It is not only the funny situations that Barks put into his comic book stories that brought him fame. His sparkling imagination allowed him to create hundreds of beloved characters that we love. Many of these characters have peculiar, even crazy, designs. This page looks at the more peculiar characters and situations.

FC0223 U$13 Barks' characters could have any shape one could think of. These figures represent  two extremes: the completely square figure and the completely round figure.

FC0408 U$54 FC0263 U$51 Barks would often dream up bizarre animals for no special purpose. They were not used that often but when one popped up it was sure to get attention.

DD26 In Barks' world, strange creatures and Halloween are inextricably bound to each other.

U$63 WDCS213 For a long period of time Barks populated Donald's house with strange creatures that were seen in the background. Undoubtedly, he enjoyed creating these vignettes which usually were so small that the reader would not always catch them at first sight.

U$23 WDCS039 WDCS230 Barks had a thing going with hair. He almost always drew scientists with long beards and sometimes other characters were portrayed with abundant facial or head hair. The last panel even shows an entire story about hair.

Many of Barks' ideas were so subtle they were not always discovered by the readers. Here is an example from WDCS099: Donald is studying hard for participation in a quiz show. Observe that his continuous reading calls for thicker and thicker glasses. Another twist: in the last panel it looks like Donald's pupils have moved inside his glasses!

FC0223 Barks usually drew scientists as a special breed of mankind. Besides their absentmindedness and sometimes ludicrous behaviour they were drawn with lots of hair, wrinkles and glasses.

WDCS270 DD54 FC0199 Sometimes Barks would put a hilarious situation into an otherwise serious, straightforward story. Why he did so, we will never know, but it might be a good guess that he simply could not help himself. Fortunately...

U$14 DD26 U$12 Barks' vivid imagination surely must have been working overtime when he invented these phenomenal - but still quite lovable - creatures.

In U$26 Barks allowed himself a break when it came to crazy characters. Not only did he make some fantastic creatures, but he had Gyro in the role of a wannabe Frankenstein, the creator of nothing less than life itself. But, of course, Barks ended the story with his own disarming twist...