Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) 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 .
140-550: The Beagle Boys are a group of cartoon characters created in 1951 by Carl Barks for the Donald Duck universe . They are a family clan of organized criminals who constantly try to rob Scrooge McDuck . Their introduction and first appearance was in "Terror of the Beagle Boys" ( Walt Disney's Comics and Stories No. 134, November 1951), although in this story they only appear in the last frame and have no lines. They appear again in
280-404: A Gladstone Comics comic book. This was the first American comic book that contained Disney characters since Western Publishing's discontinuation of their Whitman Comics in the 1970s. Since early childhood Don Rosa had been fascinated by Carl Barks' stories about Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck . He immediately called the editor, Byron Erickson , and told him that he was the only American who
420-525: A criminal organization very similar to a real business, but neither is certain. In one comic, the Beagle Boys have a worldwide organization known as Beagles International, in which the Beagles have spies in different countries around the world. In most of Carl Barks stories, the number of Beagle Boys was not exact but instead they were depicted as being ambiguously numerous, with their number of members varying from story to story. However, if one would count all of
560-527: A travel trailer and are sometimes accompanied by their pet dachshund , Ottoperotto, who shares their criminal mindset, but is often overcome with Ottoperotto's constant, voracious appetite. Sometimes they team up with other villains such as Magica De Spell, Black Pete , Mad Madam Mim , or hire out their services to Flintheart Glomgold , John D. Rockerduck , and Jolly Ollie Eiderduck. During these occasions, they continue to operate out of their own interests rather than their employers'. Many other authors use
700-400: A bribe from their sons to let them know. Also according to that story, Blackheart Beagle does not remember his sons' names. Carl Barks used to include the words "Beagle Boys, Inc." on their shirts under their numbers, which was later deleted in reprints. It can either be assumed that this was a reference to Murder, Inc. , a name for organized crime groups in the 1930s and 40s; or that they are
840-523: A cast of eccentric and colorful characters, such as the aforementioned Scrooge McDuck , the wealthiest duck in the world; Gladstone Gander , Donald's obscenely lucky cousin; inventor Gyro Gearloose ; the persistent Beagle Boys ; the sorceress Magica De Spell ; Scrooge's rivals Flintheart Glomgold and John D. Rockerduck ; Daisy's nieces April, May and June ; Donald's neighbor Jones, and The Junior Woodchucks organization. Barks's stories (whether humorous adventures or domestic comedies) often exhibited
980-556: A character purely based on The Money Well version as the Beagle Boys' grandfather. In particular, Italian authors use a "Grandpa Beagle" who differs from Blackheart in being much skinnier and constantly smoking a pipe. Unlike his grandsons, he is highly intelligent and appears as their cunning and capable leader, hatching devious plans. The Italian version of Grandpa Beagle has the word "GRAZIA" (which means "pardon" in Italian) where his prison number should be. When his stories are translated for
1120-519: A comprehensive collection of the Disney duck paintings of this artist and storyteller. Not long after, the company began producing fine art lithographs of many of these paintings, in strictly limited editions, all signed by Barks, who eventually produced many original works for the series. In 1983, Barks relocated one last time to Grants Pass, Oregon , near where he grew up, partly at the urging of friend and Broom Hilda artist Russell Myers , who lived in
1260-509: A critical tone though it is uncertain whether those comments were Barks's or those of his temporary "business managers" who filtered his communications. "I usually don't like my stories. I mean I try really hard, but I know I don't draw that well. I know people like it because it's got lots of extra details, but art directors know good artwork, and they know mine is not good artwork. Now, people always say, 'You're being too modest, you're being too modest', and I say, 'What?' They just have to ask me
1400-460: A different style. But if they have a good story and tell it properly, then people are going to like it." – Carl Barks, interview given at Disneyland Paris , July 7, 1994 Beside Rosa's constant effort to remain faithful to the universe Barks created, there is also a number of notable differences between the two artists. The most obvious of these is Rosa's much more detailed drawing style, often with many background gags, which has been credited as being
1540-418: A failed attempt at robbing Scrooge's Money Bin. In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck , Scrooge first met The Beagle Boys in his Mississippi riverboat days, circa 1880. Those Beagle Boys included Blackheart Beagle and his three sons. Scrooge first met the modern third-generation Beagle Boys during Christmas 1947, which was when he first met his three grandnephews , along with his nephew Donald Duck for
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#17328511453851680-444: A farmer, woodcutter, turner, mule driver, cowboy and printer. From his jobs he learned, he later averred, 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
1820-406: A few episodes featured the latter three as the trio of Beagles, with Bankjob filling in for Bigtime as the leader. Other known names are Bomber and Blitzkrieg. The letter B is the first initial of all Beagle Boys' handles except Megabyte, the brains of the bunch. The Beagle Boys have many relatives who count each other as brothers and cousins: apart from Ma Beagle, there are re-imagined versions of
1960-483: A form of a signature. Later Rosa began hiding the dedication acronym from his editors in various and unlikely places within his drawings. Rosa has drawn covers for reprints of Carl Barks stories and has included his D.U.C.K. dedication within them as well. Another curiosity is his Hidden Mickeys . Rosa is only interested in creating stories featuring the Duck family, but he often hides small Mickey Mouse heads or figures in
2100-440: A freelancer. In 1991 Rosa started creating The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck , a 12 chapter story about his favorite character. The series was a success, and in 1995 he won an Eisner Award for best continuing series. After the end of the original series, Rosa sometimes produced additional "missing" chapters. Some of the extra chapters were turned down by Egmont, because they were not interested in any more episodes. Fortunately,
2240-478: A job while attempting to sell his drawings. He soon managed to sell some of them to Judge magazine and then started having success submitting to the Minneapolis-based Calgary Eye-Opener , a racy men's cartoon magazine of the era. He was eventually hired as editor and scripted and drew most of the contents while continuing to sell occasional work to other magazines. His salary of $ 90 per month
2380-563: A mortar-board cap and glasses over his black bandit mask and has the prison number "I-176". I-176 was created by Pete Alvarado and first appeared in The Crown Jewel Job ( The Beagle Boys No. 7, 1967). The Beagle Boys generally live in a small tumbledown hide-out in Duckburg; in 1970s American-produced stories, their pet cat Ratty often lived there as well. In the Italian stories, they live in
2520-553: A national sensation in Finland where Donald Duck and the Kalevala are important aspects of culture. It was published in many other countries as well. The cover for the comic book was a spoof of a famous painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela . The latest work that Rosa has worked on is a cover for the album Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge by Tuomas Holopainen from Nightwish who
2660-474: A new division was founded, Gladstone Publishing , which took up the then-dormant Disney comic book license. Gladstone introduced a new generation of Disney comic book readers to the storytelling of Barks, Paul Murry , and Floyd Gottfredson , as well as presenting the first works of modern Disney comics artists Don Rosa and William Van Horn . Seven years after Gladstone's founding, the Carl Barks Library
2800-409: 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
2940-510: A page per day, but that depended on the amount of detail he puts in the picture. Rosa's drawing style is considered much more detailed and "dirtier" than that of most Disney artists, living or dead, and often likened to that of underground artists , and he is frequently compared to Robert Crumb . When Rosa was first told of this similarity, he said that he "drew that bad" long before he discovered underground comics during college. He went on to explain these similarities to underground artists with
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#17328511453853080-405: A painting of the ducks ("A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By", taken from the cover of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #108 by Barks). This prompted Barks to contact George Sherman at Disney's Publications Department to request permission to produce and sell oil paintings of scenes from his stories. In July 1971 Barks was granted a royalty-free license by Disney. When word spread that Barks
3220-517: A result of Rosa's love of the Will Elder stories of MAD comics and magazines . While Barks himself discouraged the use of extreme grimacing and gesturing in any other panel for comical or dramatic effect, Rosa's stories are rich with exaggerated facial expressions and physical slapstick. Barks had over 600 Duck stories to his name while Rosa only created 85 until his eye trouble set in, but whereas Barks made many short one and two-pagers centered around
3360-443: A similar background of making comics as a hobby: "I want to take everything Barks wrote and forge it into a workable timeline. My original dream was to become the new Carl Barks. I wanted to write, draw, and letter all my own stories. People tell me that my pencils look just like Barks, but my inks are pure Rosa, and I can't letter properly! So I'll have to settle for being Don Rosa." – Don Rosa in 1987 "Don Rosa has often been called
3500-547: A story to its creators. After making some stories for the Dutch publisher Oberon, the publishers of an American Disney children's magazine called DuckTales (based on the animated series of the same name) offered Rosa employment. They even offered him a much higher salary than the one he received at Gladstone. Rosa made just one script ( Back in Time for a Dime ). The publishers never asked him to make more, and due to problems with receiving
3640-416: A strong connection of sibling camaraderie. Although, on some occasions, they have shown irritation toward each other, often relating to someone making a mistake or saying something that does not fit in with the consensus, like one Beagle Boy's (176–167) overly fondness of prunes ; a weakness that proves to be the Beagle Boys' downfall in some stories. 176-167's love for prunes makes him the only Beagle Boy with
3780-625: A subtle, compact gag, Rosa's oeuvre consists almost exclusively of long adventure stories. Andrea "Bramo" Bramini identifies the following four differences between Barks's and Rosa's way of storytelling: Most of Rosa's stories have the letters D.U.C.K. hidden within either the first panel or, if Rosa has created the cover art, within the cover art itself. D.U.C.K. is a backronym for " D edicated to U nca C arl from K eno" (Carl being Carl Barks and Keno being Rosa's given first name). Due to Disney's refusal to allow artists to sign their work, early Rosa dedications to Barks were deleted as they seemed to be
3920-463: A then record high amount: $ 6,400. Soon thereafter a fan sold unauthorized prints of some of the Scrooge McDuck paintings, leading Disney to withdraw permission for further paintings. To meet demand for new work Barks embarked on a series of paintings of non-Disney ducks and fantasy subjects such as Beowulf and Xerxes. These were eventually collected in the limited-edition book Animal Quackers . As
4060-651: A time the Barkses lived in Goleta, California , before returning to the Inland Empire by moving to Temecula . To make a little extra money beyond what his pension and scripting earnings brought in, Barks started doing oil paintings to sell at the local art shows where he and Garé exhibited. Subjects included humorous depictions of life on the farm and portraits of Native American princesses. These skillfully rendered paintings encouraged fan Glenn Bray to ask Barks if he could commission
4200-877: A unique characteristic. The first story to feature the Beagle Boys in a major role is Only a Poor Old Man ( Uncle Scrooge No. 1, March 1952), which serves as a template for virtually all future Beagle Boys appearances, and establishes them as a serious threat to Scrooge's fortune. In the same story, they are called "the most awful gang of crooks in the country" by Donald Duck . This most often manifests with them cleverly coming up with various or elaborate schemes to try to break into and steal from Scrooge McDuck's well-secured Money Bin . On occasion they are even shown to have highly intellectual capacities, as they are able to earn academic degrees in various fields. Among individual Beagle Boys, some of these degrees include: cranial encephalography , psychology , chemistry , metallurgy , and electropyrotechnology. These were often seen by
4340-399: A virtuoso creator of complex narratives, notably in his longer adventure tales. According to critic Geoffrey Blum, the process that saw its beginnings in 1942's Pirate Gold first bore its full fruit in 1950's " Vacation Time ", which he describes as "a visual primer for reading comics and understanding ... the form". He surrounded Donald Duck and nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with
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4480-467: A while in a small publishing house while attempting to sell his drawings to newspapers and other printed material with little success. While he continued drifting through various jobs, he met Pearl Turner (1904–1987). In 1921 they married and had two daughters: In 1923 he returned to his paternal farm in Merrill in an attempt to return to the life of a farmer, but that ended soon. He continued searching for
