THEWORKSHEETS

Carl Barks gave himself several extensive series of workloads when he worked with Disney related subjects (chiefly stories and paintings), so he had the need to book them in different ways and with different types of information. This meant that he, in order to keep track of his work, had to have several statistical instruments such as ledgers at hand.
Below you are presented to 3 randomly selected examples (from 1952, 1957, and 1962) extracted from Barks' so-called Story and Art Ledger, which was only one of many books used to register the comic book artwork he delivered to his publisher Western (you can see another collection with more information HERE). You may quickly deduct that the sheets are lengthier, as only the first few months are illustrated, but the photos still give you a fair rendering of Barks' methodical approach when booking his art.

Disclaimer: When drawing his stories Barks primarily used pencils which is probably why he used pencils to book much of his statistics as well. Unfortunately, time does not agree with pencil strokes as they slowly deteriorate, and the use of yellow sheets are not exactly helpful reproduction-wise, either. So you will have to make do with the technical quality rendered below...

Remark: This page's title can be spelled in one or two words as you prefer. The most commonly used option today tends to be Worksheet, but it is not a mistake when Barks used the phrase Work Sheet.

Comments: The sheets meticulously book the comic book artwork Barks delivered to his publisher as for dates and payment. Also, he mentioned the individual stories and covers with small explanatory descriptions of number of pages and a loose titling of untitled stories and covers. During the early years Barks also applied entries for cheque payments from Western (which was done much more accurately, and in greater detail in some of his other ledgers!).
Notice that Barks did not have the opportunity of using the published issue numberings for his artwork, as this sort of information was only known to him at a later stage.
Interesting titbit: The 4th entry on the sheet mentions Golden Apples, a 10-pager planned for WDCS144 but rejected by the publisher. Still Barks received his pay but the story is lost (see more HERE)...

Comments: Now Barks are made aware of the coming issue numberings for the long adventure stories and he is slowly beginning to add them to his bookings. But the 10-pagers and covers are another matter; they got more scattered time-wise, as they were published at irregular intervals unknown to Barks (and mostly the publisher as well) until the last moment...
Interesting titbit: The Jan 23 entry Pulling Taffy is an example of a cover to which Barks later added the published issue number (here #206), when it became known to him.

Comments: For years and until 1966 - when he officially retired from comic book work - Barks would frequently visit the publishing house in order to personally hand over the production of more stories and covers instead of mailing them. Correspondingly, Barks sometimes made remarks to that effect in connection with the dates.
Interesting titbit: The second to last entry seen above is for WDCS271 A Stone's Throw from Ghost Town, which Barks initially called Buyer Beware. That sort of work titles later to be altered are frequent occurrences in the ledgers.