THEEGGS

The egg is nature's perfect package. It is not only the symbol of beginning of life and growth, but it also represents the rebirth of the earth. It has, during the span of history, represented mystery, magic, medicine, food and omens. Carl Barks incorporated eggs into many of his comic book stories. He did probably not think about eggs in the ways described above; he just used them as he used hundreds of different objects over the years.
Undoubtedly the most important egg of them all - the one from which Donald Duck must have been hatched - was never a subject in a Barks story. In 1994, when asked by a Danish reporter about the origin of Donald, he simply replied: Well, he just came from an egg that somebody bought in the supermarket. So let us instead enjoy a trip through some of the stories, in which the ducks had close encounters with different types of eggs.

EGGS IN QUANTITY

WDCS146 'Omelet'

Synopsis: Donald and the nephews become chicken farmers on a hilltop but it is not that easy to earn a living. Everything turns out wrong to such an extent that the unfortunate town in which the story takes place is renamed Omelet.

Comments: To make this story Barks had to draw large (a)mounts of eggs. He later recalled that he still shuddered when remembering the numerous eggs that had to be drawn. Still, the story was probably Barks' favourite 10-pager, because he recalled it most frequently when asked in interviews. Maybe it also was due to the fact that he worked as a chicken farmer in the previous years.
WDCS192 'The Salmon Hatchery' mentions eggs in even larger quantities - millions of fish eggs...

UNUSUAL EGGS

FC0223 Lost in the Andes

Synopsis: Janitor Donald at The Duckburg Museum accidentally discovers that a square rock from Peru in fact is an egg. He is promptly sent out to get more...

Comments: By admission, Barks' favourite adventure story. It was written in 1949 - which in his own opinion marked the paramount of his career - and he considered it the most technically perfect of his stories. How did Barks get the main idea? Square eggs have been a joke for more years than I've been on earth. I remember hearing people talking about breeding chickens that would lay square eggs from the time I was a little child.

SYMBOLIC EGGS

WDCS151 'The Easter Parade'

Synopsis: Donald wants to be grand marshal in the Easter Parade. He has to distribute sweets and coloured Easter eggs to the children to get them to vote for him.

Comments: In Christianity, Easter eggs are the universal symbol of Easter celebrations. They are dyed, painted, adorned and embellished in the celebration of its special symbolic meaning - the rebirth of man.

VALUABLE EGGS

U$45 Isle of Golden Geese

Synopsis: Scrooge finds a golden egg in a regular egg carton. He decides to find the supplier of such interesting eggs...

Comments: This story was not the only time Barks' made a reference to valuable golden eggs. In his days at Disney's, Jack Hannah and he made the animated short called The Golden Eggs, and much later Barks joined up with Fabergé, the company which is world-famous for their special eggs decorated with gold and gems, to produce the elaborate figurine titled Scrooge McDuck Midnight Egg.

EGG IN A STARRING ROLE

U$26 'Krankenstein Gyro'

Synopsis: Following a trip to the movies, Gyro Gearloose is inspired to create life. Now he waits while his egg is being hatched under Cluckery Cluck...

Comments: The whole story evolves around an egg in which Gyro hopes to have injected the seed of life. This turns out not to be the case as you can plainly see in the adjacent panel.

EGGS AS TRIGGERS

FC0291 The Magic Hourglass

Synopsis: The nephews are given Scrooge's hourglass which uses special red sand from the Noissa Oasis. Accompanied by Donald they leave to find the sand.

Comments: Scrooge's daily morning eggs are the instigating vehicle for this story. They are not cooked properly, because of the hourglass' malfunctioning. In WDCS291 Delivery Dilemma a whole package of eggs, which are to be transported and delivered safely, triggers the story.

EGGS AS SIMPLE MEANS

WDCS068 'High-flying Kites'

Synopsis: Donald is stricken with megalomania and sees himself as the world's greatest kite flyer. And perhaps he is!

Comments: This is just one of many stories in which eggs are considered playthings or missiles. In the story Donald is bombed with eggs from the nephews' flying kites.
A curiosity: After his retirement in 1966 Barks wrote a number of scripts accompanied by rough sketches for the Junior Woodchucks comic books. One of the stories was JW14 Duckmade Disaster from 1972 in which he drew an angry man throwing eggs. It was inked by American artist Kay Wright. Years later Dutch artist Daan Jippes redrew the story (H92001) and he paid homage to the old Master by showing him as the egg-thrower.

EGGS IN FIGURATIVE MEANING

FC0456 Back to the Klondike

Synopsis: Scrooge is having trouble with his bad memory but after a visit to the doctor he recalls a huge gold nugget he once left behind in Alaska. Scrooge travels to the Yukon area where he reunites with Glittering Goldie and tells about the nugget that she swindled from him.

Comments: The nugget has the shape and size as a goose egg. Later on Barks made a painting commemorating the incident, and he titled it The Goose Egg Nugget. In U$17 A Cold Bargain Barks used an even more valuable 'egg' namely a big lump of Bombastium, which a female penguin mistook for a penguin egg.