| In 1994 Barks was asked if
he ever read European comics such as
Lucky Luke and Asterix. He replied that
he knew both of the series and was quite
impressed by the great variations in
their stories. |
|
In 1976 Barks
produced his only painting of a Western
character that is not a duck -
Porky of the Mountains. |
|
| Zane Grey was one of Barks'
favourite authors. Curiously, Gray lived
part of his life in a fishing cabin at
the Rogue River in Oregon, not far from
Barks' home in Grants Pass. |
|
(Newspaper
clipping)
AUCTION
The Estate of Carl
Barks "Famous Walt Disney
Animator" Saturday June 30th, 2001.
Preview is at 10am; Auction is at 11am
1415 Heritage Drive in Grants Pass,
Oregon. Some of the items you will see
there:
Large Curio Cabinet, China
Cabinet, Canon NP 6016 Copier, HP
Computer, DeskJet printer, ScanJet
scanner & LaserJet printer, Sony 31"
TV, Oak Bedroom Wall Unit, Lift Chair, 3
Oriental Carpets, Entry Hall Tree,
Massage Recliner, Glass Front Credenza,
Maple Desk, Oak Dinning Table & 4
Chairs, Sofa Table, Tilt Top Table, Blue
Print Cabinet, 9-Drawer Dresser, Sofa,
Coffee Tables, Lamps, Oak Queen Bed,
Electric Bed, Treadmill, Frames,
Bookcases, Dickson Elk Bronze, Horn w/silver
trim, Vaseline glass, Figurines,
Cranberry Candlestick, Hurricane Lamps,
China Set "Rural England",
Copeland Spode Tower, Costume Jewelry,
Whirlpool Refrigerator & W/D, Gary
Safe, Garage Items, Much Much More!
Among the auction numbers were a 1998
Buick Century Custom 4 door, 4760 miles,
Red w/tan cloth interior, Concert Sound
all Electric (the photo is of a similar
vehicle).
|
|
| Barks influenced such modern
visual titans as George Lucas and Steven
Spielberg. The famous scene in Raiders of
the Lost Ark, where Harrison Ford escapes
from a boulder rolling down a tunnel
toward him, is taken directly from the
comic book story 'The Seven
Cities of Cibola'. |
|
Carl
and Garé owned a teddy bear purchased
from a visiting professor from Montana
University. It was named Monty and during
the years it was given an increasingly
robust past from the couple's vivid
imagination. |
|
| Most people who lived in his
neighbourhood did not know who Carl Barks
was. |
|
| The University of Oregon is
the only university allowed to use Donald
Duck as its mascot. |
|
| Barks' hearing ability was
very bad all of his life. It only got
better in the last years due to some
special hearing aids from Denmark. |
|
| Carl Barks' last
published work was written in 1999: Ode to the
Disney Ducks
By Carl Barks
They ride
tall ships to the far away,
and see the long ago.
They walk where fabled people trod,
and Yetis trod the snow.
They meet
the folks who live on stars,
and find them much like us,
With food and love and happiness
the things they most discuss.
The world
is full of clans and cults
abuzz as angry bees,
And Junior Woodchucks snapping jeers
at Littlest Chickadees.
The ducks
show us that part of life
is to forgive a slight.
That black eyes given in revenge
keep hatred burning bright.
So when
our walks in sun or shade
pass graveyards filled by wars,
It's nice to stop and read of ducks
whose battles leave no scars.
To read of
ducks who parody
our vain attempts at glory,
They don't exist, but somehow leave
us glad we bought their story.
|
|
| When visiting Europe for 6
weeks in 1994, Barks had a schedule so
tightly packed that it could easily have
broken a weaker man. He underwent a great
many official gatherings, numerous
interviews, and countless autograph
sessions. But he enjoyed every moment and
was genuinely surprised by all the
attention. |
|
The two Disney comic book giants Carl
Barks (Donald Duck) and Floyd Gottfredson
(Mickey Mouse) met for the first time -
late in their lives - in 1982. |
|
| In the 1990s Barks dabbled
with three-dimensional art for the first
time. He supplied a series of
meticulously drawn sketches that were
later converted into figurines of bronze
or porceline. |
|
| Carl and Garé owned a piece
of land at Gig Harbor, which is situated
50 kilometers south of Seattle in
Washington State. It was meant to be
their refuge in the golden years. |
|
| Barks was always very
surprised by all the analysis and
'hidden' statements people found when
dissecting his stories. |
|
It took Barks 3 months of concentrated
work to finish his 1995-painting Surprise
Party at Memory Pond. The
painting is unusual, because it is the
only one in which Barks depicted Disney
characters from long ago: The early
Donald Duck, The Wise Little Hen, Peter
Pig, Horace Horsecollar, and Clarabelle
Cow. |
|
|
| It took a total of 5 months
for Barks to produce his largest painting
Rich Finds at Inventory Time.
