BULLET VALLEY

Barks liked the motif he first drew as the front cover for FC0199 Sheriff of Bullet Valley so much that he painted it repeatedly. The motif of Donald posing as a no-nonsense sheriff was painted 8 times. Well, in reality, Barks did not officially credit himself with the painting seen here as number 5. When it was finished the buyer asked Barks to change the background from dark orange to bluish tones, which he did. This means that number 5 only existed for a few hours!!!

It is obvious that Barks, with the impressive production speed he allowed himself, was bound to make small errors once in a while. When the buyer for one of the sheriff paintings came to pick up his new purchase he discovered that Barks had forgotten to add the bullet holes in Donald's hat! So, Barks quickly remedied the mistake while the customer was waiting...

Although the paintings are strikingly similar apart from the colours of the skies, there are, in fact, many differences. The surface, the sheriff star, Donald's shirt, the smoke trails from the guns, and the position of the spent cartridges are examples.

71-15 Bullet Valley	71-16 Bullet Valley	71-22 Bullet Valley	72-07 Bullet Valley
(unoffial 73-02) Bullet Valley	73-02 Bullet Valley	73-14 Sheriff Donald's Last Stand	73-29 Sheriff Donald at Gory Gap

FC0199 - October 1948 WDCS108 - September 1949 FC0275 - May 1950 FC0386 - March 1952 Barks' reverence for some similar painting motifs was also apparent in other paintings that he made in 'series', in which the motifs were identical but with tiny differences. For example, he made 8 almost identical paintings depicting the Ducks cruising on a sailboat (originally the front cover for WDCS108), and 6 depicting the ducks in a throne room (originally the front cover for FC0275 Ancient Persia), and 8 depicting Donald and Scrooge in a rowboat on a money lake (originally the front cover for FC0386 Only a Poor Old Man).