The Comic Book: Carl Barks

While reading for the forth week of class, Carl Barks' comics with Donald Duck were the most surprising to me. Although I grew up knowing Donald Duck's character, I had only watched the cartoons, and never read the comics. As a kid I found myself annoyed by Donald, mostly because of his voice but also his general manner of conducting himself. When it came down to my juvenile judgement, I always preferred other cartoons above Donald Duck.

However, I found that I did not have those hints of disgust while reading the comics. The Mad Chemist was one story that I read, and although Donald was still quite aloof, I found that it was enjoyable, and that the comics are much more appealing to me than the television cartoons. I think that this difference is due to the increased participation that is required of the audience in reading comics.

This characteristic relates the idea of audience participation with different kinds of media. With digital storytelling such as movies or television shows, the activity is external, and all that we have to do is ingest what is in front of us. Comics become much more personal because we fabricate the missing aspects of the story in our minds, which activates our imagination and increases our personal investment in the story. In other words, my experience with Donald Duck varied between the cartoons and comics because of the distinction between projected reality [comics] and physical reality [animation]. I believe that because of my imaginative nature, I am much more drawn to the internal activity that reading the Donald Duck comics allows as opposed to the forced imagery of animated stories.