1944

In the beginning Barks only filed homemade payslips consisting of small pieces of paper with the relevant and necessary information about each story. The papers were divided into 5 rows reading: JOB (description of the story, the number of pages, and the performed artwork), MAG (reference to the magazine where the job was issued), DEL (the date of delivery if delivered by hand), AMT. DUE (the amount due for the artwork), and PAID (the date the artwork was paid (corresponding with the DEL row if it was delivered personally to the branch office)).

From April 1944 Barks began filing Western's A5-sized payslips. The example shows the work for WDCS053 'Heading for Acapulco' that was published the following year. As Barks did not have the publishing information at the time of the payslip - which would typically be up to one year later - he usually jotted down a small reminder of the story. Here he has written Tramp steamer - Whale story.

1945

This is the payslip for WDCS058 'Canyon Cavemen'. Despite the fact that it was only an 8-pager instead of the usual 10-pager the story actually paid more. The reason is simple: Western credited Barks for 29 additional panels, because each page had an average of 11 panels to a page instead of the usual average of 8 panels to a page. Barks made more of these tightly packed stories later on.

1946

During the 1940s Barks was asked to take on some extra work, because Western was low on staff due to the ongoing war. He did so - with little enthusiasm - and he managed to finish 33 stories featuring diverse characters from 3 cartoon film studios in between his Disney duck work (see more HERE). The payslip seen above is from one of his many 8-page stories featuring Barney Bear and Benny Burro published as OG24 'Mother Nature's Helper' later the same year.

1944-1946

1947-1949

1950-1952

1953-1955