Posted By Dan Greenfield on Mar 27, 2023 | 4 comments

“The Good Duck Artist” was born 122 years ago…

By PETER BOSCH

Known as “The Duck Man” and “The Good Duck Artist,” the late Carl Barks (born March 27, 1901) drew and wrote over 500 stories of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge McDuck. Uncle Scrooge was his creation, as were other characters who were introduced over the years, including Gyro Gearloose,  the Beagle Boys, and Magica De Spell.

His popularity continued after he retired and Barks did a series of Duck paintings on commission (with the permission of Disney), but even when he was asking $250 at first for them in 1973, some fans were having trouble coming up with that kind of money. Today, however, those paintings sell for over $100,000 each at auctions.

Between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, Another Rainbow Publishing released The Carl Barks Library, a 30-volume set collecting his stories, which were printed in black and white. More recently (since 2011), Fantagraphics has been publishing The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library in color.

Carl Barks died in 2000, yet the pleasure he left remains with us every day. And the greatness he left on the Duck comics has been picked up by Don Rosa. Below are 12 examples of Barks art, plus a meeting of the Duck men.

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Four Color #159 (Aug. 1947, Dell)

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Four Color #159 (Aug. 1947, Dell)

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Four Color #189 (June 1948, Dell)

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Four Color #189 (June 1948, Dell)

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Four Color #199 (Oct. 1948, Dell)

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Four Color #199 (Oct. 1948, Dell)

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Four Color #367 (Jan. 1952, Dell)

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Four Color #367 (Jan. 1952, Dell)

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Four Color #386 (Mar. 1952, Dell) – cover

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Four Color #386 (Mar. 1952, Dell)

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Four Color #456 (Mar. 1953, Dell) – cover

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Four Color #456 (Mar. 1953, Dell)

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Carl Barks, right, and his successor, Don Rosa, left, in 1998:

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MORE

— 13 BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS: The FLASH GORDON of AL WILLIAMSON. Click here.

— A WILL EISNER SALUTE: 13 Lethal Ladies of THE SPIRIT. Click here.

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PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, has just been published by TwoMorrows. He has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. Peter lives in Hollywood.