SCROOGE McDUCK

Scrooge may well be the character that changed the most through time; he started out as an old, rheumatic uncle and evolved into a youthful, lively miser. This new character instantly became somewhat of a lifesaver for Barks, who, at the time, was beginning to experience difficulties dreaming up plots for his other ducks. But with Scrooge the ideas came pouring in again to such an extent that the publisher began a whole new comic book series starring the old miser.

GYRO GEARLOOSE

As mentioned above, Barks further developed his new characters if they needed adjustment. But with Gyro he unintentionally trapped himself; he had introduced Gyro as a tall chicken, and as such he was very hard to fit into the panels with the short ducks. Barks developed Gyro's inventiveness to such a degree that Gyro hardly ever invented anything that could be used in real life! Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that Barks had a heyday dreaming up crazy inventions for Gyro...

LITTLE HELPER

The small stickman was created by Barks in order to fill the numerous panels in which Gyro was 'just' seen inventing and talking to himself. Despite his obvious lack of facial expression and silence he often upstages Gyro, and Barks slowly developed him to take a more prominent position. No doubt that Barks liked the character. He once stated: If I had stayed on a few more years, he would have had his own comic book.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Most comic book artists would treat secondary characters as a necessary evil; they filled important roles in the stories, but the artists would not dwell too long on their appearances not to mention build up some memorable characteristics. This was not the case with Barks; his secondary characters were often the product of careful thought, and the results are proportionally striking - even today we fondly remember most of them, although many just appeared in one story. Here is a selection from the latter group:

PEOPLE

Barks was able to construct highly memorable people with strong personalities using very limited means. For FC0223 Lost in the Andes he drew strictly square-looking inhabitants living in a village, and for U$13 Land Beneath the Ground he drew strictly round-looking inhabitants from the underground. And for FC0238 Voodoo Hoodoo Barks drew an extremely soulful(!) zombie, who oozes of personality without even having to say or do anything!

BIRDS

Many of the birds that Barks created for small roles were very talkative which greatly added to their personality - and to our remembering them! Who will ever forget the obnoxious, prune-eating mynah bird in WDCS222, or the endlessly counting, tired looking parrot in FC0282 The Pixilated Parrot, not to mention another - more lively - parrot constantly presenting himself as A Guy named Joe from Singapore in WDCS065?

MONSTERS

Even what we usually think of as cliche monsters are easily recalled, because Barks equipped them with individual and disarming personalities. Who can forget Gu, the abominable snowman, fully dressed up with funny objects in U$14 The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan, the jovial looking giant dragon in U$12 The Golden Fleecing, or the lovable, dancing sea serpent in FC0318 No Such Varmint?

SCROOGE'S WORLD

Through time Barks added greatly to the glamour surrounding Scrooge's increasing wealth. He introduced such unusual objects as the Money Bin filled with acres of cash (even his office floor is covered with coins), a lucky dime, and a worry room. Barks also invented Scrooge's famous money swim. How does he do it?, Barks was once asked: I don't explain that trick because I don't understand it myself. Perhaps it has something to do with his character: Often he can do things which other people can't. He can go out in the desert and smell the presence of gold; other prospectors would have to dig mountains of dirt before they could find any nuggets.

GYRO'S WORLD

Barks quickly turned Gyro into an inventor of colossal proportions concentrating on handing him the craziest inventions. Many of them were made to order such as Grandma's Dirt-to-Produce-Machine, Scrooge's Bike-Saucer, and the several solutions to secure the Money Bin. Others were only seen in the background of the panels, used as filler, such as a dark light bulb to create gloomy places, a hot ice maker, and an upside down mirror. Not to forget Gyro's greatest invention, Little Helper, a small metal man that he has given life(!!!), and who was constantly rummaging in the background without Gyro even noticing him.

