DONALD AULT

Author and friend

In Memoriam: Carl Barks, March 27, 1901 - August 25, 2000
Written on August 30-31, 2000, by Donald Ault and read by him at the memorial service for Carl Barks on August 31, 2000.


An irreplaceable part of all of us died on August 25, 2000, and nothing can bring back the smile, the radiance of being, the unexpected phrase that would catch us off guard in conversation that accompanied Carl Barks wherever he went.

Nothing can bring all of that back into our physical presence. Wordsworth, speaking of a similar loss wrote:

"There hath passed away a glory from the earth."

We’re here today to acknowledge and begin to try to accept the intolerable fact of that loss, symbolized by the bodily shell that once housed an infinite imagination and an indomitable human spirit.

Carl knew we needed to confront the reality of his passing, and that is one reason he chose to have this public display of his physical remains. As he told me in one of our last conversations, "Funerals and cemeteries are for the living, not the dead."

But he would not have us dwell forever in this gap between what was and never again shall be. No. As he insisted to me, time after time, that he "put life" into his drawings—his own life—"from the white paper on up to the finished product," "a one-man show," that made the ducks look so "authentic," "genuine," and his favorite word for his work, "sincere": "The way the ducks were feeling just came out of the ends of my fingers and right on to the paper."

And the more he put life into the ducks, the more alive he became—and he was the most alive human being I have ever known or hope to know. So we must not look at his massive legacy of stories, drawings, paintings, and writings as if they are dead images wrapped in a funeral pall but as our only remaining direct access to the life force that animated the soul of one of the greatest, most prolific, and most diverse visual narrative artists of the twentieth (and perhaps any) century.

Before I met Carl, I couldn't imagine what the person would be like who had written and drawn all those stories I had marveled at as a child and had developed such a deep respect for as an adult, but the moment (almost exactly thirty years ago today) that I first laid eyes on him and shook the hand that had produced those magical duck stories, I realized that no other person in the whole world but this man standing before me could have accomplished such a feat. And as I grew to know him better, as I watched the seemingly endless flow of productivity and generosity from a man who could well have been passing his days lazily in retirement, the more inevitable the congruence became between this man’s very being and the body of work he was producing.

Despite his great refusal to acknowledge consciously the full depth, complexity, and influence of his work, at some fundamental level—"deep beneath the subconscious" he once told me—he recognized the power of his talent and the gift life had given him in the opportunity to use that talent to its fullest. And he accepted the awesome responsibility that accompanied this gift, bequeathed in part, but only in part, by Disney. Although his vision of life could be expressed most fully through the Disney ducks, Carl created many more characters than he inherited, and those he did inherit from his days in the animation story department underwent a genetic transmutation of epic proportions. In his own homespun terms, "I always tried to give the guy—whether it was the kid at the newsstand or Walt Disney himself—more than he paid for."

In this light, I believe it is not too extreme to say that Carl gave his life for us—not in a sacrificial or sacramental way—but in a joyous, therapeutic, healing way, to save us from the monotony and depression of everyday life—at times by exaggerating the frustrations he confronted Donald with in order to make Donald’s absurdity, pridefulness, tenacity, and, more often than one might expect, heroism show up for us as infinitely meaningful—at other times by enchanting us into imaginary, mythical worlds (the land of the square eggs, the Terries and Fermies, the Peeweegahs, Atlantis, the Seven Cities of Cibola, and on and on) that were extraordinarily plausible because they were built around the "tools of everyday life"—all the while creating a moveable locale (Duckburg) and a cast of fluid, dynamic continuing characters, including Scrooge who became more famous than Donald, Gladstone Gander who "curdled everybody’s cream," Gyro Gearloose (Carl’s alter ego), the Beagle Boys (the world hardest-working would-be thieves) and so many, many more, including some who made only one memorable appearance (Porkmuscle J. Hamfat, Pulpheart Clabberhead, P.J. McBrine, Chisel McSue, and Prunella Prunepuss, a.k.a. Angina Arthritis, to mention just a few)—characters who were so believable that they seemed more real than the mundane world to which we had to return after following them on their imaginative journeys. Carl's commitment was to teach us to read with wonderment, all the while "telling it like it is," "laying it right on the line," making us recognize that "everything isn't always going to turn out roses."

For us, today is such a day, even though it may be strewn with roses. However much we yearn for it to be different, for Carl to have retained his seemingly eternal youth forever; however much we might hope to hear one more new word, glimpse one more sidelong, mischievous glance from his vibrant eyes, he has been taken from us. And, as much as is possible in this life, he left us on his own terms, still thinking of us and how this day might be for us. In so doing, he has taught us how, when our time comes, we might, like him, die in dignity and peace.

Let us celebrate the undeniable fact that we are the lucky ones—far luckier than Gladstone Gander could ever understand—for we have been allowed to share the same time on earth with this great man; we have lived in his time; and we can say, "He walked among us, and, for a while, we walked with him."

May the soul of this gentle, generous, moral, creative man—who has changed the world more than any of us may be able to imagine—rest eternally in peace.