Meeting The Good Artist

At about age ten I discover that I have a natural sense of "the line," and for the remainder of my school years lean toward a career in art. Specifically, I imagine taking up cartooning as a profession. It seems easy, fun-filled and rather glamorous.

As a teen, I work after school, weekends, holidays, and during summer vacations at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California. There I have the pleasure of meeting and developing nodding acquaintance with a number of folks who have Disney connections through the animation studios in Burbank. Bruce McIntyre, teacher of freehand drawing to all the elementary students in nearby Carlsbad School District, spends most weekends and vacation days in Tomorrowland, drawing on huge sheets of paper with fat-tipped felt pens: Scrooge, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Mickey, Minnie, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook and any other Disney character one can think to request. Mr. McIntyre is not "The Good Artist," but he is an excellent artist and marvelous art instructor.

My first Disneyland position, as a busboy, begins on my 16th birthday. That summer I spend every free moment watching Mr. McIntyre draw personalized newsprint posters for dozens of people an hour at one dollar per poster. He indicates that he gets to keep half of the receipts. Not bad for an art teacher's summer job, in an era when minimum wage is $1.08 an hour. Mr. McIntyre gives me one of his Drawing Textbooks, and shows me how to achieve greater depth in my drawings and how to polish my work so that it looks more professional. He teaches me more illustration techniques during a single lunch break than I have learned in an entire semester at school. Eventually, the educational boost I receive from his guidance gives me ability and confidence, from the standpoint of drawing, at least, to work alongside any other artist as a peer.

A couple of years later, it is Mickey Mouse Club "Mooseketeer" Roy Williams who explains to me that Disney comic books aren't produced at the studios, but are created under license by Western Publishing in Los Angeles. I tell Roy that I am interested in contacting the cartoonist who writes and draws the "good" duck stories I and my friends always enjoy reading. Roy suggests that if I pay a visit to Western's office, someone might give me the cartoonist's name and mailing address. Roy says he thinks the fellow worked on Donald Duck and other animated shorts in the late Thirties and early Forties. "The best gag man in the business."

Before long I do visit Western Publishing and get to meet several comic book editors. They tell me the artist I seek is named Carl Barks, speaking glowingly of the old fellow and the amazing popularity of his work. Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, they proudly boast, is the number one comic book in the industry, with sales of over two million copies each month.

The folks at Western give me Barks' mailing address, and I write my inquiry letter, which my brother, David, edits, removing all the gushing praise. ("Just so the guy won't think there's something wrong with you.") Soon I receive a reply from Carl Barks, who writes, "I'm not sure my advice about cartooning would be very helpful, as I am pretty ignorant on the subject, myself. The Donald Duck comic book work is about the only experience I've had in the business, and I just feel my way along on that."

And then the miracle: "However, if you'd like to look at my work methods and see how I develop my ideas into plots and plots into drawings, you're welcome to pop in any day, afternoon or evenings.

David kindly volunteers to drive me out to Hemet in his brand new baby blue MGA convertible. We are politely dressed – he in sports coat, I in cardigan sweater – light woolen trousers (with cuffs), Gant shirts, penny loafers. Barks wears comfortable slacks and shirt. [Although I cannot today be certain of the recollection, I see him in short sleeves, and a sleeveless pullover sweater of pale yellow. This image may be a composite of several visits with him, or entirely made up. It is, however, as I remember him.]

I ring the doorbell. I have no idea what to expect, and neither does Barks. I scarcely know why I am there, other than that I have someway garnered an invitation to visit and am not going to pass up the opportunity. It may be that my mother enjoined my brother into volunteering as chauffeur so there will be two of us if it turns out the old man "is not right." (I will hear this some months later, but at the time of the visit I am too naïve to understand the euphemism or its connotation.)

The door opens, and behind the screen door I see a wide smile below a thick pair of glasses with enormous earpieces, housing the hearing device the editors at Western told me he would be wearing. He is tall, as I am tall. We are eye to eye, each an inch or so over six feet, and I'm still growing. He is not at all what I have expected, even though I thought I wasn't expecting anything. I realize that I have visualized him to be short, like Walt Kelly or Al Capp. I really don't know whether those gentlemen are short, either, except in my imagination. This Barks fellow and I, we resemble each other somewhat.

He invites us to come inside. Barks is relaxed, alert, quick, funny, attentive, capable, and a bit shy – all at once. He makes us feel at ease immediately. I learned at Western that his wife, Garé, is missing an arm. Being a very young, unsophisticated, nineteen-year-old Southern Californian adolescent in the 1960's, I don't know how to behave regarding matters such as this. So I make a point of doing and saying nothing.

I am not here as a fan. As a matter of fact, I haven't a clue as to who this Carl Barks is. About him, I know nothing. It is the body of work I know, and have enjoyed throughout my life. (Yes, I have only been around for nineteen years. But from my perspective it is a lifetime. The works of The Good Artist have always been there for me. My first reading, aloud, reading back to my mother after she has been reading to me, is from a Donald Duck story written and illustrated by The Good Artist. I am not yet four years old. The works of this master storyteller have been with me since the dawn of my sentiency.)

The first thing I need now is to see a sample of the old boy's work, just to make sure he's the right guy. After all, if The World's Best Cartoonist invites you to visit, there's got to be a catch, right? Likewise, I can imagine Carl saying to Garé, "Keep an eye on these two. Don't let 'em slip anything into their pockets." Neither party has a notion of what to expect. For our part, if it turns out that we've invited ourselves to meet the wrong guy, one of those other duck cartoonists, we can make an early exit.

From the first glimpse of the stack of drawings he hands me, I know we've come to the right place and this is, indeed, the right guy. What I am looking at are the Mozart manuscript pages of the comic book world. How clean is this man's work! Every inked stroke is crisp and definitive. You know how some cartoonists' artwork is a struggled concoction of labored drawings in ink and white-out? Barks' original art is composed of soft, light blue pencil lines and quick form-sketches, overlain in rich black India ink with Speedball-lettered text and fluid Esterbrook pen strokes. He uses no white-out at all, except that with which to dart highlights onto the ducks' eyes. Each of the half-page masterpieces he shows me is impeccably, impossibly perfect.

By age nineteen, there has been enough life in my life that I am pretty cool about masking my emotions. Yet, holding these precious sheets, I feel tears welling in my eyes. They are so beautiful! The story I am looking at is for a 10-page WDC&S slated to hit the comic book racks in about six months. Donald wants to teach his nephews a lesson. He gets Gyro to let him use the inventor's new matter-transmission device (which looks suspiciously like a meat grinder) to transport him across town and pay a surprise call on the kids. A power failure leaves Donald's head in one location and his tailparts, ungraciously, in another. I look up from where I sit, art boards in my lap, to see Barks standing there watching me. (I hope I have laughed in all the right places.) Barks is positively glowing from the pure joy of observing someone else – an unknown entity, at that – experience great pleasure from his work. From this moment on, we each know the other is okay.

"You need to speak up," Garé tells me. Even with his hearing aids, it's difficult for him." I am shy and soft-spoken around new people, especially adults. Especially elderly adults, I think. He must be sixty!  We are in the small, clean and efficient kitchen. Garé is boiling water for coffee or tea. I see it's her left arm that's missing, from below the elbow. Garé has her back to me. She lifts the arm high so that I can see, pinched at the end somehow, that she is holding a paper matchbook. Her right arm moves in a graceful arc, striking a match on the book, and bringing the flame up to light the white filter-tipped cigarette she holds in her lips. She turns and gives me a wink. I laugh, heartily, hoping that I am supposed to.

Barks and my brother come into the kitchen. We will be given a snack before getting back on the road. I turn up the gain on my voice as much as I think I'm able to without yelling. "Where are the other pages?" Haven't done 'em yet. "How does it end?" Guess you'll have to wait until it comes out.

"Carl!" Garé exclaims. "Don't tease. Show him your worksheets."

From behind his back, Barks brings forth several sheets of ruled yellow paper. It is his original notes for the story, in narrative form, with an occasional sketch of what he wants the finished art to look like. Every panel, every page, is represented. Here and there, dialog is scratched out, and new text written -- almost the same, but tighter, better. In their own way, these pages are also works of art, from the hand of the master cartoonist. Before he begins working on the art boards, for every one of the stories, pages and panels he has ever written and drawn, Barks has thoroughly staged and plotted the details. (No wonder he doesn't need white-out.)

I of course don't remember all of this exactly as I am telling it here, or the dialog word for word. Forty-five years is a rather long reach.

In my mind's eye, Garé serves spoon coffee. Folger's Crystals or Yuban or another popular instant. Brother and I add milk and sugar. Carnation Evaporated from the can. These are suppositions. What isn't supposed is the fact that Carl lightens his beverage with canned soy milk, a substitute for cream, due to his body's intolerance of dairy products. I exclaim, "Yuk!" Not loudly, but perhaps Barks can hear better than he lets on. Brother saves the day: "I had cow's milk allergy as a child," he says to Barks. "Had to drink goat's milk. When we lived in Oregon."

Barks warms to the conversation. "Where in Oregon?" Klamath Falls area. Near Rogue River and Grants Pass. "Really? I'm from that neck-o'-th'woods . . . ."

Later, David and Carl bring out their cameras and several pictures are taken. Upon our departure, we thank each other for a wonderful visit and agree that we will meet again soon.

Photo by David W. Cowles