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6[[quoteright:306:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Barks.jpg]]
7->''"I always felt myself to be an unlucky person like Donald, who is a victim of so many circumstances. But there isn't a person in the United States who couldn't identify with him. He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make."''
8
9Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was a Creator/{{Disney}} writer and artist who made comics set in the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse from 1942 to 1966. He was known as ''the Duck Man'' and ''the Good Duck Artist'' by the readers for much of this time, owing to a Disney company rule which forbade the comic authors' names from being featured in their magazines.
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11Barks is renowned for creating characters such as Scrooge [=McDuck=], Gladstone Gander, Gyro Gearloose, the Beagle Boys, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica De Spell, and many others, as well as setting in stone the base geography of the city of Duckburg. His stories brought in the treasure hunt plot to Duck comics and inspired a generation of creators -- including Creator/GeorgeLucas, Creator/StevenSpielberg, Creator/OsamuTezuka, Creator/DonRosa, Creator/RobertCrumb, Creator/ArtSpiegelman, and the writers of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' -- to replicate the thrill of adventure they evoked. Creator/WillEisner called him "the Creator/HansChristianAndersen of comic books." He was also responsible for expanding Donald Duck's personality beyond his usual one-note characterization in the WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts; reaching levels that were never rivaled in the animated appearances of the character.
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13After retiring, Barks took up painting (as seen in the page image). First his paintings were unrelated to his comic career, but later he began recreating scenes from Duck stories in paint. One completely original scene led to him writing one more story in retirement, which was drawn by William Van Horn, a younger Duck artist.
14
15Do not confuse him with Creator/KarlMarx.
16
17----
18!!Notable stories by Carl Barks:
19[[index]]
20* ComicBook/GoodDeeds (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #34, 1943)
21* ComicBook/FrozenGold (Donald Duck Four Color #62, 1944)
22* ComicBook/MaharajahDonald (Boys' and Girls' March of Comics #4, 1947)
23* ComicBook/ChristmasOnBearMountain (Donald Duck Four Color #178, 1947)
24* ComicBook/TheOldCastlesSecret (Donald Duck Four Color #189, 1948)
25* ComicBook/WintertimeWager (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #88, 1948)
26* ComicBook/LostInTheAndes (Donald Duck Four Color #223, 1949)
27* ComicBook/LuckOfTheNorth (Donald Duck Four Color #256, 1949)
28* ComicBook/LetterToSanta (Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1, 1949)
29* ComicBook/VoodooHoodoo (Donald Duck Four Color #238, 1949)
30* ComicBook/TrailOfTheUnicorn (Donald Duck Four Color #263, 1950)
31* ComicBook/LandOfTheTotemPoles (Donald Duck Four Color #263, 1950)
32* ComicBook/TheMagicHourglass (Donald Duck Four Color #291, 1950)
33* ComicBook/AChristmasForShacktown (Donald Duck Four Color #367, 1952)
34* ComicBook/OnlyAPoorOldMan (Uncle Scrooge Four Color #386, 1952)
35* ComicBook/TheGoldenHelmet (Donald Duck Four Color #408, 1952)
36* ComicBook/TheGildedMan (Donald Duck Four Color #422, 1952)
37* ComicBook/TheThinkBoxBollix (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #141, 1952)
38* ComicBook/BackToTheKlondike (Uncle Scrooge Four Color #456, 1953)
39* ComicBook/TheHorseradishStory (Uncle Scrooge #3, 1953)
40* ComicBook/TrallaLa (Uncle Scrooge #6 1954)
41* ComicBook/TheSecondRichestDuck (Uncle Scrooge #15, 1956)
42* ComicBook/TheMidasTouch (Uncle Scrooge #36, 1961)
43[[/index]]
44
45----
46!!Tropes in Carl Barks's works:
47* AdaptationalVillainy: People who have read stories featuring John D. Rockerduck but never read the only Barks story where he appeared will be surprised to learn he was by no means portrayed as a villain in that story.
48* AlcoholIsGasoline: A variant (in that it does not actually involve alcohol) occurs in "Chugwagon Derby". Scrooge and Donald are competing in a vintage car rally and Donald attempts to sabotage Scrooge's car by bribing a gas station attendant to fill Scrooge's tank with contents of a black barrel he points at, even though the attendant tells him that the barrel doesn't contain gasoline. After he fills the tank, Scrooge's car takes off like a rocket, including belching flames.
