HAROLD 'HAL' FOSTER (Prince Valiant) I could follow Prince Valiant - it aroused quite a bit of sympathy in me. Prince Valiant was beautifully illustrated and each panel was a work of art. I don't think that I could have come up with that, because I didn't have the artistic background, the learning, you might say, to draw that well. I would have had to work on something much simpler.

HENRY MARTIN GASSER (Inspiration to Barks through his paintings from the 1960s) Barks owned - and used -  3 books by the painting artist who taught him some of the rules of painting as for watercolours and oils.

FLOYD GOTTFREDSON (Application to work for Disney) Examining the Mickey Mouse drawings that Barks submitted in his application to the Disney Studios it is easy to see that he was heavily influenced by Gottfredson's work. It was the Mickey Mouse strip that Gottfredson did that influenced my drawing more than anything else. Especially in the inking - look at my ducks and all those other characters; I've been trying to imitate his work.

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (WDCS264 Master Wrecker) The musical notes shown above the concertina factory derive from a symphony by the Austrian composer.

GEORGE HERRIMAN (Krazy Kat) That was something I could never understand, the humor of Krazy Kat. But there were some funny-looking characters. I used to read it just to see the crazy characters. You could get a laugh out of it.

BURNE HOGARTH (Tarzan) I loved Hogarth's Tarzan. There was a style of drawing that had quite a bit of Disney in it ... but his stuff was too anatomical. He didn't have the soul, the soul that can show through the anatomy.

WASHINGTON IRWING (WDCS112 'Rip Van Winkle') Before he finally came up with this plot, Barks tried several times to make a story from the theme of Irving's classic story of the Dutch immigrant Rip Van Winkle and his twenty-year nap in the Catskill Mountains before waking up to a much-changed world.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON (FC0328 In Old California!) The inspiration was Jackson's historical romance novel, Ramona, published in 1884. It is the story of Ramona, the child of a white father and an Indian mother, who falls in love with an Indian sheepherder named Alessandro. Barks' story incorporated many things: love, heroes, villains, history, nature, gold rush, atmosphere and nostalgia. He did not have to consult his beloved National Geographic Magazines for backgrounds to draw this epic story - he was living smack in the middle of the area himself.

BORIS KARLOFF (FC0275 Ancient Persia) Barks was sometimes inspired by horror films, especially starring Boris Karloff, who seems to have been portrayed in the role of the mad professor. It is anybody's guess exactly which of Karloff's 173 films triggered Barks, but it might well have been The Boogie Man Will Get You from 1942, in which Karloff plays a crazy professor working to create a race of supermen in the basement of his spooky house.

THEODORE 'TED' KAUTZKY (Inspiration to Barks through his paintings from the 1960s) Barks owned - and used -  5 books by the painting artist who taught him some of the rules of painting. I quickly decided his style of painting was the way I wanted to go.

FRANK KING (Gasoline Alley) Have you noticed how many of those characters are sub-morons? The old guy with the donkey cart, the guy with the funny cap and the girl chambermaid? All of that! They are just sub-morons! The reader automatically feels superior to those characters. It gives the reader a good feeling. I think that that's one of the tricks of writing. I never thought about it until I was analyzing that Gasoline Alley one time, trying to think: Why do I pick that thing up day after day and read it? I don't like those characters. I just despise them! Yet I keep on reading about them...