Page 13, bottom half

Synopsis: Donald has become a cargo pilot and he has to deliver a crate far up in the frozen steppes of Canada. The desolate place seems to have been taken over by a werewolf.

Barks' raw sketch

COMMENTS:

Loup-Garou (notice the more correct spelling with a hyphen) is the French name for a werewolf (Loup comes from Latin Lupus meaning Wolf, and Garou is an old French term Garoul meaning Werewolf).

In December 1966 Barks wrote to fan Michael Barrier, who had previously suggested a loup-garou story: I'm thinking of doing a 21-page script for Donald Duck, and the Loup Garou came to mind as offering an interesting gimmick for some of the gags. In the past I rarely bought any ideas, and my price was usually $10 for an idea as short as Loup Garou (two words). If you would care to let me use a Loup Garou in the Donald script, I'll gladly send you a check for $10. Can you let me know soon?. Barrier agreed...
After some correspondence Barrier, in January 1968, asked Barks if the story had lost its initial werewolf, and Barks replied: The thing you noticed about my 'Loup Garou' story is the sort of business I like to forget. Always there were decisions to make. Could a loup garou be a real werewolf? Could a witch be a real witch? How far can I stretch the ridiculous without getting in trouble with the office? How far can I push pure fantasy before some sophisticated 5-year-old kid complains that Donald Duck is only a fairy tale character like Hans C. Andersen's people? I leaned toward logical explanations of phenomenons in everyday terms and mechanics - just to be safe. I hate to go back into those old stories and relive the struggles I had, trying to make the explanations interesting and funny and not a dull let-down. Man! How I feel about a kid who yearns to make a career of writing and drawing comics - better, I say, he should take up something exalting and invigorating like sewer engineering.

Strobl rarely did any inking in his countless stories, although he is frequently perceived as an inker. Instead he churned out fine pencilled sketches, which several other artists would ink. (See more HERE.)