Fish are the second largest group of real animals which Carl Barks drew in his comic book stories (after birds). Perhaps this comes across as a surprise, because fish are seldomly perceived as having interesting personalities - they are most often just seen in great numbers. Nevertheless, Barks managed not only to give many of the 'faceless' animals some sort of personality, he also built a number of stories up around them!
This page only presents a very limited selection of fish in different loose groupings. This has been done in order to make it easier to compare and view Barks' impressive abilities to vary his drawings and stories within the same subjects.
| THE FISHING METHODS | ||
| Barks introduced many different fishing methods in his stories. Here are some of them, and as you can see fishing rods are not always required. | ||
 WDCS076 Using a fishing rod |
 WDCS167 Using brute force |
 WDCS066 Using a fishing spear |
 WDCS223 Using the correct bait |
 WDCS294 Using exhaust techniques |
 WDCS153 Using trained worms |
| THE REVERSED FISHING METHODS | ||
| And why stop at these fishing methods?, Barks might have thought. Couldn't it be the other way around, where the fish catches the angler? Sure... | ||
 U$25 Swordfish catches Donald |
 WDCS177 Swordfish nail Donald |
 U$18 Giant sturgeon going for a spin! |
 U$18 Pikes about to attack the ducks |
 WDCS177 Giant shark circling the bait... |
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| THE DANGEROUS | ||
In reality, fish could be called dangerous simply because nearly all of them eat flesh! But we humans would just label the bigger ones as dangerous - to us. Here is a collection of swordfish and sharks... |
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 WDCS218 |
 U$68 |
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 FC0291 |
 U$68 |
 WDCS033 |
| THE PLENTIFUL | ||
When Barks needed to show an abundance of fish he would happily overcrowd the panel in order to make his point. The extra amount of work involved was seldom a problem for him; his wife Garé did most of all this detailed, tedious work! |
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 WDCS066 |
 U$11 |
 U$45 |
 WDCS186 |
 FC0456 |
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| THE INVENTED | |||||
Normally, Barks would draw the fish needed close to the real ones in nature, but from time to time he would let his sparkling imagination get the better of him. Luckily for us... |
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 FC0495 |
 U$05 |
 WDCS218 |
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 FC0318 |
 WDCS200 |
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| THE VIGNETTES | ||
| No doubt about it! Barks enjoyed making his special drawings-in-drawings - also called vignettes. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the ongoing stories; the tiny motifs just added atmosphere and amusement to the panels. But, it has to be said that Barks nearly always made the vignettes so inconspicuous that the reader would often miss them entirely. How about these examples with fish? Remember having seen them before...? | ||
 WDCS192 |
 WDCS085 |
 U$63 |
 WDCS097 |
 FC0223 |
 FC0263 |
| EXTRA | |||
| CLICK HERE! |
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| http://www.cbarks.dk/THEFISHES.htm | Date 2004-06-21 |
