A 125th BIRTHDAY SALUTE to “the Good Duck Artist”…
By JIM BEARD
The moon was on more than a few people’s minds in 1958.
No surprise there. The Space Race was heating up and firing imaginations across the globe… including a certain ducky delineator from Oregon, who was writing and drawing funny Disney duck stories for Dell comic books.
No surprise there, either, that Carl Barks — born 125 years ago, on March 27, 1901 — would find a way to combine the two for a new tale for Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge #24, published in October 1958: “The Twenty-four Carat Moon.”
Now, I didn’t see it until it was reprinted in Walt Disney’s Comic Digest #6 in 1968 (I probably actually saw that digest a little bit later than that; I would have only been 3 then), but like so many of the Barks duck tales I absorbed as a kid, it’s stuck with me all these many years, to the point that I not only bought a fresh copy of the digest several years ago just to get that story again, I also just last year bought The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 22 from Fantagraphics so I could have an even cleaner, brighter reprinting of it.
Anyway, “The Twenty-four Carat Moon” was a doozy for the Apollo Kid I was in the late ’60s/early ’70s, and still am, maybe even more so in my dotage. What makes the story a standout for me is, of course, all the delicious Barks touches the man gave the tale, ones that have grown even cooler for me as the years have gone by.
In a nutshell, it’s the story of a sparkly little space race to reach and claim another moon that is discovered just beyond the regular one. Despite the title, it’s not made of diamonds, but of solid gold. Does Uncle Scrooge get stars in his eyes when he learns of it? Yes, yes he does — and dollar signs. Before anyone can say “money bin madness,” Scrooge is having a rocket built on the quick, roping in Donald and his nephews to crew it (no surprise there), and blasting off to grab the gold for himself. Of course, it’s not that easy; other rich people want it, too, and the race is on, and boy, does it get nasty.
“The Twenty-four Carat Moon” is filled with great characters, great scenes, and all the great stuff Barks is known for. As a kid, I loved the designs of the rockets, as 1950s cartoony as they were. Each ship reflects its owner, from Scrooge’s bottom-heavy craft—perfect for stuffing moolah into—to a cattle king’s steer-like ship, complete with saddle and horns. The best of the bunch, though, is the rocket-of-choice for the devilish Beagle Boys, resembling nothing less than a razor-toothed shark. Back in the day, it reminded me of a similar ship from a big hardcover collection of Buck Rogers comic strips I had, the sharky ride of Killer Kane, villain without peer.
Barks’ art in the story is top-notch. I remember being drawn to his all-too-rare large panels scattered throughout, savoring them as precious treats among the rest of the illustrations. Today, I can see how he used them to the best effect he could, punching up the narrative when it needed it the most, such as giving scale to Scrooge’s ship, the space battles, the cosmic vistas, and the Venusian’s new world.
Oh, yeah. Muchkale the Venusian. We should definitely talk about him. Absolutely one of Carl Bark’s creepiest-goofiest aliens ever. As a kid, I was somewhat revolted by his appearance (green like a lizard, but he has little hairs sticking out?), but amused by his lust for skunk cabbage (did I even know what “skunk cabbage” was back then?). I’m not one-hundred percent certain what Barks intended with the Venusian’s moniker, but kale is, yeah, a kind of cabbage, so there is that. I guess that’s pretty funny, if I think about it.
And speaking of creepy, there’s a single panel early in the story of what I can only call “Evil Mickeys,” some kind of weird, dark version of The Mouse that build the Beagle Boys’ spaceship with, apparently, stolen rocket plans. To this day, I have no idea what that was all about, but as a kid I associated the wicked-looking mice-people with a copy of World’s Finest Comics I had, featuring not only the Superman Revenge Squad, but a Batman Revenge Squad, too. I figured those associates of the Beagle Boys were the equivalent, some kind of Mickey Mouse Revenge Squad. It made sense back then; still sort of does now, too (if I don’t think too hard about it).
In the end, “The Twenty-four Carat Moon” is a story of the ducks’ cleverness in reaching Scrooge’s objective, but also, in fine Barks fashion, a lesson in “having is not the same as wanting.” The world’s richest waterfowl gets what he wants, as he usually does, but finds that the little weird alien dude with his skunk cabbage probably got the better deal.
And don’t get me started on my childhood (and adulthood) questions on what Scrooge does with his moon of gold after the events of the story. And whatever happened to Muchkale? And could I please have a model of the Beagle Boys’ shark-ship?
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MORE
— CARL BARKS’ Offbeat DONALD DUCK CHRISTMAS EVE Tale That Has Endured for 70 Years. Click here.
— 13 COVERS AND PAGES: A Ducky CARL BARKS Birthday Celebration. Click here.
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JIM BEARD has pounded out adventure fiction since he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. He’s gone on to write official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comics stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes his own creations, but also licensed properties such as Planet of the Apes, X-Files, Spider-Man, Kolchak the Night Stalker and Captain Action. In addition, Jim provided regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for 17 years.
Check out his latest release, D.C. Jones and Adventure Command 5:
