UNOFFICIAL

WDCS036

WDCS044

The couple first met in 1943, when Garé was looking for a job opportunity. Carl let her try her hand in inking the black spots on some of the strip headers he used on his first 10-pagers. Above are two examples.

OFFICIAL

I started working with Carl in 1952. The very first thing I did was the top half-page with the masthead on it (WDCS139 'The Racing Pigeon' - Editor's remark). It said 'Donald Duck' in white outline, then had a black shadow around the outside. I was so tense about doing it right that I put it in the wrong place - I put the black on the inside of the letters and it all had to be erased!

U$09 The Lemming with the Locket

WDCS182 'Grandma's Bull'

On a few occasions Garé actually drew whole panels for her husband. In the early summer of 1955 the couple had arranged for a small vacation and Carl had to finish two stories before they could leave. These were the long adventure U$09 The Lemming with the Locket and the 10-pager WDCS182 'Grandma's Bull', in which Donald borrows Grandma Duck's normally peaceful bull, which then runs amuck in a china display room at an exhibition.
Several years later Barks shivered as he recalled finishing those two particular stories:
We longed to get away on our vacation but I needed to finish the stories. And of course they were the ones that took longer time to finish than so many others. One frame called for numerous lemmings and in the bull story I had mounds of china to draw. Luckily Garé came to my assistance and when we at long last finished the last damned lemming we cheered so much that our good neighbours came running. They knew we were under a deadline and they congratulated us.

FC0456 Somethin' Fishy Here

U$07 'Seven Cities of Cibola'

WDCS405

But before that Garé had also inked greater parts of two stories; in September 1952 she inked FC0456 Somethin' Fishy Here (1953), and in January 1953 she inked U$07 'Seven Cities of Cibola' (1954).
And as late as in 1974 Garé inked a whole cover by herself. It was the cover for WDCS405 from which Carl later made a painting...

U$04 'Hawaiian Hideaway'

WDCS160 'The Christmas Camel'

Throughout her husband's comic book career Garé would make suggestions for his backgrounds and she was even co-writer on U$04 'Hawaiian Hideaway' which partially takes place on her native soil in Hawaii.
Originally, Carl worked on this story when he was courting Garé (they were married shortly after), and she was able to help him with some of the story's realistic atmosphere. The last half of it takes place in the Hawaiian islands, and of course she knew a great deal about the islands' history, tales, and special flora. Her valuable insight especially in the latter subject helped Carl form the atmospheric backgrounds for the story.

Garé only contributed one published gag. In WDCS160 'The Christmas Camel' the nephews have just presented Donald with a camel as a Christmas gift and they go on to say: Only fifty cents! If we'd had two dollars, we could have bought an elephant!

In April 1963 Carl decided to have a photo taken of himself at his work area. Although the photo was arranged for the occasion, it speaks volumes. We are able to see how he had arranged his work place (tilting desk top with an incorporated small glass pane through which a lamp could be lit when he needed transparency for certain tasks, paper sheets and implements within easy reach, reference comic books in boxes, and an encyclopedia on the shelf.
On the side desk two of Carl's comics, U$43 and WDCS272, can be seen. Carl himself is 'busy' inking the top half of page 6 from WDCS278 Have Gun, Will Dance.
The photo was taken by Garé, and Carl quickly returned the favour by taking a similar photo of Garé's work area for when she worked with her husband's stories. This photo is arranged as well; you can see the same two comics decoratively laid out on the side desk, and Garé is seen inking the very same page from the same story - apart from the fact that she has got the bottom half...

Carl once commented on the work routines in the room: ...I would hand the page over to my wife, who would do the lettering and ink in all the background details. She'd ink in all those things. And she would put in the solid blacks in the ducks' jackets and the eyeballs, and so on. And then she would hand it back to me for whatever finishing was required...

Garé starts on a new canvas (1978)

A good and solid partnership - be it matrimonial or professional - is a two way street. So what were Carl's contributions to his partner in the line of work? Here are two examples:
Garé used a lot of canvasses for her paintings and they all had to be prepared for painting by stretching and receiving several coats of primer. This was a grueling job which Garé could not perform with her one arm, so Carl took on this job from the start and continued preparing his own canvasses as well when he began painting.
He also took Garé out on numerous field trips in the vicinity, so she could make the necessary idea sketches for her paintings.