48 BARKS, CARL
Leipzig: Leipzig University, 2006; Gleason, Alan. “Keiji Nakazawa Interview.” Th e
Comics Journal 256 (October 2003): 38–56.
Pascal Lefèvre
BARKS, CARL (1901–2000). Th e American writer, penciler, and cover artist Carl Barks
was for many years one of the nameless artists collectively known as “Walt Disney” be-
cause of his work as a comic book creator for the Walt Disney Company. Barks was
most famous as the “duck man,” not only creating cinematic comic book adventures
for Disney’s favorite sailor suit-clad waterfowl, Donald Duck, but also developing per-
sonalities for additional duck characters (Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Elvira “Grandma
Duck” Coot, Gladstone Gander) who have found their own beloved places in the Dis-
ney character canon. Barks’s characters and stories were so infl uential that when the
duck characters were brought to afternoon television in the mid-1980s, the Disney
company decided to base the new series, Ducktales , on Barks’s Scrooge McDuck stories,
relegating Donald Duck to a minor player.
Barks was born on a farm in Merrill, Oregon. While he was brought up to be a
logger, rancher, or factory worker, at the age of 17 he, on a whim, took a correspon-
dence course in drawing. He then moved to San Francisco and on to Sacramento, but
was unable to fi nd employment as an artist in California. It took a move to Minneapo-
lis and a subsequent move to Calgary, Alberta, for Barks to fi nd permanent work as a
newspaper cartoonist.
In 1935, while still working in Calgary, Barks came across the news that Walt
Disney Studios was hiring artists for its animation department. Barks was initially
unimpressed with the character that would establish his notoriety, calling Donald
Duck “an unintelligible troublemaker that would fi nd very few roles suitable for his
temperament.” In addition to the fi lms, Barks was hand picked by Walt Disney him-
self to ghost write and draw the Donald Duck comic strip after a staff change in
- After a year on the Donald Duck daily, Barks thought he would be able to
retire from the daily rigors of comic strips and the Disney Company and become
a chicken farmer in his native Oregon. However, Western Publishing requested a
monthly comic book based around Donald Duck, and Barks was called out of retire-
ment in 1943 to pen the story “Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold” in the title Wa l t
Disney Comics and Stories , issue #23. He would continue to pen Donald’s comic book
adventures until 1966, creating some of the Walt Disney Company’s most enduring
stories not set to celluloid.
Barks’s most famous story is one that fi rst appeared in Dell Comics publishing com-
panies Four Color Comics issue #178 for July of 1947. Th e story that fi lled this entire
issue was entitled, “Christmas on Bear Mountain.” In the story, Barks introduced the
character of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, an anthropomorphized duck of Scottish ancestry
who is the maternal uncle of Donald Duck. After Scrooge’s fi rst appearance, Barks cre-
ated an extended history regarding the rise of a working-class Celtic immigrant to the
position of richest character in the Walt Disney canon of characters.