49-->'''Scrooge:''' Man! You must have fueled this car with '''T.N.T.!'''... But, then, these old crates will run on almost '''anything!'''\
50'''Attendant:''' I'll say! That one's running on '''weed spray!'''
51* AscendedExtra: A lot of characters Barks created as one-shot characters for single stories were later brought back and established as major characters in the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse. They were brought back either by Barks himself (Gyro Gearloose, Beagle Boys) or other writers (John D. Rockerduck, Goldie O'Gilt), taking on far larger roles. Biggest example would be Scrooge [=McDuck=] originally intended to be a one-shot antagonist in ''ComicBook/ChristmasOnBearMountain'' but turned out to be recognizable enough for Barks to use him more frequently as a supporting character in his Donald Duck-stories before "Uncle Scrooge" got his own comic book and is nowadays a comic book legend of his own, starring in multiple media.
52* AtopAMountainOfCorpses: Non-lethal variant, of course. Let's just say Scrooge can kick butt.
53* BehindTheBlack: In "Statuesque Spendthrifts", somehow nobody can ever notice a much bigger statue of Cornelius Coot right next to the one getting unveiled until the moment the veil falls off it as well. Taken up to eleven during the third round, when both statues are at least ''ninety'' stories high and clearly towering over Duckburg's skyline.
54* BittersweetEnding: While he did write a lot of stories with unambiguously happy endings, more often they would end on a bittersweet note or a downright DownerEnding, and even the happy endings would often have some kind of ironic twist to them.
55* BreakoutCharacter: Scrooge [=McDuck=]. Barks created him as a one-shot character for the story "Christmas on Bear Mountain" (1947) Then he decided to bring him back in the horror-themed story "The Old Castle's Secret" (1948), where Scrooge is effectively the co-protagonist and receives much of the spotlight. Barks then started using him as a permanent addition to Donald's supporting cast, and other Disney writers started following his example. By 1952, Scrooge was popular enough for the publisher Western Publishing to give him his own comic book series. Barks' stories "Only a Poor Old Man" (1952) and "Back to the Klondike" (1953) were new origin stories for Scrooge. Subsequent stories by both Barks and other writers introduced villains, rivals, romantic interests, and supporting characters for him. The Disney Ducks' stories more often revolve around him, rather than his hired assistants (sidekicks) Donald, Huey, Louie, and Dewey. He is by far one of the most popular Disney comics characters, and several writers and readers consider him the real protagonist among the various members of the cast. Not bad for a character that was only supposed to appear once.
56** Scrooge ended up being so popular that he eventually made his animation debut in 1967 with the short ''Scrooge [=McDuck=] and Money''.
57** Not as big as Scrooge, but Gyro Gearloose is another character that turned out more popular than Barks would have thought: Gyro first appears as a background character in ''Gladstone's Terrible Secret'' before being brought back in later stories. However, Gyro turned out to be popular enough that the publisher decided to give Gyro his own comic book magazine as the titular character with original stories created by Barks. He even appeared as a regular character in ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|1987}}'', a cartoon series loosely based on Barks' stories.
58* BunglingInventor: Gyro Gearloose.
59* ContrivedCoincidence: Invaribly accompanied by someone (frequently the nephews) exclaiming, "[[LampshadeHanging What a break!]]"
60* CoolOldGuy: Scrooge all the way.
61** And in a meta sense, Carl Barks as well.
62* CrankyNeighbor: Neighbor Jones.
63* CreatorThumbprint: Exotic locales, wise old men advising the heroes, and oddly enough, eggs. (Barks was an unsuccessful chicken farmer before his career at Disney)
64* CreepyTwins: The Nephews at times.
65* {{Dogfaces}}: Barks originally drew humans, so when he started drawing for Disney, where he wasn't allowed to draw humans, he adapted by adding Dog and pig snouts, noses and [[LittleBitBeastly ears]] to otherwise human designs.
66* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
67** Scrooge living in a mansion, his money being stored in a bankhouse instead of the money bin
68** In its first appearance Scrooge doesn't hold his NumberOneDime in particularly high esteem - when he decides to change all his coins into banknotes, the dime is spared because he kept it in his pocket, but he apparently wouldn't have cared had it been changed too - unthinkable in later stories.
