Is there anyone who has not read comics under his blanket when he really should be asleep? Comics are something that has characterized most childhoods and what would that be without the time of humorous and imaginative stories that you find in a comic book. A comic is a good tool for children who learn to read. It's most often easy and uncomplicated text mixed with many pictures. Because of this, the language is not always of very high standards, but comics are not for education but for pleasure.

History The origin of comics can be traced back to 20,000 B.C. to old cave paintings and the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians. History's first more classic comic strip with speech bubbles was The yellow kid by Richard Felton Outcault and came 1895. The expressions “comic” and “comic strip” arouse around year 1900 in USA. At that time all of the comics were humorous. Thus, it is in USA that the modern culture of comics was born. For about 30 years the comics appeared only in some local newspapers, daily or weekly. Each strip was often an own episode with no relation to the previous strip's story line. During the 1930's the comics had a substantial upswing. Comic books became more common also outside USA, among others in Belgium and France. Comics were made in lots of genres, like science fiction, adventure and criminal stories. At this time, several comic characters were born that are famous even today, like Tarzan, Secret Agent X9, and The Phantom.

Donald Duck Many comic book characters are based on animated movie characters, but the most well-known here in Scandinavia is probably Donald Duck.
	Donald Duck debuted with an insignificant minor part in Bert Gillets short film The Wise Little Hen 9 June, 1934. In August the same year, Gillet used him again in the film The Orphan's Benefit where Donald along with Mickey Mouse tries to entertain orphans by singing Mary had a little lamb and Little boy blue. But the mischievous orphans taunt and harass Donald leading him into a furious outrage. Thus, Disney had created its first real funny character. He continues to show up in movies with Mickey from time to time until
30 august 1936 when he was considered ready to have his own comic book. It was made by Al Taliaferro and he takes note of Donald's short temper.One reason for Donald's fame is that he is a good character to draw. He has a wide mouth and huge eyes which eaves you with many possible facial expressions. One of those who appreciate the ducks in Duckburg is the artist Don Rosa.

Don Rosa Don Rosa is probably the most famous Donald Duck artist today. Don Rosa’s style is similar to Carl Barks’s, a well-known artist from the 50’s, who Don always has looked up to. But his style is unique in many ways too. His stories often take place in historically correct environments with just the right amount of fantasy. He’s also a Master of Engineering which is perceptible when his stories sometimes contain correct physical reasoning, even though they are about Uncle Scrooge and other ducks.

To honour Carl Barks, Don always tends to hide the shortening D.U.C.K. (Dedicated to Unca Carl from Keno) in his comics. This circumstantial is one of the things that makes his works so popular, every single square is made carefully considering lights, shadows and detailed backgrounds. He made his first story about Uncle Scrooge, The son of the sun, 1986 and from that point it has just continued and he still makes comics about ducks. He makes, just like Barks, two different types of comics: about ten pages long stories about funny situations and jokes and the larger drama adventures that often take place in exotic places far from Duckburg. Three factors that distinguish comic artists from each other are style, choice of theme and composition. In all three areas Don Rosa is excellent as the most devoted and passionate of them all. It is artists like Don Rosa that has kept comics popular in spite of the videogames and it is comics like Donald Duck that will keep entertaining youths of the world for generations to come.

© 1997-2004 Freeway
Writers: Olof Sundin (olofsundin@gmail.com) and Anders Lundin (nv06-10@park.se).
HTML by: Joakim Strom Ramén (te05-02@park.se).