4620-486: A wry, dark irony born of hard experience. The ten-pagers showcased Donald as everyman, struggling against the cruel bumps and bruises of everyday life with the nephews often acting as a Greek chorus commenting on the unfolding disasters Donald wrought upon himself. Yet while seemingly defeatist in tone, the humanity of the characters shines through in their persistence despite the obstacles. These stories found popularity not only among young children but adults as well. Despite
4760-547: Is Carl Barks. Rosa builds almost all his stories on characters and locations that Barks invented. Many of Rosa's stories contain references to some fact pointed out in a Barks story. At the request of publishers in response to reader demands, Rosa has even created sequels of old Barks stories. For example, his Return to Plain Awful is a sequel to Lost in the Andes! , where the Ducks return to
4900-530: Is a fan of Rosa's comics. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in civil engineering as his only real drawing education, Rosa has some unusual drawing methods, as he writes: "I suspect nothing I do is done the way anyone else does it." Because of being self-taught in making comics, Rosa relies mostly on the skills he learned in engineering school, which means using technical pens and templates extensively. He applies templates and other engineering tools to draw what other artists draw freehand. He usually drew just under
5040-434: Is a retired social studies middle school teacher. Don Rosa describes himself as an introvert due to being socially isolated as a child. Also, he thinks of himself as a workaholic . Rosa suffered from depression during the years before he quit. He believes that it was caused by working hard while taking little time for leisure, a result of his self-imposed work regimen due to his enthusiasm for Barks' characters. Rosa
5180-490: Is also working to complete his collections of all American comic books published between 1945 and 1970. In Europe, Rosa is recognized as one of the best Disney comics creators. Carl Barks and Rosa are among the few artists who have their name written on the covers of Disney magazines when their stories are published. Rosa enjoys including subtle references to his favourite movies and comics as well as his own previous work. He normally uses about twelve panels per page, instead of
5320-500: Is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his Disney comics stories about Scrooge McDuck , Donald Duck , and other characters which Carl Barks created for Disney-licensed comic books, first published in America by Dell Comics . Many of his stories are built on characters and locations created by Barks; among these was his first Duck story, " The Son of the Sun " (1987), which
5460-466: Is an avid collector of many things, including comic books, TV Guide , National Geographic , and movie magazines, fanzines, books, White Castle memorabilia, pinball machines and movies and more. Rosa also grows exotic chili plants and tends nearly 30 acres of a private nature preserve with wildflower fields and numerous forest trails. That and taking semi-annual European signing tours to visit his fellow BarksDucks fans, takes up all of his time. He
5600-543: Is implied that Scrooge has known about them for a long time. The Beagle Boys are usually depicted as a gang of about three to ten members or more depending on the story, who are identical in appearance and personality. They wear black bandit masks to hide their identities and on their turtleneck sweaters , most often being orange or red, they have their prison number signs. The Beagle Boys are often characterized to be very crude, boastful, aggravating, greedy, and self-centered – among themselves, however, they are very loyal and have
5740-649: Is known about his ancestors. Barks was the descendant of Jacob Barks, who came to Missouri from North Carolina c. 1800. They lived in Marble Hill in Bollinger County . Jacob Barks' son Isaac was the father of the David Barks noted above. According to Barks's description of his childhood, he was a rather lonely child. His parents owned one square mile (2.6 km ) of land that served as their farm. The nearest neighbor lived one-half mile (800 m) away, but he
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5880-451: Is that in Italy the Beagle Boys are referred to as "Banda Bassotti", which means "Dachshund Gang". Like his masters, Ottoperotto wears a bandit mask, a shirt, and a cap, marked with the number 64 (the result of the 8×8 multiplication). The Beagle Boys frequently take Ottoperotto along on their robberies , to act as a guard dog and to reach spaces too small for the Beagle Boys themselves. However,
6020-502: Is the period referred to in Barks' famed quip that he could feel his creative juices flowing while the whiskey bottles hurled at him by a tipsy Clara flew by his head. They were divorced in 1951, his second and last divorce. In this period Barks dabbled in fine art, exhibiting paintings at local art shows. It was at one of these in 1952 he became acquainted with fellow exhibitor Margaret Wynnfred Williams (1917 – March 10, 1993), nicknamed Garé. She
6160-540: The Beagle Boys (1951), The Junior Woodchucks (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Cornelius Coot (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961). 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
6300-481: The University of Kentucky in 1969. He graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering . In 1969, while still in college, Rosa won an award as "best political cartoonist in the nation in a college paper". "I'm not really an editorial cartoonist. I'd much rather be doing comedy adventure. But I must have done something right, for at one point The Journal of Higher Education named me one of
6440-485: The government as attempts at rehabilitation , but in reality, it was a charade by the Beagle Boys to use their newly acquired skills for robberies. They are also experts at trickery, including disguises , and animal training ; like using cormorants as aerial bombers , as well as having a large arsenal of various weapons, explosives, or machines. When needed, they have been shown to be able to use force or threats to get what they want. With all things considered, however,
6580-427: The "Burglars, Thugs, and Pirates Union", at Local No. 6⁄ 2 . From 1964 to 1979 the Beagle Boys had their own comic book title, The Beagle Boys , published by Gold Key Comics , which continued from 1979 to 1980 under the name The Beagle Boys Versus Uncle Scrooge . In all comics, the individual Beagle Boys are referred to by their prison numbers as per Barks's convention. In addition to Barks's and Rosa's claim that
6720-403: The 1, 6, and 7 combinations for the Beagle Boys in the modern comic books. The Beagle Boys also have their prison numbers tattooed on their chests. According to Don Rosa's The Beagle Boys vs. The Money Bin (2001), the Beagle Boys have been known by their prison numbers since their childhood, and they do not even know their real names themselves. Their parents do know their real names, but demand
6860-472: The 1980s, Barks' artistic contributions would be a primary source for animated adaptations such as DuckTales and its 2017 remake . Barks was born in 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
7000-411: The Andes . As Don Rosa explained it, he was just "(...) turning that old Pertwillaby Papers adventure back into the story it originally was in my head, starring Scrooge, Donald, the nephews , and Flintheart Glomgold ." Rosa created a few more comics for Gladstone until 1989. He then stopped working for them, because the policies of their licensor, Disney, did not allow for the return of original art for
