A report from the drawing-table:
How "The Ten Avatars" was done.
An article from the Norwegian publication of that story, printed as fore- and afterword
to the story itself, which was in an extra, sold with the weekly no. 26/1996
Somebody told me that the readers of Donald (Norwegian weekly) would like to know how I write my complex, stories about Uncle $crooge, and that this special publication would be a good occasion to describe the process.
To draw the stories is simply hard work to get down on the paper what I decided to draw while I wrote the story. Just a couple of months at the drawing-table. Work, simply work. But the 3-4 weeks I used on writing the story is partly detective-work, partly puzzle, and not a small part is spend on looking out into the air, trying to find out how to make the story work. Now I will descibe the sometimes boring, sometimes funny process it is to do a story, from the beginning to the end.
I vaguely remember how it started. I knew that my next story had to be about Uncle $crooge, and I thought it was about time for a hunt after a fabled treasure. Something that young readers would like in the same way they liked the Carl Barks-stories about the hunt for King Solomons Mines for example. I remember that I took a look at the globe, and without much thinking I decided: India. Next step was to collect piles of books and National Geographic and start the search.
National Geographic is simple, I have all 50 years at home plus two walls with encyclopedias. Anyway I always start the search by vacuuming the local library for useful books. Next step is to browse through the stack of literature for a week and noting big and small. This is actually the funniest part of the comic-job, the searching! History is fantastically interesting, but I wouldn't have the same excuse for diving into a distant civilization if I weren't an artist. History in school is often about dates and names and you seldomly have time to go into the intrigues, mystery and heroic deeds - and deception - of real life which make history happen.
So I've never made myself a plot before doing the search, because the best plots are in the history books. The first piece of information I found was that the world conquering march of Alexander the Great took a sudden end when it reached India in 326 BC. The soldiers were suddenly caught by fear for an unknown danger. Here was a historic event: had old Alex's conquering of India stopped because of an awesome guardian of a grandiose city full of treasures, that could fascinate Uncle $crooge? Yeah, why not?
Next step was to find out what the unknown danger could be. The old India had more myths and Gods than any other Culture, so there was the next detective work. I borrowed half a dozen of books about Indian religion and mythology and browsed through them. The most interesting subject I found was the ten avatars. I imagined an old treasure chamber with a complicated safetysystem where the legendary helpers could come Uncle $crooge's rescue. But this brought me to the next problem I often have: I had more information than I could possibly show in that number of pages. These Avatar fellows appear as a set of ten, so I couldn't drop any. I wondered for a while if I should call the story: " The treasure of most Avatars" or "The treasure of all except 4 Avatars" , when the editor rescued me, if I added some pages we could make a special book. Phew!
Then I had to find references to the physical sorroundings for the story. I soon noted that a typical Indian temple is covered with statues from top till bottom with hundreds of god statues. What was I doing? I couldn't help drawing all these countless Gods. But then i discovered that the most interesting buildings was the cave temples digged into the - . Ha! No facade! The cave town in my story is inspired by the temples in Ajanta, a real lost city that the brittish tigerhunters fell over in 1819. The old Indians used 700 years to carve out the enormous collection of 29 temples. It felt like it took half that time to draw the same temples, but I guess I imagined that. The entrance for my treasure chamber is build on another cavechamber, the Ka(r)li-temple on the Deccan-plateau.
The forweword ends here, but was continued, as afterword after the story. So now is a good time for you too to read the story. You might want to save the text, so you aren't online while you read.
See a small scan of the first page, where you can find panels and photos of some of the temples.
The gate to the huge steps in my story is a copy of the Gate of the Deads in Angkor Thom, one of the fantastic temples the Indian Hindus build in Cambodia . Angkor is also a lost city that was found by Henri Mahout in 1800. It had been overgrown by jounge for 600 years and is model for almost all the lost cities you see in movies and comics.
The other gate, which is on the edge of the hidden valley, is drawn from the gate tp the big Stupa in Sanchi in Central-India. The public bath in my city with it's (quite important!) drain, is based on the great bath in Mohenjo Daro. It was a huge Indian city with 20,000 inhabitants which actually had water installed 4,500 years ago, when the europeans lived in huts and Stonehenge was brand new!
My lost city is supposed to be from Alexander's age. Historic Professors can probably object that some of the temples I used for models are build long time after that age. But I take my artistic justice to make the scene as interesting as possible. Another example to this is the enormous statue of Vishnu who guards the treasure chamber. I drew that after the classic posture of Shiva, the lord of the dance, but I changed it gentlu by placing Vishnu's discus, conch, sceptre and lotus flower in the hands of the statue. (Don't ask me to explain the symbolism in those things, I just mention it because you shouldn't think that I just make up a lot of nonsense.)
Movie fan, as I am, I couldn't start drawing (or writing) this story without also watching some old favourite-movies in the hunt for exciting references not to say a smart plot I could snatch! I watsched a couple of Kipling's tales about lost-treasure-temples: The Korda Brothers JUNGLEBOOK from 1942 and George Stevens' GUNGA DIN [I don't know the title! yikes...] from 1939. In that Cary Grant is threatened by a blood thirsty Kali-cult - that is the huge woman who knocks over and crushes the control table of the Avatars in my story.
And some details from the interior in the Palace of the Maharaja has it's origine in Asterix and the flying carpet. The Asterix albums are always splendid sources for valuable and precise references!
Talking about the Maharaja, he is the biggest change we made from the first script draft. Originally I had in mind to use the maharaja from Howdoyoustan (?), from Barks's classic about the enormious Cornelius Coot-statues. I love reuse of old Barks-favourites, but on this occasion my editor Byron Erickson talked me into make a new Maharaja for the sory. He thought that Barks' fellow wasn't the crook we needed for my story. $crooge's lazy elephant wasn't intended to have such an important role from the beginning. In fact the Maharajah was supposed to sell it to our naive friends to delay them. But on the way I grew so fond of the elephant that he had a bigger role.
And then... after having rejected page by page with notes that were never used; , after having written and faught with the dialogue and new versions of the script, after having pressed the plot into exactly 28 pages where every panel is like a piece in a puzzle, and after having sat by the drawing table for 8 weeks... so! THERE! The comic is finished! That simple!
Now it is yours and I expect you to use 11 weeks reading it. Oh well, 20 minutes in any case! And thanks for being a Donald-fan
signed
Don Rosa
Second page of the article, see a scan here:
I bought the comic where i found this article at a shop in Trondheim. I thank the shop-owner for having the issue.