Carl Barks – Master of the Duck Comic

One of my most valuable books of magic is Uncle Scrooge by Piero Zanotto (with a forward by Carl Barks).

This book is filled with some of the best cartoons from Duckburg written and drawn by Carl Barks.  Scrooge McDuck was first created by Carl Barks in 1947.  Barks had inherited the Donald Duck comic book franchise from Al Taliaferro in the 1940’s.  He used his animation training to create an artfully sequenced series of stories that transformed Donald from an enraged character screaming at life into a responsible Uncle with three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, as well as relatives like his unfailingly lucky cousin Gladstone Gander, crazy inventor Gyro Gearloose, villain Magica DeSpell, and the richest duck in the world, Uncle Scrooge McDuck.  His run of amazing adventure comics created through the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s fueled much of my art training and story-telling training as a boy through comics like the following;

http://pencilink.blogspot.com/

http://www.empirecollectibles.com/

I read these comics to pieces.  I studied every panel in great detail.  Carl Barks means more to me than most of the teachers I had in school… all but three or four of them.  And I hope this little post of praise will inspire you to look into the man and his ducks, and find there the beauty, the wisdom, the adventure, and the humor that completely captivated me.