Three Little Wolves

Barks' first encounter with the animated cartoon work of the Disney Studios was Three Little Pigs from 1933 which he saw in the local cinema. As fate would have it he was later - when employed at Disney's - set to work as an in-betweener on a sequel called Three Little Wolves from 1936.

Clyde in 1911

Despite the fact that Barks ended up being a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather none of the offspring are named Barks.
The only branch of the family still maintaining the Barks name derives from Carl's older brother Clyde (1899-1983). It is interesting that the brother is also the only one with a middle name. His full name is Clyde Hobson Barks.

Barks was a long-term subscriber to the National Geographic Magazine from which he extracted an endless string of ideas and background material especially for his duck adventure stories.
In the later years the publishers used to write 'valued subscriber since 1935' on the invoices.

Carl and Monty

Carl and his wife 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 fetched from the couple's vivid imagination, like saying he rode shotgun on Wells Fargo stages over the Bitterroots (incidentally, the bitterroot is the state flower of Montana).

The Gumps comic book

It is well known that Barks modelled Scrooge McDuck after Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. But he also used Sidney Smith's character Uncle Bim from The Gumps' daily strips which premiered in 1917 (see more HERE). Furthermore, he - by his own admission - fashioned the duck after himself...

Truant Officer Donald

Two of the Donald Duck many cartoons in which Barks was involved as either scripter or Story Director were actually nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar): Good Scouts from 1938 and Truant Officer Donald from 1941.
The winners those two years turned out to be Ferdinand the Bull and Lend a Paw - both also from the Disney Studios.

Celebrating Donald's 60th birthday June 9th in the Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen

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. Although he was pleasantly surprised by all the attention, he had to grit his teeth, because he would rather have stayed at home...

WDCS075 'The Turkey Shoot'

According to Garé, her husband was generally disappointed that he was not allowed to sign his stories. From time to time he would sneak in his signature or other means of identification, but the attempts were always discovered by his publisher and removed before printing. Except for one: In this story he smuggled in a can of Barks Dog Soup in Donald's kitchen cupboard (close-up from the panel).

Every day of the week (except Sunday) for the last decades of his life Barks received many letters. Most of them were from fans, and Barks felt obligated to respond to them all despite the huge cost in paper and stamps, not to mention the painting time that was lost.
At some point, answering his fan mail had gotten so time consuming that Barks had to resort to different printed form letters in order to give his fans a response.

Barks' birthplace in the late 1990s

The farm where Barks was born in 1901 is still standing. It is situated about 5 kilometers northwest of Merrill, Oregon.
In 1995 Barks returned to his homestead for the first time since he had left it in 1918. He was accompanied by a good friend who videotaped, while Barks photographed. They looked at the place from a distance at the highway, but next time he was invited to have a look around. He noticed some major alterations; a new dirt road led to the farm and the main entrance was now moved to the back of the house. But a shack from his childhood remained - barely!

In October 1993 Barks sent a letter to his daughter Dorothy (excerpt):
...I forgot to send a photo of myself in my monkey suit (tuxedo) all a twitter to get down to the awards banquet where I was one of the recipients of a Lifetime Achievement Award for comic book creation. That was in Atlanta in June.
Next June I’ll be receiving awards at several ceremonies in Europe, where Disney comic books are much more popular than they are in this country. I’ll be wearing the tux often. Pray for me...

U$15 'The Cat Translator'

When Barks invented Gyro Gearloose in 1952 he was only supposed to be an occasional inventor character in the stories. Later, when he became enormously popular, Barks expressed his vexation that he had not drawn him in a simpler way, i.e. without hair, hat, spectacles, and waistcoat.
Also, he admitted that it was a mistake making Gyro twice as tall as most of the other primary characters, because this resulted in grave difficulties fitting in the speech balloons in the panels in a natural manner.

Barks used to go to the local drug stores in an attempt to see who actually bought his comic books. It proved to be a disheartening experience, because not once did he witness anyone buying one of his creations. The customers were always choosing Superman or Oswald the Rabbit...