69* EscapedAnimalRampage: One Carl Barks comic strip had Donald Duck walking around with a necklace that brings good luck. When he hears that a dangerous gorilla escaped he decides to capture the giant ape, believing that he will be protected by his lucky device. Of course, it doesn't work.
70* FurryConfusion: Barks actually points it out in one panel. The anthropomorphic Duck protagonists briefly appear next to non-sentient realistic Ducks. The main characters are essentially human, while the others are animals.
71* FurryLens:
72** Barks often treats his duck characters like humans and at times, Duck is treated as a [[SpeciesSurname last name]].
73** The Dog and Pig nosed characters in Barks works are always treated exactly like humans without the rare [[FurryReminder Furry Reminders]] like the Ducks would get.
74* GasolineLastsForever: In "Chugwagon Derby", Scrooge reveals that as young man he bought a horseless carriage when they were first becoming available. However, after discovering that he could walk faster than the car could drive, he hid it away in a barn; afraid that people would laugh at him for his foolishness. However, after Donald shows him how you can make money in vintage car contests, he goes and hauls it out from under the pile of old harness where it is hidden. He comments that it runs on a mixture of kerosene and whale oil and, to his delight, he discovers there is still $1's worth in the tank. The fires the car up and it starts immediately. As the story was first published in 1961, the car and fuel would have had to have been sitting there for about 60 years.
75* GetTheeToANunnery: "the only live one I ever knew"
76* GreyAndGrayMorality: Uniquely for kids' comics at the time, there are very few people in Barks's comics that are unambiguously good or unambiguously bad. Most people are firmly in-between, and several of the conflicts don't have a clear good guy or a clear bad guy. Epitomized by Barks himself in an interview: "The thing that I consider most important about my work is this: I told it like it is. I told my readers that the bad guys have a little of good in them, and the good guys have a lot of bad in them, and that you can't depend on anything much; nothing is always going to turn out roses."
77** The only exceptions are Flintheart Glomgold and The Beagle Boys.
78* HeAlsoDid: Barks started his career in the 1920s and '30s at the ''Calgary Eye-Opener'', a racy men's cartoon magazine of the era. [[http://www.cracked.com/article_21568_7-famous-artists-you-didnt-know-were-perverts-pt.-2_p2.html During his retirement, he would constantly draw or paint erotic pictures of women or men with Duck Faces.]]
79* HiveMind: The Nephews at times.
80* {{Jerkass}}: Gladstone Gander
81* LiteralMoneyMetaphor: In "Wishing Stone Island", the nephews trick Donald into travelling to the South Seas in search of a magical wishing stone. Throughout the story, Donald keeps getting in trouble for using slang terms for dollars (coconuts, bananas, simoleons, etc.). When he finds what he thinks is the stone, he wishes for "a million coconuts". The natives, who are stuck with a glut of coconuts, immediately pelt him with a million coconuts. The chief then tells him he has until sunset to get them off the island. When Donald asks what will happen if he doesn't, the chief says they will gather them up and throw them at him again.
82* LemonyNarrator: There was a surprising amount of snark in the narration boxes: "No more trouble? Ho ho! That's what you think, Donald!"
83* MoneyFetish: Scrooge swims in it.
84* MrViceGuy: Scrooge used to be the {{Trope Namer|s}}.
85* {{Mundanger}}: "Vacation Time", a story of his from 1950, is notorious for its main antagonist being not anything you would call a supervillain, but rather a common {{Jerkass}} who still manages to get disturbingly close to ''actually killing'' Donald and his nephews without actually trying.
86* NoodleIncident: Scrooge keeps on littering them around, referring to his adventurous past.
87* NotAllowedToGrowUp: Everyone, but most notably the nephews.
88* OurFounder: Cornelius Coot. The founder of Duckburg. He is revered by people of the town, and his statue (or statues) are city landmarks. He is long dead but his face is everywhere.
89* TheProfessor: Gyro Gearloose
90* RememberTheNewGuy: Barks's favorite way to introduce new characters into his comics: While the characters are unknown to the readers, the characters in-universe are usually already familiar with him. Of course course this isn't the case for every new character, there are exceptions like Flintheart Glomgold or Magica [=DeSpell=]. Characters that are introduced this way include: Gladstone Gander, Neighbor Jones, Scrooge [=McDuck=], Gyro Gearloose, John D. Rockerduck and the Beagle Boys.