DUCK FAMILY'S WORLD

The Duck family has travelled the world and discovered a lot of valuable and strange objects; a golden helmet, a magenta stamp, and square eggs are only a few examples. On the home front they have been dealing with as diverse objects as a hypnotizer gun, sofa taxis, and a giant kite. And when Barks invented the impressive Junior Woodchucks organisation the members were soon equipped with elaborate medals, animal call whistles, and an astonishing Guidebook which seems to contain all the knowledge in the world!

The long adventure story FC0159 Ghost of the Grotto is a good example of Barks' almost uncanny abilities to get much more ideas than needed. He explains: I can remember the first idea I had on that was just trying to figure out something Donald could do. I thought of him sailing boats and came up with a potential ten pages of gathering seaweed, and selling this kelp, which would give me a lot of gags with boats. I think of a scene, a locale, and think, 'Well, I feel in the mood to draw boats, and the ocean, and so on,' and that would cause me to start working on that particular type of story. As I developed more and more things with the story, I think it's quite possible that that 'Ghost of the Grotto' was brought in as a menace. There is so much in that, I couldn't have thought of it in a whole bucketful of writing at once. It had to come out one thing after another.

How many comic book stories have a basic plot that was later used in real life later? Not many! But in WDCS104 from 1949, Barks dreamed up such a story - Donald and the nephews managed to raise a sunken ship from the bottom of the sea using air-filled Ping-Pong balls. Fifteen years later this idea was reused by a Danish inventor to raise a 2,000 ton cargo ship in Kuwait's harbour. Karl Krøyer had read Barks' story and saw the possibilities when a real ship had to be raised. Krøyer succeeded and he then filed for a patent for his invention. The application was denied. Why? Because the invention was not new! It had already been published - in the comic book WDCS104...

Normally you would not expect to find complicated plots in a children's comic book, but Barks never looked down on the kids that bought his stories. He always tried to treat them as small adults who were entitled to get their money's worth. In U$48 The Many Faces of Magica de Trick, however, Barks wrote a tongue-in-cheek plot so complicated that you really have to keep your wits about you in order to keep up with the events. The basic plot is pretty straightforward; Magica invents a liquid that, squirted in the face of anybody, will change that person's face so that it looks like the person or animal he was currently looking at when being squirted. Then Barks really takes off - presenting us with so many metamorphoses back and forth, that we become utterly dizzy.

IN THE START

In U$32 That's No Fable Barks gives away the story's punchline right from the beginning. Scrooge is telling Grandma that he, together with Donald and the nephews, have been searching for the fabled Fountain of Youth. They found it, but he thought that it was not worth the price and decided not to keep it. The rest of the story describes the whole expedition in great details, but all along we know how it ends. Barks explains: I padded the Poncey de Loon story by having Uncle Scrooge tell it to Grandma. I was trying to get a little variety in the opening. It seemed to me from the business involved that the reader needed to be aware that Scrooge would find the Fountain of Youth. That fountain would have seemed awfully phony if it was dragged into the story along about page 8. Grandma was the gimmick that helped plant the fountain early.

In WDCS180, the 10-pager in which Donald is an insurance salesman, Barks places the punchline in the middle of the story. Donald has sold a billion dollar policy - no less - to Scrooge, and everybody is happy, until it dawns on the company that they will have to pay out two billion dollars if Scrooge gets hurt. Then the story takes off in a farcical direction as Scrooge tries very hard to collect on the policy.

One of Barks' best punchlines comes from WDCS144, in which Scrooge complains that he has too much money(!!!), and Donald volunteers to help him spend some of it. This works like a charm, the surplus money is soon spent, and in the end the ducks can take a breather in Scrooge's office. Then new money sacks are dragged in - earnings from some spendthrifts that have been on a spree buying goods from factories that Scrooge owns! This would be an excellent punchline in itself, but Barks did not stop there; Scrooge discovers that the only type of factory he does not own is a cane factory, whereupon he chases Donald away using his own cane.