THEBOOKTITLES

It has often been proven that Carl Barks was willing to walk the extra mile in his different jobs*. This was never truer than in his work with comic book stories. None of the contemporary duck artists came even close to matching Barks' unprecedented dedication in all aspects of the process; not only did Barks both write and draw the stories (which was fairly unheard of at the time), he also filled his panels with inventive, secondary characters and precise, realistic backgrounds. Furthermore, he spent an abundance of time dreaming up strange or hilarious names for locations, characters, and objects (just think of the Junior Woodchucks' impressive titles!). This page offers examples on Barks' inventiveness in one niche in the field of objects - book titles.
Remark: You will look in vain for the only recurring book in Barks' stories, namely the Junior Woodchucks second-to-none manual. This is because it never received an official title; usually it is just loosely referred to as The Guidebook.

* During his cartooning years at the Calgary EyeOpener Barks worked more or less as a one-man army in order to keep the ailing magazine afloat, at the Disney Studios he made fairly meticulous storyboard drawings and contributed gag ideas for other departments, his comic books overflow with unforgettable plots and detailed drawings, and his paintings were reworked and polished on a regular basis and they are teeming with tiny details.

War and Peace

The King of the Golden River

The Egg and Us

20,000 Leagues under a Flatcar!

Feebunkle's Fix-It Guide

History of Wind

So You don't Believe in Witch Doctors?

Up and Atom

The Secret of My Billions

REAL

Barks would occasionally 'smuggle' real, or real based, book titles into his panels where they would seem fitting and enhancing. Donald read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace in WDCS063 while the nephews were fighting in the yard, he read the Grimm Brothers' Goldilocks and the Three Bears in WDCS110 in order to play Goldilocks, Dewey read John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River to a depressed Scrooge, and the nephews stumbled over Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in WDCS127 when scouring through the city dump! Also, Betty McDonald's The Egg and I is easily recognizable in Barks' version The Egg and Us read by Donald in the square egg story in FC0223...

Barks also used a common title such as The Fall of Rome (WDCS264) only to elaborate on it by titling other books in a similar way in the same story; The Toppling of Troy and The Crushing of Carthage.

Other titles are not necessarily published, but they certainly seem plausible. Examples are Kit Carson (WDCS036), The Life of Thor (U$21), and Drake's Atlas (WDCS081).
As for the latter it did probably not escape Barks' attention that Drake could very well be the navigator Francis Drake, but also that a drake is a male duck!

In U$16 Scrooge is browsing through a book titled The Search for Murphy's Bridie which is a clear reference to a book about an American housewife who claimed to have lived an earlier life as an Irish girl, Bridey Murphy, in the first half of the 19th century. Barks elaborated on his slightly distorted book title by adding a few more books in the panel: Quest for Tidie Brophy, Search for Lydie Burfee, and Paging Grace Macy...

THEMATIC

Through his comic book career Barks presented what can almost be called a How To-series of thematic books in the sense that they bore the same main titlings. Some supported the story plots while others just were there for laughs. The titles are:
How To (WDCS255), How not To (WDCS255), How to Act (WDCS217), How to be a Cowboy (WDCS055), How to be a Sleuth (WDCS061), How to Build Mighty Muscles (WDCS069), How to Die Rich (U$56), How to get Along with Your Enemies (U$38), and How to Sail a Boat (MOC41).

ENIGMATIC

Some of Barks' book titles give little or no meaning; in fact, they come through as rather puzzling. As in these examples:
Why (WDCS099), Oh, So? (WDCS099), Man, Oh Man! (WDCS192), Man vs. Lion (FC1055), Gems for Free (WDCS143), Care of Coo-Coos (WDCS175), and 20,000 Leagues under a Flatcar! (WDCS192).
The latter's bubbling, hilarious nonsensicality has - partly! - a clear reference to Disney's film 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

EDUCATIONAL

Several of the book titles Barks used indicate an educational - or at least informative - angle. Here are some quite diverse examples:
Feebunkle's Fix-It Guide (WDCS161), Bad Tempers and how to Control Them (LCB), Catalog of Rare Coins (WDCS130), Stagecraft (WDCS217), Advice to Our Dog-sitters (WDCS238), Child Raising (WDCS169), Catalogue of Rare Stamps (FC0422), Children and what to do with Them (LCB), Garden Guide (WDCS214), Music and what It does to You (WDCS085), and Words of Wise Men (WDCS032).

SCIENTIFIC

Not many of the book titles have a scientific air about them, and the few that Barks dreamed up could not - considering the overall subject - be very funny:
Archeology - How much does it Cost? (U$25), Ante Bellum (FineArt), Chemica Curiosa (U$10), Physica et Mystica (U$10), Manual of Arms (WDCS094), History of Wind (WDCS099), and Science of Flipism (WDCS149).

RHYMING

A few of Barks' book titles play on certain words' similarities. Here are some examples:
Guff and Stuff (FC0275), Dis and Dat (WDCS098), Cattle Battles (WDCS214), Reef Grief (WDCS255), Who's Who - Who's Thro' (CP1), Cook Book (WDCS210), and Putt Putts (WDCS255).
The latter one could very well be expected to refer to a golf story, but being a story of a boat race Barks used the title as an Onomatopoeia, i.e. a sound imitating term, for - a spinning motor...

ENTERTAINING

Some of the book titles seem entertaining and funny enough to deserve some scrutiny had they been real books. These are examples:
Boring Tales (FC0159), Dramatic Poses and Queenly Stances (FC1055), Far-Out Stories (WDCS249), Hokum (WDCS099), So You don't Believe in Witch Doctors? (U$32), Windy Words (WDCS151), and Up and Atom (FC0275).
The last-mentioned was a common saying at the time. It derived from an American B-29 Super Fortress bomber plane named Up An' Atom, which was configured to carry an atomic bomb. The name is a word play on the idiom 'Up and at them', meaning 'There is a lot of work to do' referencing to the bomber unit's atomic mission. Barks did, in fact, use the phrase already in 1945 in CG1 Donald Duck and The Atom Bomb.

SCROOGE

Scrooge is not known as being an avid book reader, so it comes as no big surprise that his reading relates to his work. In multiple panels we have seen stacks of books titled (examples) Bills (U$05), More Bills (U$16), Bills Too (U$16), Bills Overdue (U$05), and Bills Long Overdue (U$05).
Some of his more specialized interests are presented, too. In U$13 these books were his favourite 'literature': Oil Wells Drilling, Oil Wells Flowing, and Oil Wells Kaput...

Despite his apparent lack of interest for literature Scrooge is, in fact, the only one in the duck family who can call himself an author! Of some kind. In the one-pager in U$32 he actually published a book titled The Secret of My Billions. It contained nothing but blank pages, though!