7140-469: The Beagle Boys appear in the video game Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance . In the television series Mickey Mouse , the Beagle Boys appear in the episode " Sock Burglar " as part of the villains that Minnie interrogates, and in " Touchdown and Out " as part of the football team that Pete forms with them and Chernabog to play against Mickey , Donald and Goofy . In the spin-off series The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse , they appear in
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#17328511453857280-485: The Beagle Boys are often attributed not to be as clever as they think they are, often gullible to tricks and offensives themselves. Also, most of their appearances ends with them getting arrested. They are usually imprisoned in Duckburg prisons or Sing Sing , but they have also been jailed in other prisons as well. The Beagle Boys are however proud of their criminal background; never willing to live their lives in accordance to
7420-523: The Beagle Boys do not know their names, the Beagle Boys-centric comic Being Donald Duck (2003) by Olaf Moriarty Solstrand adds that the Beagle Boys do not know their mother's name either, only her number. The Beagle Boys' prison numbers are indicated on the tags seen on the chests of their distinctive orange or red turtleneck sweaters. The original depictions by Barks in American comics most often showed
7560-553: The Beagle Boys with orange sweaters. European comics recolored these same Barks drawings to show Beagle Boys in red sweaters. Subsequent European comic depictions of the Beagle Boys by artists other than Barks also showed them in red sweaters, as did the DuckTales cartoons. In later years, especially in Europe, they appear in the comics as a trio, alongside cousins and other relatives of various talents as spin-off characters. Most notably are
7700-596: The Beagle Brats (sons or nephews), as well as the Beagle Babes (a female counterpart). The Beagle Boys make cameos in the Darkwing Duck episode "In Like Blunt", where they are among the villains bidding on a list of SHUSH's secret agents. Ma Beagle , based on the real-life Ma Barker and the mystifications around her, was a new character created for DuckTales as the mother of the seven common Beagle Boys featured on
7840-535: The Beagle Brats, the Beagle Boys' three preteen nephews created by Tony Strobl and Steve Steere in That Motherly Feeling ( Walt Disney's Comics and Stories No. 299, 1965). They mirror criminal versions of Scrooge's three nephews and have the prison numbers 1, 2, and 3. Another prominent relative is Intellectual-176 (or I-176, for short), the Beagle Boys' cousin who acts as the brains of the Beagle clan. He wears
7980-413: The Beagles think he was everywhere at once. The fort would go on to become Fort Duckburg and strike up the feud for control of the land it was on. In a flashback depicted in the episode "The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck!", the Beagle Boys under Pappy Beagle temporarily took control of Fort Duckburg after stealing its deed, but Scrooge took it back from them, leading to a young Ma Beagle taking control of
8120-487: The Danish Komiks.dk fair on June 2, 2008, Rosa announced his decision not to continue creating comics due to various reasons such as his eye troubles, low pay, and the use of his stories by international Disney licensees in special hardback or album editions without payment of royalties or permission for the use of his name. In 2012, Rosa wrote an essay about his retirement for Egmont's 9-volume Don Rosa Collection , which
8260-498: The French magazine Picsou was eager to publish the stories. From 1999, Rosa started working freelance for Picsou magazine as well. All of these chapters were compiled as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion . During early summer 2002, Rosa suddenly laid down work. As an artist, he could not live under the conditions Egmont was offering him but he did not want to give up making Scrooge McDuck comics either. So, his only choice
8400-509: The Good Duck Artist, a label that stuck even after his true identity was discovered by fans in the late 1950s. Malcolm Willits was the first person to learn Barks's name and address, but two brothers named John and Bill Spicer became the first fans to contact Barks after independently discovering the same information. After Barks received a 1960 visit from the Spicer brothers and Ron Leonard, he
8540-725: The Ship , which was among the first original Disney comic book stories published in the United States. After quitting the Disney Studio, Barks relocated to the Hemet / San Jacinto area in the semi-desert Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles where he hoped to start a chicken farm. When asked which of his stories was a favorite in several interviews Barks cited the ten-pager in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #146 (Nov. 1952) in which Donald tells
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#17328511453858680-494: The US, "GRAZIA" is replaced with "186–802", his prison number in Western stories. Sometimes the Beagle Boys antagonize Super Goof , Mickey Mouse , or some other characters from Walt Disney 's comic books. Ottoperotto – univerbation of otto per otto ( Italian for '8×8') – is the Beagle Boys' pet dachshund in Italian comic book stories. The joke about him being a dachshund
8820-473: The United States, around 1900, established a successful tile and terrazzo company, then returned to Italy to marry and start a family. In 1915 just after the birth of his son Ugo Rosa, Gioachino returned to Kentucky with his wife, two daughters and two sons. Ugo Rosa grew up and was later married in Kentucky. His wife was born to a German-American father and a mother with both Scottish and Irish ancestry. Don Rosa
8960-428: The area. The move also was motivated, Barks stated in another famous quip, by Temecula being too close to Disneyland and thus facilitating a growing torrent of drop-in visits by vacationing fans. In this period Barks made only one public appearance, at a comic book shop near Grants Pass. In 1983, Another Rainbow took up the daunting task of collecting the entire Disney comic book oeuvre of Barks—over 500 stories in all—in
9100-504: The backlog of orders he faced, fan/dealers Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran suggested Barks instead auction his paintings at conventions and via Cochran's catalog Graphic Gallery . By September 1974 Barks had discontinued taking commissions. At Boston's NewCon convention, in October 1975, the first Carl Barks oil painting auctioned at a comic book convention ("She Was Spangled and Flashy") sold for $ 2,500. Subsequent offerings saw an escalation in
9240-634: The book through Celestial Arts , which Kurtz acquired partly for this purpose. The book went on to become the model for virtually every important collection of comic book stories. It was the first book of its kind ever reviewed in Time magazine and subsequently in Newsweek , and the first book review in Time with large color illustrations. In 1977 and 1982, Barks attended San Diego Comic-Con . As with his appearance in Boston,
