Joe Gulick read this piece here (and probably others) and he writes to ask…
I was not familiar with the remarkable work of Western Publishing comics editor Chase Craig before I read about him in your blog, I began my love of comic books with Dell Comics and am very interested in Western, which also later published Gold Key comics. You said Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck stories were among the many books he edited and wrote how Barks told you when you first met him that you were lucky to be working with Chase Craig.
I would like to know from Chase Craig’s perspective about what it was like to work with Barks. I know Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories was very popular and would assume Barks comics were among his best selling comics. It is interesting to me that of all the millions of readers worldwide who have enjoyed Carl Barks duck comics that Chase was likely the very first person to read so many of those wonderfully clever, creative and entertaining stories.
A brilliant and prolific creator such as Barks was a great asset to Western Publishing. What was it like for Chase to be his editor?
We talked about this and Chase thought Carl was a true treasure. He felt that way about a lot of the writers and artists who worked for him but he certainly felt that way about a man like Carl who never gave him any trouble. The work would come in on time and it was loved by everyone in the company and — and this may have been more important — almost everyone at Disney. The only exceptions at Disney were a couple of guys who didn’t feel that Barks was drawing Donald “right.” To them, Al Taliaferro — who drew the Donald Duck comic strip — drew Donald properly and Barks didn’t. Chase dealt with this by going over their heads to Walt and getting him to rule that what Barks was doing was acceptable.
Chase said that being Barks’ editor was easy. One of Chase’s main contributions was to decide what order to print the stories in. The folks at Western worked way ahead of schedule on the ongoing books. A new book — something they weren’t yet certain would be published indefinitely — might not get too far ahead but there was nothing wrong with Carl being months and months ahead on stories of Donald or Scrooge. That meant that Chase could swap around stories. If Carl did something that was a little similar to something he or another writer had done that could have come out at the same time, Chase could move stories around and put a little distance between them.
One of the things I learned from Chase was that in most cases, the best editing is the least editing. And it’s also about creating the right environment in which the work can be done and to have the right relationship with The Talent.
According to Chase, the biggest problem with Carl was that he kept saying he was burned out on the ducks and couldn’t come up with another story. Every so often, he’d ask to be switched to something else. Chase would usually want him to stay right where he was so he’d sweet-talk or maybe give Carl the germ of an idea. But it really was a harmonious relationship and obviously, fine work resulted from it.
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