CARL BARKS. The name would draw a total blank stare from any Disney comic fan just a little more than a generation ago because all Disney comic books were 'stamped' with Walt Disney's signature only. But his art was recognized and treasured among the faithful Donald Duck readers. For a long time they knew that the stories about Donald were all made by different artists - easily seen in both the stories and the drawings - but one of them towered above all the others.
He became known as 'The Good Artist'. His scripts were ingenious, versatile and loaded with ideas and the drawings were teeming with energy, clarity and composition. And they could be read on different levels by children as well as adults. He was truly THE MASTER.

 

 

 

THE WORKING HOURS

Barks was a dedicated workaholic finishing an impressive average of 200 pages per year (with the stunning record of 358 pages in 1960). He worked from 1p.m. to 10p.m. with rests inbetween. He enjoyed the solitude at the drawing board and had no hobbies or special interests. TV was boring to him.
On rare occasions when he was 'lured' out he liked to visit the cinema and see Westerns. He almost never took a vacation and his first trip abroad occured late in his golden years.

THE INSPIRATION

When scripting a story, Barks usually began with the ending. He would dream up a climax and then he asked himself how the characters would end up in such a predicament. Several plots were based on many of the jobs he knew from his younger days when he was working different fields in a 20 year period.
But Barks never really did know from where he got his inspiration. The Hawaiian born Margaret Williams - called Garé and Barks' third wife - once divulged that her husband used to keep pencil and pad ready on the nightstand because he got a lot of ideas in his dreams.
When Barks had written a few pages of a story he would start to sketch a little - and then he wrote some more. About two thirds through the process he would do a layout of the entire story to make it conform with the required number of pages. A typical ten-pager was usually written in 4 days and drawn in 6. A total of 10 days.

  


At the drawing board

THE DRAWINGS

Barks used pencil, ink and brush and a special German paper manufactured in the format 406x584mm. It was divided across and he would finish one part at a time.

From his cartooning days at Disney's he had been taught the importance of action enabling the film to unfold smoothly. He used this bit of learning into his comic book pages in such a way that he always made sure that the last panel of a page would build up the readers' curiosity and 'force' them to have a look at the next page.
The story was finished and transformed into sketches using a blue pencil. Because of the technical process used the blue colour lines will not be visible in the final production stage. This enabled Barks to do a lot of layouts without having to erase afterwards. The characters would usually be centered and the remaining elements of the panel would be placed up harmoniously around them.


The man behind the duck

   When the drafts for a story were ready, Barks would put them up in a preliminary order on a board. When producing a ten-pager he easily made the equivalent of 15 or 20 pages and he later had to abandon several ideas (sigh!) and try to compress the rest.

The text was also sketched using a blue pencil, and Barks always took great care in making the words concise and to the point (I will rather use one word instead of four).

THE WORDS

Barks took an extremely long time forming the words. Under no circumstances would he belittle his readers or put in meaningless dialogue. The text always had a close connection to the characters who in turn had distinctive facial expressions which contributed to the pictures. He never used repetitive drawings in the stories.
He polished the dialogue and then re-polished to the point where the words expressed exactly what they were supposed to. No wonder adults love reading Barks' comics.

I always tried to write a story in such a manner that I wouldn't mind buying it myself, he once modestly proclaimed. He continued: I know that I was expected to write for an audience of 12-year olds. But my faith in the 12-year old's intelligence was greater than the publisher's. In my opinion the kids should have relevant experience for their 10-cent.
Then Barks inked the characters starting with the faces.

Garé assisted by finishing the lettering which her husband detested. She would also ink the large black areas as well as drawing a number of backgrounds (she was a skilled landscape painter). Garé began in 1952 and continued until Barks retired.

THE PAYMENT

The payment was by no means lavish but matched the average pay for a typical american worker of the time. Barks received a maximum of 45.50 dollars per page divided between script 11.50 and drawings 34.00.

THE CENSORSHIP

Barks was always very particular with his ideas and words because he was terrified that the publisher might reject his material. Subsequently, it only happened on rare occasions that he was asked to redraw a few panels.

In the beginning, Barks made thorough directions about the colouring he wanted in the panels, but it inevitably ended up being the publisher's choice. So he gave up trying to control the colours. If I asked for a yellow desert, you could be sure it turned out red, he once sighed during an interview.

  


At the easel

Another thing that irritated Barks was that Disney's could not accept 'real' people in the comics. He was allowed to draw characters who resembled people but they were to be fitted with dog noses, snouts or beaks. Despite this rule, Barks actually succeeded in drawing real people in as many as 20 of his stories. The best known is FC0308 Dangerous Disguise in which he filled the entire story with real crooks and real women. The latter even had voluptious shapes. The editor surely must have been in a good mood the day Barks got that story accepted!!!


Selfportrait of a pensioner

  

THE WINDING-DOWN PERIOD

Barks' last stories lack some of the glow and adventures from the golden period which Barks himself openly admitted. Most of the stories were now situated in Duckburg but his art was still intact; the figures by now may be characterized by lifelong routine but they had long since found their best form and expression.

The intensity and narrative joy of the scripts tended to decline some - although every other artist surely would give a month's pay for an idea of Barks' standard - but his concise and serene scripting continued undisturbed.

THE RETIREMENT

Officially, Barks stopped on June 30th, 1966, feeling burned-out but he continued sending in scripts for the comic book series ’Huey, Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks’ in which the nephews were the leading characters as boyscouts. There were 24 somewhat weak stories for which Barks provided sketches which were then inked by different artists.

Additionally, Barks drew a few frontpages for a number of Disney's many comic books. The last one was made for GoldKey No. 25 ’Donald & Daisy’.

In 1971, a fan requested an oil painting with a duck motif at a price of 150 dollars(!!!). Being the gentle man he was, Barks asked Disney's if he might undertake such a task (the ducks are the property of Disney's) and to everybodys astonishment he got permission. Barks succeeded in producing 122 paintings before Disney's put an end to the 'adventure' by waving complicated copyright rules about. He then calmly went on painting fantasy characters of his own. But that's another story...

 


THE LAST WORD

I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn't a person in the United States who couldn't identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make. He is sometimes a villain, and he is often a real good guy and at all times he is just a blundering person like the average human being, and I think that is one of the reasons people like the duck.


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Carl Barks died August 25th, 2000

 The Master will never be equalled ...

 
http://www.cbarks.dk/THEMASTER.htm   Date 2002-01-27