Comic book writer and artist, creator of Uncle Scrooge.
Born Oregon, USA, March 27, 1901. Died Grand Pass, Michigan,
August 25, aged 99.
Despite the legend, the Walt Disney empire was not founded
on the creative genius of one man. While Disney was a superb
businessman, he was neither a brilliant artist nor a particularly
inventive writer, and his talented cohorts (even Ub Iwerks,
who designed and co-created Mickey Mouse) are often overlooked.
This is true of both the animated cartoons and the comic
books, all of which were "credited" to Disney.
Despite this, followers of the Disney comic books regard
the name of Carl Barks with even greater reverence than
Disney himself. Barks rarely received a byline for his work,
but his stories were classics, remembered decades later
by fans of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.
Several years after they were published, he was finally
recognised as a giant of the comic book field. His comics
added a new, more complex dimension to his world of the
Duck family. For children of the forties and fifties (including
fellow prodigy George Lucas, who remembered Barks's "unique
and special" stories), they were part of growing up.
Raised on an Oregon farm, Barks was a late starter in the
world of comics, despite an early interest in drawing. In
1918, with $US100 in his pocket, he moved to San Francisco
to become a newspaper cartoonist. Work proved elusive, however,
so he soon returned to the farm. A decade later, married
and working for a fruit company, he finally started selling
cartoons to the Calgary Eye-Opener in Minneapolis.
Left jobless by the Great Depression, he again tried his
luck as a full-time cartoonist, this time with more success.
In 1935, he signed on as an apprentice animator with the
expanding (and extremely popular) Walt Disney Studios. Within
months, he was regularly selling ideas on the side to the
comic strip department.
Noticing his talent in that field, Disney transferred him
to the storyboard department, where he invented sight gags
for some 35 short cartoons - many featuring Disney's newest
and most frenetic star, Donald Duck, with his nephews Huey,
Dewey and Louie. As Donald eclipsed the iconic Mickey Mouse
in popularity, and Disney's ambitions turned towards feature-length
cartoons, Barks was assigned to outline a feature called
Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold.
The astonishing success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,
however, inspired Disney to make features based on traditional
stories and fairy-tales. Pirate Gold might have been permanently
shelved, had Barks not been approached by Dell Publishers,
which produced the Disney comics. Barks, working with Disney
artist Jack Hannah, transformed Pirate Gold into a 64-page
comic book story, available on newsstands in 1941. This
was a thrilling adventure tale, allowing Donald to reveal
his less neurotic side. While the Donald of the cinema was
a bumbling, bad-tempered slapstick artist, Barks - understanding
both the limits and benefits of the comic book medium -
turned Donald and his nephews into adventurers. It was an
instant success.
Tired of the exhausting and prohibitive studio routine,
Barks left his salaried job at Disney later in 1942 (soon
after working on Bambi). Almost immediately, he was contracted
by Dell to run Donald's comic book life, writing both full-length
adventures and shorter, punchier stories.
For over 20 years, he would draw and (usually) write some
300 stories. His artwork was always impressive, whether
displaying grand spectacle or sharp comedy. But his true
genius lay in his scripts, especially in epics such as "Lost
in the Andes" (1949), "Luck of the North"
(1949) and "The Golden Helmet" (1952), whose continued
popularity (through numerous reprints) have proven them
more timeless than most comics of the period.
As Donald's world became more complex, Barks devised his
home town of Duckburg, introducing such new citizens as
the insufferable Gladstone Gander (as blessed as Donald
was cursed); and Gyro Gearloose, the nutty professor, who
most resembled Barks's self-portrait.
Most popular of all was Uncle Scrooge McDuck. First introduced
in 1947 as a grumpy old miser, forcing Donald and his nephews
on to numerous globe-hopping exploits (and allowing more
exotic scenarios), he was finally awarded his own comic
in 1952. In his own adventures, he was a more sympathetic
character: eccentric rather than greedy, retaining his money
for the sheer joy of bathing in it.
His 1952 Halloween tale "Trick or Treat", starring
Donald, was so visually and narratively spooky that a third
of the pages were removed before publication. Barks was
never assigned another Donald Duck epic, focussing on Scrooge
stories for the next decade.
It was not until after his retirement in 1966 that he was
revealed as the man behind these comics. Responding to appreciative
letters, he made some instant collectors' items: a splendid
series of oil paintings for the fans, featuring the Duck
family. Later, Dell persuaded him to write further scripts
for staff artists.
Until his recent illness, Barks never truly retired, continuing
to paint, and occasionally writing and drawing new stories.
His classic stories were most recently reprinted by Gladstone
Comics (named after his luckiest character) as a hardcover
series, Carl Barks Library, costing considerably more than
the 10-cent label that his work had attracted in 1941. (The
original Pirate Gold comic is now valued at over $US7000.)
All this adulation is justified. Apart from Uncle Walt
himself, few individuals have had such an impact on the
Disney legend. "Everything that's great about comics
can be found in the pages of Barks' Duck stories,"
said writer Ray Mescallado in 1999. "You either get
this or you don't, and God help you if you don't."
