THECROSSWORDPUZZLE

In his spare time Carl Barks dabbled with several relaxing projects that had nothing, or little, to do with his professional careers (you can see some examples HERE and HERE). One little known specialty was a knack for crossword puzzles in the American newspaper style, meaning that they have a grid - partly covered with black spots and increasing numbers - followed by a separate section of often puzzling or intricate numbered texts that are meant to guide the reader to the solution that is to be placed into the grid at the corresponding numbers.
This page presents you to somewhat of a sensation - namely a crossword puzzle Barks made by himself!!! It was never meant for publication and he kept it under lock and key until it eventually came into the possession of his daughter after his death. It was then - together with a huge pile of diverse written and drawn material - left in the care of this website's editor to be used as seen fit. After careful deliberation it has now been decided to publish the homemade puzzle. You are hereby invited to take part in yet another of Barks' many unknown hobbies...

The text part of the puzzle is rendered below. Barks did not try to write the clues down in a manageable manner; what you see is merely his sketch work meant for his own eyes. Unfortunately, the material is quite hard to copy satisfactorily for several reasons; the text was jotted down on oversized pieces of yellow paper which is not easily reproducible, and as usual when he made sketches Barks just used a soft pencil that would gradually fade away. Also, the large pieces of paper have proved to be far too big to copy for a normal sized scanner, which means that in order to present the material in a passable format the pages have been divided into sections that have been cleaned up and clarified as much as possible. The sheets were then put together in two major sections holding the directions of the grid's cells.

ACROSS (HORIZONTAL)

DOWN (VERTICAL)

The texts reveal volumes of Barks' dedication towards his secret hobby! The puzzle is EXTREMELY HARD(!!!) and you would surely have to master the English language as well as diverse historic events to have a chance of solving it, which only means that he was already a whiz in the exercise.
Also, it is very interesting that Barks incorporated quite a lot of Disney related questions that more than once have direct references to his own, former work. Below you are treated to a few appetizer examples from the puzzle, in which you can get an idea of its contents covering more than 140 Questions and Answers:
Examples of Disney references:
Q: Draft animals of Howduyustan - A: Elephants
Q: Ducks battled Larkies to reach this - A: Fleece
Q: Beagle Boys when down on their luck - A: Imprisoned
Q: The ducks followed his steps into the Labyrinth - A: Theseus
Q: JW officer titled Yankee-doodle Admiral and Knighted Annihilator of Scatterbrained Schnookerheads - A: YAKASS
Examples of difficult questions:
Q: Inca sun God - A: Inti
Q: Andean wind - A: Zonda
Q: Mother-of-pearl - A: Nacre
Q: Apron worn in ancient Hebrew rites - A: Ephon
Q: A cluster of gemmae on the thallus of a lichen!* - A: Sorus
* Barks roguishly wrote in the margin: Have to throw in an easy one once in a while...

Unfortunately the corresponding graphic grid is missing, which makes it next to impossible to solve the whole puzzle, as you will have little idea of the length of the solution words especially as there are most often several plausible answers (but only one solution, of course). Still, if you will have a go at it, you are very welcome. All the ingredients are there...

Danish style crossword puzzles are more easily manageable than the American as the texts are placed directly next to the places where the solutions are to be filled in. This way you have immediate access to the texts and their place in the grid without having to go back and forth all the time. In 2011 a Danish lifestyle magazine presented a very difficult crossword puzzle and, lo and behold, in the upper left corner of the grid the reader is asked for the name of a comic book artist covering two words...

Small section of the Danish crossword puzzle