91* ScoobyDooHoax: On occasion the heroes would come across as this, most notably in "The Hound of the Whiskervilles." The notorious monstrous hound that has been attacking the Clan [=McDuck=] for centuries, was just a series of men from a rival clan wearing a disguise. The monster's supposed invulnerability to the weapons of his opponents was simply due to wearing armor beneath the disguise.
92* SexyScandinavian: Downplayed (his work is meant for kids, after all), but when Scrooge and co briefly visit Norway, they're met by a sibling duo looking about as stereotypical as you could be, with blonde hair and large blue eyes.
93* ShinyNewAustralia: In "The Golden Helmet", the eponymous helmet was proof an ancient viking named Olaf the Blue was the true owner of North America (the first European to ever reach it), theoretically allowing any (alleged) descendant of his to use it to take over the continent. When WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck got the helmet, an attorney offered to help Donald and wanted Canada as his legal fees. In the story, the helmet passes through the hands of several characters, and nearly all of them are corrupted into becoming would-be tyrants for the entire North America.
94* ShownTheirWork: Barks was very well known for doing his homework on whatever subject his stories involved. Several of the landmarks and foreign locations in his stories are based on the photographs in his favorite reference source: ''Magazine/NationalGeographic''.
95* SitcomArchNemesis: Both Neighbor Jones and Gladstone Gander often work as such for Donald.
96* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: More on the idealistic end of the scale.
97* TakeThat: Barks really didn't seem to like all the silly quiz-shows that were popular at the time, and he mocked them a lot in stories like ''Voodoo Hoodoo'', ''The Crazy Quiz Show'', ''The Talking Dog'', ''Land Beneath The Ground'' or ''The Colossalest Surprise Quiz Show'', often pointing out how easy it was to answer the questions even for a complete idiot.
98** In ''The Crazy Quiz Show'' in particular, the host of the quiz is portrayed in a slightly cruel light, giving insanely impossible quiz questions to professional prize-grabbers (like "What is WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse's social security number?"), and giving silly punishments and pranks for answering wrong or trying to coach other contestants.
99** Meanwhile, Huey, Dewey, and Louie each got easy questions and the prizes to boot.
100** One Donald ten-pager involved his being influenced by a quack psychologist named "Dr. Pulpheart Clabberhead," who believed any form of punishment administered to children was cruel. Clabberhead was a very thinly veiled parody of Dr. Spock, whose child-rearing books were popular at the time. The nephews used Donald's new softhearted philosophy to get away with everything and drive him nuts. Eventually they decided to light a stick of dynamite under Clabberhead's chair, causing the "doctor" to break his own doctrine by chasing them with a stick.
101* TangledFamilyTree: Barks worked out his own genealogy tree on how the major and minor characters of the Duck and [=McDuck=] families are related to each other, including several generations of ancestors. Technically he created most of the characters in it, but it was compiled for the masses to see by Rosa.
102** The relation of characters in Barks' stories are generally rather inconsistent, since Barks was making it up as he went, whereas later writers would have his and Rosa's family trees to reference. In one example, Gladstone is referred to as the son of Scrooge's sister. Later stories clearly established him as being the son of Scrooge's sister-in-law, having no shared blood with Scrooge.
103* TarAndFeathers: In "Wishing Stone Island", Donald arrives on the island and grabs the first round, black object he sees and makes a wish, only to discover it is the head of a native who has been tarred and feather. After he scares Donald off, the nephews help him and he explains that he was the tribe's medicine man, but the tribe tarred and feathered him after none of his medicine could summon any traders to the island, leaving them stuck with a huge glut of coconuts.
104* UpliftedAnimal: Gyro Gearloose once invented a 'think box' device that could make any animal as smart as a person. He ended up creating both a superintelligent rabbit and a superintelligent wolf, the latter of whom he only barely stopped from stewing Donald alive.
105** To be fair, Donald wanted to trick the nephews and Gyro by dressing up like a wolf, but the super intelligent wolf ended up dressing up like a man in order to trick Donald.
106* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Barks started portraying the Nephews like this and invented the Junior Woodchucks.

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