Carl Barks was married most of his long life,
but only in his third and last marriage with Garé did he also
gain a devoted co-worker during his comic book career. They had
met briefly in 1943 when they were both married, but in 1952 they
were free from earlier relationships and a miracle occurred; by
sheer coincidence Carl visited a country art show of which Garé
was in charge and they got to talking.
From that time, when she began working as his assistant, Garé
was a regular contributor to his artwork, drawing and inking
background scenery, inking all the large black areas, and
performing the necessary but grueling job of lettering the
dialogue in the speech balloons. Tasks that Carl detested, and
tasks that she would carry out for him until he retired in 1966.
It should be remembered that Garé also had an artistic career of
her own (she was a brilliant landscape painter), but that was
mostly put on the back burner in those years. Not exactly a small
sacrifice!
All in all Garé was Carl's only sparring partner in his work,
and her opinions and suggestions were very valued by him. This is
a page about The Partner.
| FIRST WORK | |||
UNOFFICIAL
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! |
| BIGGER INKING JOBS | ||||||||||||||
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.
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). |
| STORY CONTRIBUTIONS | |||||
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. 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! |
| WORK AREAS | |||||
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. 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... |
| MUTUAL PARTNERS | |
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: |
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| http://www.cbarks.dk/THEPARTNER.htm | Date 2008-03-21 |