9380-625: The characters he uses are Barks's, Barks having reshaped Donald Duck's personality and creating everything else we know of Duckburg while working as a freelancer in 1942–1967 for an independent licensed publisher (Dell/Western Comics). Barks even claimed to have also created Huey, Dewey, and Louie while working as a writer on Donald Duck animated cartoons in 1937." Because of his idolization of Barks, he repeatedly discourages his fans to use an absolutist way of saying his clearly different drawing style would be better than Barks's, and he found that notion confirmed when Barks himself spoke about Rosa's style in
9520-446: The comics he had inherited from his older sister for old Superman comics. By the 1970s Rosa's comic trading had ended up with him only having two Barks duck comics issues left from the collection his sister originally passed on to him. One of them being Dell Comics ' Four Color Comics #386 (also known as Dell Comics' One shot's) issue titled: "Uncle Scrooge in Only a Poor Old Man " , which
9660-444: 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
9800-427: The different combinations of the Beagle Boys' prison numbers that was used in the comic books by Carl Barks, the Beagle Boys would seem to consist of at least 36 members. In The Menehune Mystery , Scrooge mentions thirty Beagle Boys. Don Rosa, however, constantly uses seven Beagle Boys in his stories, but instead of using a random number Rosa always hides one prison numbers behind something to avoid two Beagle Boys having
9940-541: 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 (mostly known for Little Nemo ) and Frederick Burr Opper (mostly known for Happy Hooligan ) but he would later study any style that managed to draw his attention. At age 16, he
10080-532: The editor of the local newspaper to create a weekly comic strip. This led to his creation of the comic strip character Captain Kentucky for the Saturday edition of the local newspaper Louisville Times . Captain Kentucky was the superhero alter ego of Lancelot Pertwillaby. The pay was $ 25/week and not worth the 12+ hours each week's strip entailed, but Rosa did it as part of his hobby. Publication started on October 6, 1979. The comic strip ended on August 15, 1982, after
10220-505: 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. 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
10360-535: The episode " Keep on Rollin' " arriving with Pete and Ursula at the roller rink where Mickey and his friends always enjoy, being kicked out by the group of villains from the place, and later having to face them in a roller skating competition to get their meeting place back. Carl Barks Barks worked for the Disney Studio and Western Publishing where he created Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948),
10500-408: The episode "Robot Robbers", and since then she has become a recurring character. She appeared more frequently in the second season than in the first, however. There were many Beagle Boys on the 1987 original series , but the most common seven consisted of: Other Beagle Boys consisted of : In the 2017 reboot series , the Beagle Boys are divided into several smaller gangs with Ma Beagle serving as
10640-409: The fact that Barks had done little traveling his adventure stories often had the duck clan globe-trotting to the most remote or spectacular of places. This allowed Barks to indulge his penchant for elaborate backgrounds that hinted at his thwarted ambitions of doing realistic stories in the vein of Hal Foster 's Prince Valiant . As Barks blossomed creatively, his marriage to Clara deteriorated. This
10780-450: The first foreign country he ever visited. Barks appeared at the first of many Disneyana conventions in 1993. Silk screen prints of paintings along with high-end art objects (such as original water colors, bronze figurines and ceramic tiles) were produced based on designs by Barks. Don Rosa Keno Don Hugo Rosa ( / ˈ k iː n oʊ ˈ d ɒ n ˈ h j uː ɡ oʊ ˈ r oʊ z ə / ), known as Don Rosa (born June 29, 1951),
10920-408: The five or six best college newspaper cartoonists in the nation." Rosa's first published comic (besides the spot illustrations in his grade school and high school newspapers) was a comic strip featuring his own character, Lancelot Pertwillaby , titled The Pertwillaby Papers . He created the strip in 1971 for The Kentucky Kernel , a college newspaper of the University of Kentucky , which wanted
11060-606: The gang from her father. The Beagle Boys appeared as Pete 's henchmen in the film Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers . There are only three Beagle Boys in the film, one of them noted for being short (however, unlike Big Time, he was not the leader but more or less the "idiot" of the group), with gray skin and black hoods. They decide to depose Princess Minnie so Pete could become king. They were shown to be much more dangerous compared to their original DuckTales counterparts. These Beagle Boys were collectively voiced by Jeff Bennett and Maurice LaMarche . These versions of
11200-409: The head animators who did the key poses of character action (often known as extremes) 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
11340-470: The heir of Carl Barks, especially for the way in which he has carried on the Ducks' Family Saga. But I don't think so: in my opinion Don Rosa [...] is an author who has used Barks' characters to make stories that are completely new, 'Donrosian' rather than 'Barksian', just like Barks can't be considered the heir of Al Taliaferro only because he has worked on the Ducks after him." – Carlo Chendi , Italian Disney comics writer Rosa's idol when it comes to comics
11480-404: The law. The Beagle Boys' main goal for stealing Scrooge McDuck's money is so they can create a paradisiacal life of luxury for themselves. On few occasions when they have managed to steal the money, they are shown to spend it all very wastefully and in excess; like buying extravagant and ostentatious mansions or living on a paradise island near Hawaii. They have also shown proneness for taking over
11620-479: The leader of all of them, as revealed in the episode "The Beagle Birthday Massacre!", and are all voiced by Eric Bauza . In the season two episode, "The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!", it is revealed the feud between them and Scrooge McDuck originated from a battle between Duckburg's founder Cornelius Coot and the Beagles of that time. The latter attempted to attack a fort the former was holding, only to be tricked into retreating when Coot used popcorn makers to make
11760-467: 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
11900-508: The monthly Information Center column in the fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector from 1974 to 1979. This was a question-and-answer feature dealing with readers' queries on all forms of pop entertainment of which Rosa was a student, including comics, TV and movies. He also revived the Pertwillaby Papers in this "RBCC" fanzine as a comic book style story rather than a newspaper comic strip from 1976 to 1978. Rosa accepted an offer from
12040-650: The more common eight. Rosa has an especially large following in Finland , and in 1999, he created a special 32-page adventure featuring Scrooge McDuck for his Finnish fans called; Sammon Salaisuus (translates to The secret of the Sampo , but it is officially named The Quest for Kalevala in English), based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala . The publication of this story created
