Walt’s People vol.30

I just received the latest volume of Walt’s People that was published earlier this month. This series is a collection of mostly interviews, but also other texts all about people that have worked on various Disney projects. Everything from animators, writers, voice actors and even a casting director in this book. But my main interest is comic books, and this book has an interview with Carl Barks that I was curious about.

The interview is made by the Italian Disney comic writer Carlo Chendi in November 1974. It's printed over 7 pages in this book, with short and direct questions and answers. If you have been reading other books or interviews with Carl Barks there's not much new and interesting details here – but it's a nice little early interview and was probably of great interest for fans back in the 70's.

The Carl Barks Collector and Die Kunst der Comics

It's not the first time this interview has been published. I have it in both in The Barks Collector #25-26 and a translated version in the German book Die Kunst der Comics. And it's partly also used in the Italian La Grande Dinastia dei Paperi (and translated editions). It would be strange if it wasn't published in some other Italian fanzine or magazine in the 70's too.
 

The interview in The Barks Collector and Die Kunst der Comics

For some reason Chendi is credited as Chantal in The Barks Collector, and there is some conflicting info about when and how the interview was conducted in the various editions. I talked to Simone [check out his blog Eco del Mondo] that provided the interview for this book, and he got this version directly from Carlo Chendi. Chendi never met Barks until the Europe tour in the 90's when he visited Italy, so the info about visiting his home as said in the Barks Collector must be wrong. It was probably done through mail correspondence.
 

Walt's People Master Index

But it's great to have this interview collected in Walt’s People and more available for anyone interested. While most of the content in this series is about people that hasn't worked on comic books, there are some interviews with comic creators in-between, including another one with Carl Barks in volume 8. For a full list I recommend the Walt's People Master Index, that you can find over at The Imagineering Toolbox. Here's a link to the post about the update for volume 30, but I'm sure the index will be updated for future volumes as well.