gust of unseen wind, sweep toward the city!

All in all, despite the comical elements, Barks did make a fairly accurate dialogue especially considering that the effects of the real atom bomb was not at all common knowledge at the time**.

* A common saying at the time. It derived from an American B-29 Superfortress bomber plane named Up An' Atom, which was configured to carry an atomic bomb. The name is a word play on the idiom 'Up and at them', meaning 'There is a lot of work to do' referencing to the bomber unit's atomic mission. Incidentally, Barks also used the saying in FC0275 Ancient Persia.

** Interestingly, Barks had, on an earlier occasion, ventured out on thin ice on another object that was about to conquer the world in endless shapes and for innumerable purposes. In the 1940s the plastics industry was in its infancy, producing a weak and brittle plastic, but the material was never so poor that it would melt in water as it did in Barks' last animated short cartoon Plastics Inventor from 1944, in which Donald bakes a plastic airplane that dissolves in a rainstorm. Obviously, Barks did not know much about the new material at the time.

 

THE BAN

The original last panel


A newer version
 

Barks' work was distributed through Western Publishing, that had a license from the Walt Disney Corporation to sell comic books that primarily included characters from the Mouse and the Duck universes. This meant that Disney never saw the comic books until after they had been published, so they were unaware of potential problems.
When that happened in this case, Disney banned Barks' story from further publication for several reasons! They argued that the whole story was 'mean spirited', Donald's general attitude was too harsh, and they objected to him selling his hair restoration elixir thus earning money on people's misery.

The ban has never been lifted, so today any reprints are in compliance with Disney's wishes.
The story has even been completely redrawn by the Dutch artist Daan Jippes with several changes in the text. Furthermore a few panels were redrawn with diverse alterations. Up and Atom...

 

 

EXTRA


Copy of the original publication CG W1 (cover by Carl Buettner)

A curiosity: Issue CG W1 was titled Donald Duck and the Pirates and written by Barks' editor Chase Craig and drawn by Jack Hannah, the artist Barks worked with on his first story FC0009 Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold.
The Cheerios story follows the two artists' original story quite closely (several panels are copies!) and co-stars Captain Yellowbeak as well as Black Pete and his henchmen. Craig and Hannah also incorporated a Captain Hook (no, not the one from the Peter Pan universe!) in their story.

 

 


http://www.cbarks.dk/THESTRIPSTORY.htm

  Date 2013-03-01