This page is about Donald Duck's changing appearances in Carl Barks' stories. All of the main characters that Barks drew in his comic book career from 1942 to 1966 changed appearances either slightly or heavily throughout the years, but Donald - the most frequently drawn character - has been chosen to be the example. In the gallery below you will be able to follow how Barks changed Donald's physical appearances and proportions.

Barks' decisions to change Donald were various and many, but here are some of the most noticeable reasons and their results:
1. From the very start Barks distanced his Donald from the animated shorts' Donald by making his proportions 3½ heads tall whereas he was 4 heads tall in the films.
2. Donald's beak changed length in proportion to the size of his head several times. In Scandinavia this has evolved into a serious form of dedicated research 'science' known as the Rostrilongitudequotient(!). Barks was not aware that he changed the beak, until his attention was drawn to it by others. Then he adjusted the beak to mainly follow that of the animated shorts' Donald at the given time. Still, he always said that he liked the long beak the better.
3. Barks changed the number of the jacket's buttons from 4 small ones to 2 larger ones of a varying size.
4. At one time Barks had no access to his usual drawing paper and he had to make do with an inferior quality. When sketching lines on it, the pen made grooves that were impossible to smooth out, meaning that when he erased faulty pen lines, the grooves would still be there, interfering with his continued penciling and inking. The result was that Barks' ducks often, unwittingly, came out longer. Because of the long production time, he did not become fully aware that his ducks had grown taller until the story was published several months later.

So let's have a look at Donald's progressions year by year as presented by Barks in his stories - without any comments and taken from approximately the same angle for easier comparison. If you look closely, you will have no trouble following the ongoing changes in Donald's head size, neck length, body posture, knee bends, and so on.

1942	1943	1944	1945	1946
1947	1948	1949	1950	1951
1952	1953	1954	1955	1956
1957	1958	1959	1960	1961
1962	1963	1964	1965	1966