12180-404: 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 (in an attempt to increase the family income) moved with his family to Midland, Oregon , some miles north of Merrill, to be closer to the new railway lines. He established
12320-521: The next issue in a similar fashion, in The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill ( Walt Disney's Comics and Stories No. 135, December 1951). The Beagle Boys were originally created by Carl Barks and made their first appearance in the 10-page story "The Terror of the Beagle Boys" (WDC #134) that was first published in November 1951. Although the Beagle Boys are only shown very briefly on the last page of this story, it
12460-447: The next time she appears. In one episode, she pretended to be "married" to Scrooge so that she could steal his fortune, but her plans were thwarted by both him and his three nephews . With Ma, family always comes first – except when it comes to avoiding arrest. She was voiced by actress June Foray , who also voiced Magica De Spell . Character actress Margo Martindale voices Ma in the 2017 DuckTales series. Ma Beagle first appeared in
12600-570: The payment, he did not care. After working with the DuckTales magazine, Rosa found out that the Denmark-based International publisher Egmont (at that time called Gutenberghus) was publishing reprints of his stories and wanted more. Rosa joined Egmont in 1990. Two years later, at Rosa's suggestion, Byron Erickson , the former editor at Gladstone, also went to work for Egmont and has been working there ever since as an editor and later as
12740-438: The physical details right, but also to ensure that all characters could have been present. Barks either created most of the characters used by Rosa or is credited for greatly developing their personalities. Rosa thus feels obliged to make his stories factually consistent. He has spent a lot of time in making lists of facts and anecdotes pointed out in different stories by his mentor. Especially The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
12880-519: The pictures, sometimes in a humiliating or unwanted situation. An example of this is in the story The Terror of the Transvaal where a flat Mickey can be seen under an elephant's foot. Rosa has admitted to neither liking nor disliking Mickey Mouse, but being indifferent to him. In the story Attack of the Hideous Space-Varmints , the asteroid with Uncle Scrooge's money bin on it crashes into
13020-517: The pictures.” Rosa's favorite comic books while growing up were Uncle Scrooge and Little Lulu comics from Dell Comics , as well as his sister's collection of MAD magazines . At age 12, Rosa discovered the Superman titles of DC Comics , with particular attention to editor Mort Weisinger 's period, drawn mostly by Superman artists Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger . Shortly after Rosa started to collect Superman comics, he also began to trade in
13160-456: The plans are often spoiled by Ottoperotto's constant, voracious appetite. Whenever Ottoperotto smells food, he abandons everything else to get to eat it. The Beagle Boys made their animated debut in the 1987 television special Sport Goofy in Soccermania , voiced by Will Ryan . Similar to the comic books, the Beagle Boys are depicted as identical in both appearance and behavior, though lacking
13300-581: The prices realized. In 1976, Barks and Garé went to Boston for the NewCon show, their first comic convention appearance. Among the other attendees was famed Little Lulu comic book scripter John Stanley ; despite both having worked for Western Publishing this was the first time they met. The highlight of the convention was the auctioning of what was to that time the largest duck oil painting Barks had done, "July Fourth in Duckburg", which included depictions of several prominent Barks fans and collectors. It sold for
13440-564: The prison number 186–802. The Blackheart character originates from two characters created by Carl Barks: Blackheart Beagle, a riverboat pirate from The Fantastic River Race ( Uncle Scrooge goes to Disneyland #1, 1957), and Grandpa Beagle , who appeared in The Money Well ( Uncle Scrooge #21, 1958). It was Don Rosa who later combined the character into one in chapters 10 and 11 of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck . Also, according to Rosa, Blackheart Beagle semi-retired in 1947, following
13580-539: The prison numbers of their comic counterparts. On DuckTales , the Beagle Boys were given names and different personalities and almost all of them speak in New York accents . The usual character combination is Bigtime, Burger, and either Bouncer or Baggy, with Bouncer appearing more often in the first season and Baggy in the second. Their leader is usually Bigtime when Ma Beagle is not present. Sometimes one or two of them were swapped out with Bankjob, Babyface, or Bugle, and
13720-514: The publication of 150 episodes. After three years with Captain Kentucky, Don decided that it was not worth the effort. He retired from cartooning and did not draw a single line for the next four years. Years later, as his fame grew, his non-Disney work was published by the Norwegian publisher Gazette Bok in 2001, in the two hard cover "Don Rosa Archives" volumes, The Pertwillaby Papers and The Adventures of Captain Kentucky . In 1986, Rosa discovered
13860-479: The response to his presence was overwhelming, with long lines of fans waiting to meet Barks and get his autograph. In 1981, Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran, two long-time Disney comics fans, decided to combine forces to bring greater recognition to the works of Carl Barks. Their first efforts went into establishing Another Rainbow Publishing, the banner under which they produced and issued the award-winning book The Fine Art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck by Carl Barks ,
14000-643: The result of efforts by Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz and screenwriter Edward Summer , Disney relented and, in 1981, allowed Barks to produce an oil painting called Wanderers of Wonderlands for a limited edition book entitled Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times . The book collected 11 classic Barks stories of Uncle Scrooge colored by artist Peter Ledger along with a new Scrooge story by Barks done storybook style with watercolor illustrations, "Go Slowly, Sands of Time". After being turned down by every major publisher in New York City, Kurtz and Summer published
14140-438: The right question. I know it's not good artwork and I don't know if it's well-drawn, but I know it's entertaining." – Don Rosa, Torino Comics Festival, April 2011 "Don Rosa has a style that is a little bit different from the Disney style. I know that there is a great deal of people that like that style, which is extremely detailed. So, there is room in the business for artists like Don Rosa and for others like Van Horn . They have
14280-403: 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
14420-564: The same hidden country. To add more to his admiration and consistency to Barks and Barks' stories, Rosa makes all his ducks' stories set in the 1950s. This is because Barks writes most of the stories about Scrooge, Donald and all people of Duckburg in the 1950s (it also conveniently resolves potential continuity problems, such as Scrooge's age). As explained in text pages in the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and its companion volume, Rosa does intense research of time periods to ensure not only that he gets