According to Google Maps there are currently two official Carl Barks streets in the world; one named Carl Barks Väg in Spånga, Sweden, and one named Carl Barksweg in Almere, Holland. Whether or not they are named after 'our' Barks is anybody's guess, though...

Sometime in the 1990s Barks made a very special crossword puzzle that held varied questions, some of which could have been taken from his own stories. For example: A JW officer titled Yankee-doodle Admiral and Knighted Annihilator of Scatterbrained Schnookerheads. Solution: YAKASS...

Signature session for the Barks serigraph 141-1994 Rich Finds at Inventory Time

In 1980 Barks was granted another permission (the first one ran from 1971 to 1976) by The Walt Disney Company to paint duck paintings with two major alterations: 1. The paintings were to be used for 'lifelike' graphic reproductions, and 2. The permission had no expiration date! The first clause especially had a tremendous impact on Barks' earnings in his last golden years, because not only was he very handsomely paid for his paintings, but he often earned more in signing fees (the lithographs and serigraphs were all signed by Barks personally) and royalties!

Carl and Peggy in late 1923

Carl and his first wife Pearl had two daughters, Peggy Phyllis (1923-1963) and Dorothy Louise (1924-), but their parents were separated for several years before finally divorcing. During the separation the daughters were raised by Pearl's parents.  When the girls became teenagers, they lived briefly with Carl and his second wife Clara, which proved to be a bad idea as they could not get along...

1973

This small piece of conversation with his wife presents Barks' general attitude towards his work:
Garé: Carl, do you remember that one editor who used to say to you, 'Why do you make so much work for yourself with your stories?  Why don't you just draw one panel, and then the next, and pretty soon you've got a complete story!'
Carl: Sure, he always used to say, 'You don't need to take so long for a single story, why are you so ambitious, why do your stories always have to be so original?'. Well, I just couldn't reconcile that with my conscience. If I didn't give my best, I wasn't satisfied with myself.

FC0048 Porky of the Mounties

At one time, when Barks was employed by Western Publishing, he was asked to draw a variety of characters outside his duck universe. Oddly enough they originated from different film companies: Andy Panda (Walter Lantz), Barney Bear and Benny Burro (MGM), Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny (Warner).
One of the stories, FC0048 Porky of the Mounties, featured Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny, but Western found that the rabbit's facial expressions were so badly done that other artists had to redraw them. As a result Barks was afterwards freed from making any more stories with the difficult character.
As for Porky and Bugs as cartoon characters Barks later offered this opinion: Porky Pig I detested, probably because of his stutter. Bugs Bunny was often very funny in a slapstick sort of way.

Temecula, California, 1978

Between the late 1950s and the early 1970s Barks had a long transitional period in which he slowly turned from working full-time on comic book stories to working full-time on oil paintings. He started to paint with watercolours, gouache, and oils under the supervision of his wife, Garé, who was a very skilled landscape painter.
In the first years Barks mainly painted portraits of young girls in exotic surroundings. Then he started to paint landscapes. But while Garé sold well in exhibitions and markets in the neighbourhood, her husband never sold anything.
Being the realist he was, Barks wound down his activities in the early 1970s (as he wrote to a friend: I'll be glad when Garé earns enough money to support me, so I can retire for real!). Then he got permission from Disney to paint the ducks...

WDCS188 'Olympic Tryouts'

Throughout his entire life Barks had a multitude of problems with his health: After having contracted measles as a toddler he became hard of hearing and that condition continuously deteriorated.
Barks also had a number of allergies; he was lactose intolerant, which made it impossible for him to digest dairy products properly. He loved milk with his breakfast cereals, but he had to use milk substitutes. Furthermore, he had severe bouts with hay fever; he claimed his nose would swell up like a red balloon. The javelin thrower in WDCS188 'Olympic Tryouts' is a self-portrait of a hay fever stricken Barks.
Some of the allergies resulted in Barks never keeping pets, although he was very fond of dogs, particularly huskies with their expressive faces. But Barks took a realistic approach to his many physical ails and shortcomings and learned to live with them.