Carl Barks was by no means infallible when writing and drawing his comic book stories. Of course he had the freedom to make them as he saw fit within the normal editorial boundaries, and - as we all know - he administered the task superbly. Nevertheless, it would be unavoidable that he from time to time happened to make small errors. This page does not deal with the sort of continuous inconsistencies that all duck artists make, such as presenting Donald's house or Duckburg totally different in every story. It merely presents varied types of examples showing panels in which Barks was either reasoning wrongly or not checking things properly.

U$32 'The Vagabond Story' Scrooge is always very proud of still having the jacket and the top hat that he bought in his youth. However, both items have been destroyed numerous times in the stories. Other examples are U$12 The Golden Fleece (jacket) and U$22 The Golden River (hat).	WDCS156 'The Master Rainmaker Story' Donald is hired to make it rain from a cloud in the shape of a cross. By spraying rain powder evenly over the cloud he is supposed to make sure that it gets the same amount of powder all over. Barks obviously forgot that the middle of the cross receives a double dose.	FC0189 The Old Castle's Secret In the basement is shown a suit of armour that once belonged to Sir Roast McDuck. The figure is holding knife and fork in the wrong hands - as it is often done in the USA today - and the fork was not even introduced as a dining utensil in Europe until 300 years later!
WDCS297 Monkey Business On a very few occasions Barks drew ducks with visible ears. Another example is U$64 Treasure of Marco Polo, in which Prince Char Ming's ears even changed form throughout the whole story!	WDCS157 'The Mountain Climbing Story' Donald reaches the top with band aids that he did not carry with him. In WDCS145 'The Hypnotizer Gun Story' Scrooge is also wearing several band aids - that keep changing appearance in the panels...	U$52 The Great Wig Mystery One tribe member has 5 toes on his right foot instead of the normal 4 in the funny animal stories. In the same story Barks accidentally switches between showing people with human feet and webbed feet!
U$14 'The Gyro Fence Story' Gyro's friend Speedy's car switches licence plate number in the story; from '313' to being blank to '818'.	WDCS102 'The Horse Thief Story' Donald is wearing his weapon holster to the left, but he sometimes holds the gun in his right hand.	WDCS292 Instant Hercules Whenever Donald or the nephews are diving they wear flippers, although they already have 'built-in' webfeet.
WDCS261 Medaling Around Barks happened to draw a fourth nephew 4 times in his long career. Besides the panel shown above it happened in FC1025 Mastering the Matterhorn and in WDCS0276 Beach Boy (twice!!!). In the USA the extra nephew was soon named Phooey.	FC0199 Sheriff of Bullet Valley Rookie sheriff Donald has a final showdown with his villainous opponent rancher Blacksnake McQuirt. During the fierce shootout Donald manages to fire at least 17 rounds with his two six-guns without reloading.	U$11 Riches, Riches Everywhere! Scrooge manages to find a vein of pure silver high up on a cliff top, which is not plausible. Furthermore, the ducks handle pure uranium with their bare hands! This highly dangerous substance was also used in WDCS191 'The Uranium Cap Story'.
U$60 The Phantom of Notre Duck At one point Donald is in danger of falling from the cathedral to a street, although the building was first seen in the middle of a green field.	U$34 Mythic Mystery The ancient 'gods' frequently use modern day phrases such as Hitchhiker, Hallucination, Lord, Champion, Suburb, Kidnaping...	WDCS188 'Olympic Trouts' At the sports arena Donald moves leftwards on the track in the two running events, and the shot-put takes place in the middle of the track.
WDCS175 'The Taffy Story' Donald is going to play ice hockey in the winter - with a land hockey stick!	WDCS238 'The Dogsitter Story' The sash of one of the Junior Woodchucks is worn on the wrong shoulder.	WDCS138 'Cornelius Coot Story' Scrooge has mysteriously entered a hollow tree with only a very small hole.
WDCS146 'The Omelet Story' Barks mistakenly gave two of the secondary characters 5 fingers on one hand, instead of the usual 4 used in the funny animal universe. Other examples are WDCS130 'The Rare Coin Story' and WDCS159 'The Wispy Willy Story'. In U$06 'The Tralla-La Story' Barks was persistent; all the inhabitants had 5 fingers!	U$31 All at Sea Barks was never very observant about the Beagle Boys' prison numbers. In many stories he drew more numbers than there were Boys. Examples can be found in U$21 The Money Well, U$38 The Unsafe Safe, and U$58 The Giant Robot Robbers. In U$31 All at Sea Barks even drew 176-176 two times - in the same panel!	FC0456 Back to Klondike Barks was always extremely careful not to make spelling errors in his texts. But in this story he refers to Chilcoot Pass instead of Chilkoot (with a K). Readers of the original stories outside the USA may also wonder about the different spellings of words in British-English and American-English. You can see some examples HERE.