14560-454: The same number. The Beagle Boys usually operate on their own, but collaborated with Magica De Spell in the 1963 Barks story Isle of the Golden Geese , and again in the 1997 Don Rosa story A Little Something Special where they also teamed up with Flintheart Glomgold . In The Status Seeker ( Uncle Scrooge No. 41, 1963) by Carl Barks, they are shown to be part of a labor union called
14700-399: The second time. Since then, the Beagle Boys have been a constant threat to Scrooge's Money Bin . The third generation of the Beagle Boys, like their fathers, were never given any personal names by Carl Barks but was instead referred to by their prison numbers, which starts with "176-" and ends on a permutation of the numbers 1, 6, and 7, which allows six different combinations. This tradition
14840-481: The show, and the clan matriarch . She often smuggles hand grenades , chainsaws , and other tools in baked goods which easily pass prison security to help her sons escape from jail . Even when she is around, the Beagles never succeed because Scrooge McDuck and his nephews always outwit them. However, in most of the episodes she appears in (especially in the first season), she is able to avoid being arrested along with her sons; that way, she will be able to bust them out
14980-469: The solid blacks and lettering, both of which he had found onerous. They married in 1954 and the union lasted until her death. People who worked for Disney (and its comic book licensees) generally did so in relative anonymity; stories would only carry Walt Disney's name and (sometimes) a short identification number. Prior to 1960 Barks' identity remained a mystery to his readers. However, many readers recognized Barks' work and drawing style and began to call him
15120-429: The story of the chain of unfortunate events that took place when he owned a chicken farm in a town which subsequently was renamed Omelet. Likely one reason it was a favorite is that it was inspired by Barks' own experiences in the poultry business. But to earn a living in the meantime he inquired whether Western Publishing , which had published Pirate Gold , had any need for artists for Donald Duck comic book stories. He
15260-573: The strip to focus on political satire. Rosa later switched the strip to comedy-adventure, his favorite style of comics, and drew the story Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes . (The title is a reference to Lost in the Andes! , a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks, first published in April 1949.) The so-called Pertwillaby Papers included 127 published episodes by the time Rosa graduated in 1973. Meanwhile, Rosa participated in contributing art and articles to comic collector fanzines . One contribution
15400-536: The studio's air conditioning, Barks quit in 1942. Shortly before quitting, he moonlighted as a comic book artist, contributing half the artwork for a one-shot comic book (the other half of the art being done by story partner Jack Hannah ) titled Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold . This 64-page story was adapted by Donald Duck comic strip writer Bob Karp from an unproduced feature, and published in October 1942 in Dell Comics Four Color Comics #9. It
15540-415: The ten-set, thirty-volume Carl Barks Library . These oversized hardbound volumes reproduced Barks' pages in pristine black and white line art, as close as possible to the way he would originally draw them, and included mountains of special features, articles, reminiscences, interviews, storyboards, critiques, and more than a few surprises. This monumental project was finally completed in mid-1990. In 1985,
15680-634: The things they most discuss. The world is full of clans and cults abuzz as angry bees, And Junior Woodchucks snapping jeers at Littlest Chickadees. The ducks show us that part of life is to forgive a slight. That black eyes given in revenge keep hatred burning bright. So when our walks in sun or shade pass graveyards filled by wars, It's nice to stop and read of ducks whose battles leave no scars. To read of ducks who parody our vain attempts at glory, They don't exist, but somehow leave us glad we bought their story. —Carl Barks, 1999 When Barks expressed dismay at coping with
15820-576: 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 five miles (8.0 km) 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. Barks started taking various jobs but had little success in such occupations as
15960-633: The use or multi-national reprinting of any of his stories worldwide. Rosa came to an agreement with Egmont in December of the same year, which gave him more control over the stories and the manner in which they were publicized. Rosa, who had poor eyesight since childhood, experienced a severe retinal detachment in March 2008, which required emergency eye surgery. However, the surgery was only partially successful, and Rosa had to undergo further surgery in both eyes, making drawing even more challenging. In an interview at
16100-484: The world when being presented with such an opportunity, like in Carl Barks' story The Mysterious Stone Ray ( Uncle Scrooge No. 8, 1954). The Beagle Boys are most often shown without an established leader, instead acting as a very coherent and homogeneous unit, and only giving orders between each other interchangeably when needed. However, sometimes the Beagle Boys are led by their grandfather, Blackheart Beagle , who has
16240-512: Was An Index of Uncle Scrooge Comics . According to his introduction: "Scrooge being my favorite character in comic history and Barks my favorite pure cartoonist, I'll try not to get carried away too much." After attaining his bachelor's degree, Rosa continued to draw comics purely as a hobby, his only income came from working in the Keno Rosa Tile and Terrazzo Company , a company founded by his paternal grandfather. Rosa authored and illustrated
16380-515: Was (principally with partner Jack Hannah ) originating story ideas that were storyboarded and (if approved by Walt) put into production. He collaborated on such cartoons as Donald's Nephews (1938), Donald's Cousin Gus (1939), Mr. Duck Steps Out (1940), Timber (1941), The Vanishing Private (1942) and The Plastics Inventor (1944). Unhappy at the emerging wartime working conditions at Disney, and bothered by ongoing sinus problems caused by
16520-487: Was an accomplished landscape artist, some of whose paintings are in the collection of the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art . During her lifetime, and to this day, note cards of her paintings are available from Leanin' Tree. Her nickname appears as a store name in the story "Christmas in Duckburg", featured on page 1 of Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #9, published in 1958. Soon after they met, she started assisting Barks, handling
16660-401: 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
16800-424: Was based mostly on the earlier works of Barks. Rosa admitted however that a scene of the first chapter was inspired by a story by Tony Strobl . As most of the characters Rosa uses were created by Barks, and because Rosa considers Scrooge rather than Donald to be the main character of the Duck universe, he does not regard himself as a pure Disney artist, nor the characters really as Disney's. "Rosa prefers to say that
