Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He worked anonymously until late in his career; fans dubbed him "The Duck Man" and "The Good Duck Artist". In 1987, Barks was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
Barks worked for the Disney Studio and Western Publishing where he created Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, the Beagle Boys, The Junior Woodchucks, Gyro Gearloose, Cornelius Coot, Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck and Magica De Spell.
He has been named by animation historian Leonard Maltin as "the most popular and widely read artist-writer in the world". Will Eisner called him "the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books." Beginning especially in the 1980s, Barks' artistic contributions would be a primary source for animated adaptations such as DuckTales and its 2017 remake.
Biography
Barks was born near Merrill, Oregon, to William Barks and his wife, Arminta Johnson. He had an older brother named Clyde. His paternal grandparents were David Barks and his wife Ruth Shrum. Barks' maternal grandparents were Carl Johnson and his wife, Suzanna Massey, but little else is known about his ancestors. Barks was the descendant of Jacob Barks, who came to Missouri from North Carolina 1800. They lived in Marble Hill in Bollinger County. Jacob Barks' son Isaac was the father of the David Barks noted above.Childhood
According to Barks's description of his childhood, he lived in relative seclusion. His parents owned of land that served as their farm. The nearest neighbor lived away, but he was more an acquaintance to Barks's parents than a friend. The closest school was about away and Barks had to walk that distance every day. The rural area had few children, though, and Barks later remembered that his school had only about eight or ten students including himself. He had high praise for the quality of the education he received in that small school. "Schools were good in those days," he used to say.The lessons lasted from nine o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon and then he had to return to the farm. There he remembered not having anybody to talk to, as his parents were busy, and he had little in common with his brother.
In 1908, William Barks moved with his family to Midland, Oregon, some miles north of Merrill, to be closer to the new railway lines. He established a new stock-breeding farm and sold his produce to the local slaughterhouses.
Nine-year-old Clyde and seven-year-old Carl worked long hours there. But Carl later remembered that the crowd which gathered at Midland's market place made a strong impression on him. This was expected, as he was not used to crowds up until then. According to Barks, his attention was mostly drawn to the cowboys that frequented the market with their revolvers, strange nicknames for each other and sense of humor.
By 1911, they had been successful enough to move to Santa Rosa, California. There they started cultivating vegetables and set up some orchards. Unfortunately, the profits were not as high as William expected and they started having financial difficulties. William's anxiety over them was probably what caused his first nervous breakdown.
As soon as William recovered, he made the decision to move back to Merrill. The year was 1913, and Barks was already 12 years old; but, due to the constant moving, he had not yet managed to complete grade school. He resumed his education at this point and finally managed to graduate in 1916.
1916 served as a turning point in Barks's life for various reasons. First, Arminta, his mother, died in this year. Second, his hearing problems, which had already appeared earlier, had at the time become severe enough for him to have difficulties listening to his teachers talking. His hearing would continue to get worse later, but at that point he had not yet acquired a hearing aid. Later in life, he couldn't do without one. Third, the closest high school to their farm was away and even if he did enroll in it, his bad hearing was likely to contribute to his learning problems. He had to decide to stop his school education, much to his disappointment.
From job to job
Barks started taking various jobs but had little success in such occupations as a farmer, woodcutter, turner, mule driver, cowboy and printer. He later averred that from those jobs he learned how eccentric, stubborn, and unpredictable men, animals, and machines can be. At the same time he interacted with colleagues, fellow breadwinners who had satirical disposition towards even their worst troubles. Barks later declared that he was sure that if not for a little humor in their troubled lives, they would certainly go insane. It was an attitude towards life that Barks would adopt. Later he would say it was natural for him to satirize the secret yearnings and desires, the pompous style and the disappointments of his characters. According to Barks, this period of his life would later influence his best known fictional characters: Walt Disney's Donald Duck and his own Scrooge McDuck.Donald's drifting from job to job was reportedly inspired by Barks's own experiences. So was his usual lack of success. And even in those that he was successful this would be temporary, just until a mistake or chance event caused another failure, another disappointment for the frustrated duck. Barks also reported that this was another thing he was familiar with.
Scrooge's main difference to Donald, according to Barks, was that he too had faced the same difficulties in his past but through intelligence, determination and hard work, he was able to overcome them. Or, as Scrooge himself would say to Huey, Dewey, and Louie: by being "tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties." In Barks's stories Scrooge would work to solve his many problems, even though the stories would often point out that his constant efforts seemed futile at the end.
Through both characters Barks would often exhibit his rather sarcastic sense of humor. It seems that this difficult period for the artist helped shape many of his later views in life that were expressed through his characters.
Professional artist
At the same time, Barks had started thinking about turning a hobby that he always enjoyed into a profession: that of drawing. Since his early childhood he spent his free time by drawing on any material he could find. He had attempted to improve his style by copying the drawings of his favorite comic strip artists from the newspapers where he could find them. As he later said, he wanted to create his own facial expressions, figures and comical situations in his drawings but wanted to study the master comic artists' use of the pen and their use of color and shading.Among his early favorites were Winsor McCay and Frederick Burr Opper but he would later study any style that managed to draw his attention.
At age 16, he was mostly self-taught but at this point he decided to take some lessons through correspondence. He only followed the first four lessons and then had to stop because his working left him with little free time. But as he later said, the lessons proved very useful in improving his style.
By December 1918, he left his father's home to attempt to find a job in San Francisco, California. He worked for a while in a small publishing house while attempting to sell his drawings to newspapers and other printed material with little success.
First and second marriages
While he continued drifting through various jobs, he met Pearl Turner. In 1921 they married and had two daughters:- Peggy Barks
- Dorothy Barks
Meanwhile, he had his first divorce. He and Pearl were separated in 1929 and divorced in 1930. After he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Calgary-Eye-Opener had its offices, he met Clara Balken, who in 1938 became his second wife.
Disney
In November 1935, when he learned that Walt Disney was seeking more artists for his studio, Barks decided to apply. He was approved for a try-out which entailed a move to Los Angeles, California. He was one of two in his class of trainees who was hired. His starting salary was 20 dollars a week. He started at Disney Studios in 1935, more than a year after the debut of Donald Duck on June 9, 1934, in the short animated film The Wise Little Hen.Barks initially worked as an inbetweener. This involved being teamed and supervised by one of the head animators who did the key poses of character action for which the inbetweeners did the drawings between the extremes to create the illusion of movement. While an inbetweener, Barks submitted gag ideas for cartoon story lines being developed and showed such a knack for creating comical situations that by 1937 he was transferred to the story department. His first story sale was the climax of Modern Inventions, for a sequence where a robot barber chair gives Donald Duck a haircut on his bottom.
In 1937, when Donald Duck became the star of his own series of cartoons instead of co-starring with Mickey Mouse and Goofy as previously, a new unit of storymen and animators was created devoted solely to this series. Though he originally just contributed gag ideas to some duck cartoons, by 1937 Barks was originating story ideas that were storyboarded and put into production. He collaborated on such cartoons as Donald's Nephews, Donald's Cousin Gus, Mr. Duck Steps Out, Timber, The Vanishing Private and The Plastics Inventor.