It immediately sold for 200,000 dollars. |
|
| Barks was a long-term
subscriber to the National Geographic
Magazine. In the later years the
publishers used to write 'valued
subscriber since 1935' on the invoices. |
|
| After all of the millions of
dollars Barks generated for Disney's,
there were no Disney representatives at
the funeral. They just send a bouquet... |
|
Barks reached 100!
Barks was expecting to reach 100
years of age and he even had received a
special count-down calendar from a friend.
In one sense he made it, as he
experienced 100 summers... |
|
| Barks was quite impressed
with the Duck Tales cartoon series on TV
when it first aired. But he gradually
lost interest because of the many
characters and the many different plots
woven into another. |
|
Don
Rosa and Barks viewing each other's
comics in Barks' home, August 1998 |
|
| Barks’ fans include
such media giants as the creator of Star
Wars, George Lucas. Lucas calls
Barks' stories 'cinematic' and 'a
priceless part of our literary heritage'. |
|
| Barks had an ambivalent
relationship with Keno Don Rosa who is
regarded by many experts as his foremost
successor. On one hand he praised Rosa's
eye for details, but on the other hand he
regretted the detailed display of
Scrooge's family life. |
|
| Barks is best known for his
comic book work which he produced for 25
years, but he actually produced paintings
for a longer time: 27 years. |
|
One of Barks' favourite charities was
'Wildlife Images', an animal
rehabilitation center where injured and
orphaned animals were cared for until
they could be returned to the wild. This
is the manager of the center, David
Siddon Jr. |
|
| The Golden Fleece
(officially #17) was painted in 1972 and
later reproduced. The 96-color serigraph
was made in three editions - General,
Remarqued and Deluxe. Only 65 of the
Deluxe edition were produced but half of
them were destroyed in a flood. In
February 1998, the remaining copies had
an estimated value of 6,000 dollars each. |
|
| Although Barks did not have
a say when it came to the colouring of
his comics, he was always very fond of
bright and strong colours. He actually
felt that the special colouring in the
Disney cartoons greatly contributed to
their success, and he tried very hard to
incorporate the same type of colouring in
his paintings. But, according to himself,
he was never entirely satisfied with his
results. |
|
A collage of prints on display in the
foyer of the funeral home at Barks'
funeral |
|
| Barks kept most of his
mementoes from fans in glass showcases in
his living room. |
|
| The farm in which Barks was
born in 1901 is still standing. It is
situated about 5 kilometers northwest of
Merrill. |
|
| Barks never owned a
television set until the mid 1970s. |
|
  
In
1988 Duckburg could be found in Florida,
USA. An attraction by that name was built
in Walt Disney World. Barks had a street
bearing his name, and there were statues
of Uncle Scrooge, the most prominent
Duckburgian, and Cornelius Coot, the
original founder of Duckburg. All that
remains now is the statue of Cornelius
Coot. |
|
| At his death Barks left a
number of unfinished paintings. They are
now - along with his other effects -
stored away in vaults at Bank of America. |
|
| Several famous
people died on August 25th: Dutch painter Jan
Vermeer 1691
British astronomer William Herschel 1822
British scientist Michael Faraday 1867
German philosopher Fr. Nietzsche 1900
British polar explorer Robert Scott 1912
Soviet cosmonaut Juri Gagarin 1968
American author Truman Capote 1984
American storyteller Carl Barks
2000
American actor Milton Berle 2002
American actor Dudley Moore 2002
American film instructor Billy Wilder
2002
|
|
| Fearing burglary Barks had a
rubber stamp made which he used to stamp
a dire warning across all the front
covers of all his comic books. The
message was in large letters and read:
THIS COMIC BOOK IS THE PERSONAL FILE COPY
OF CARL BARKS. ANYONE ELSE POSSESSING THE
BOOK HAS STOLEN IT |
|
| Many of us tend to recall
what we were doing when a famous person
or a distant family member died. Carl
Barks died on Friday the 25th of August,
2000, at 12.15 a.m. PDT (West coast time).
What were YOU doing at the time? |
|
Barks
left a number of unfinished paintings
behind. One of them, #8-96 Queen
of Sheba, was published in the
book Animal Quackers in 1996. Barks tried
to delete the painting from the book but
did not succeed. He did this mainly
because the queen's headgear, the
gemstones, and the negroes were not
finished. |
|
| The 1968 painting The
Cool of Morning was painted on
the backside of Masonite in order to give
it a special, hazy look. |
|
| Barks' wife Garé told a
story of when he first wanted to start
painting the ducks: He got out a Ping-Pong
ball, attached a string to it, and
studied it under different lighting
conditions to figure out how shadows
looked on a sphere. It was from studying
that Ping-Pong ball that he finally
learned how to shade the heads of the
ducks. That's the way he approached
everything. |
|
|