16940-457: Was born Keno Don Hugo Rosa on June 29, 1951, in Louisville, Kentucky . He was named after both his father and grandfather. Gioachino was called "Keno" for short. Don's father was named Ugo Dante Rosa but used the name "Hugo Don" Rosa in America. Rosa's older sister, Deanna, was an avid collector of comics and exposed Don to comics as a storytelling medium at a very early age, teaching him to “read
17080-476: Was born to write and draw one Scrooge McDuck adventure. Erickson agreed to let him send a story, and Don Rosa started drawing his first Duck story, "The Son of the Sun," the very next day. "The Son of the Sun" was a success and Rosa's very first professional comic story was nominated for a Harvey Award "Best Story of the Year". The plot of the story was the same as his earlier story, Lost in (an alternative section of)
17220-476: Was considered respectable enough for the time. A facsimile of one of the racy magazines he did cartoons for in this period, Coo Coo #1, was published by Hamilton Comics in 1997. 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. In November 1935, when he learned that Walt Disney
17360-559: Was first established in Barks' The Menehune Mystery (Uncle Scrooge No. 4, December 1953), while the Beagle Boys in previous stories, and some of them in The Menehune Mystery , instead had their prison numbers as "176-" followed by random digits (except in their first story, where they have no prison numbers). However, in a few of his later stories, Barks did not continue this tradition and used random numbers again instead. But subsequent writers and artists by default still mostly uses
17500-591: Was immediately assigned to illustrate the script for a ten-page Donald Duck story for the monthly Walt Disney's Comics and Stories . At the publisher's invitation he revised the storyline and the improvements impressed the editor sufficiently to invite Barks to try his hand at contributing both the script and the artwork of his follow-up story. This set the pattern for Barks' career in that (with rare exceptions) he provided art (pencil, inking, solid blacks and lettering) and scripting for his stories. The Victory Garden , that initial ten-page story published in April, 1943
17640-476: Was more an acquaintance to Barks's parents than a friend. The closest school was about two miles (3.2 km) 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 him. 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
17780-460: 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
17920-571: Was no longer anonymous, as word of his identity spread through the emerging network of comic book fandom fanzines and conventions . Carl Barks retired in 1966, but was persuaded by editor Chase Craig to continue to script stories for Western. The last new comic book story drawn by Carl Barks was a Daisy Duck tale ("The Dainty Daredevil") published in Walt Disney Comics Digest issue 5 (Nov. 1968). When bibliographer Michael Barrier asked Barks why he drew it, Barks' vague recollection
18060-562: Was no one was available and he was asked to do it as a favor by Craig. He wrote one Uncle Scrooge story, and three Donald Duck stories. From 1970 to 1974, Barks was the main writer for the Junior Woodchucks comic book (issues 6 through 25). The latter included environmental themes that Barks first explored in 1957 ["Land of the Pygmy Indians", Uncle Scrooge #18]. Barks also sold a few sketches to Western that were redrawn as covers. For
18200-633: Was nominated for a Harvey Award in the "Best Story of the Year" category. Rosa created about 90 stories between 1987 and 2006. In 1995, his 12-chapter work The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck won the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story. Don Rosa's grandfather, Gioachino Rosa, lived in Maniago , a town at the foot of the Alps in Northern Italy , in the province of Pordenone . He immigrated to Kentucky ,
18340-416: 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
18480-470: Was revived as the Carl Barks Library in Color , as full-color, high-quality squarebound comic albums (including the first-ever Carl Barks trading cards). From 1993 to 1998, Barks' career was managed by the "Carl Barks Studio" (Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby—they had sold Barks original art since 1979). This involved numerous art projects and activities, including a tour of 11 European countries in 1994, Iceland being
18620-504: 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
18760-430: Was taking commissions from those interested in purchasing an oil of the ducks, much to his astonishment the response quickly outstripped what he reasonably could produce in the next few years. They ride tall ships to the far away, and see the long ago. They walk where fabled people trod, and Yetis trod the snow. They meet the folks who live on stars, and find them much like us, With food and love and happiness
18900-433: 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
19040-438: Was the first Donald Duck story originally produced for an American comic book and also the first involving Donald and his nephews in a treasure hunting expedition, in this case for the treasure of Henry Morgan . Barks would later use the treasure hunting theme in many of his stories. This actually was not his first work in comics, as earlier the same year Barks along with Hannah and fellow storyman Nick George scripted Pluto Saves
19180-401: Was the first of about 500 stories featuring the Disney ducks Barks would produce for Western Publishing over the next three decades, well into his purported retirement. These can be mostly divided into three categories: Barks' artistic growth during his first decade in comics saw a transformation from rather rudimentary storytelling derived from his years as an animation artist and storyman into
19320-536: Was to be published in Finland, Norway, Germany and Sweden. The essay, posted at career-end.donrosa.de , cites the above reasons, with special emphasis on the "Disney comics system" for paying writers and artists a flat per-page rate, and then allowing publishers around the world to print the stories without payment to the creators. Rosa is more popular with readers in Europe than in his native United States. According to him, even his next-door neighbors do not know his profession. In 1980, Rosa married Ann Payne. Payne
19460-407: Was to go on hiatus and try to come to an agreement with Egmont. His main issues were that he had no control over his works. Rosa had discovered too often that his stories were printed with incorrect pages of art, improper colors, poor lettering, or pixelated computer conversions of the illustrations. Rosa has never, nor has any other artist working on Disney-licensed characters, received royalties for
19600-533: Was unknown to him to be the first issue of the new Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge Title. The second issue is his other favorite Barks Comic from his youth, Dell's Donald Duck in "The Golden Helmet". Later when Rosa became a serious collector of all comics of the post-war years, he particularly enjoyed and collected the classic E.C. Comics of the horror and science fiction genres published in the early 1950s, Will Eisner 's The Spirit , Walt Kelly 's Pogo , and virtually all other comics from 1945 and onward. Rosa entered
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