| INDEX | ART | ANIMATION | [COMICS] | CHARACTERS | QUOTES | DIARY | PHOTOGRAPHS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | LINKS | SOURCES |
| [One Shots] | Comics and Stories | Our Gang | Giveaways | Donald Duck | Uncle Scrooge | Junior Woodchucks | Various | Europe |
| [0009 - 0262] | 0263 - 0495 | 1010 - 1055 | 1073 - .... |
| COMICS | One Shots 0009 - 0262 (1942 - 1949) |
Additional credits: Rescripted from photostats of the storyboards for the abandoned animated movie Morgan's Ghost. The story adaption was written by Bob Karp.
Landmark: Barks's first comic book work (as artist). He illustrated 32 of the 64 pages: page 1, 2, 5, 12-40. The other pages were illustrated by Jack Hannah, at that time Barks's partner in the Duck unit of the story department at the Disney Studio.
Backstage: In a 1978 article, Barks said about this story: "'Pirate Gold' proved to the publishers that Donald didn't have to be in constant turmoil in order to be interesting. His bungling mistakes and his blissful innocence of danger and of being outrageously victimized proved just as amusing as his tantrums. He came off great in a sympathetic role, and his brattish little nephews came off equally great as the 'brains' of the family.
The comedy situation of Donald the reckless bungler getting into hopeless troubles from which he is extricated by his sharp-witted, suspicious-natured nephews was competently developed in this story, and it has carried on into many tales of high and not-so-high adventures ever since."
Correspondence:
Additional credits: In 1965, Barks was asked to re-ink page 1, page 16, and page 17 for the story's reprint in "Uncle Scrooge & Donald Duck" No. 1.
Status: The "sort of script" is lost.
Backstage:
Correspondence:
So the joke's on me, eh?
-- Donald Duck
Landmark: Donald mentions "grandpa", who has an "old buggy horse" (1.4).
CBL-notes: Retouched, art looks muddy overall. After this set was printed, the original 1943 proof pages were discovered. For this reason, the version of the story in "Walt Disney Comics and Stories" No. 551 (1991) is far superior to the Carl Barks Library version (although the word "queer" in panel 1 of page 7 is changed into "weird").
Appearances: Screwball Derby (1.3); grandpa's old buggy horse (1.4); John the Junkman (2.5, 3.4); Hamilton (2.6).
Additional credits: In a June 9, 1968 letter to Michael Barrier, Barks wrote: "In the Sept. 1943 D.D. the story 'Too Many Pets' was a sort of collaboration. The script was started by a writer at the Disney Studio who found himself so overloaded with work on plots for the Mickey comic strips that he had to quit 'Too Many Pets.' I was handed the half-outlined plot and asked to do what I could with it. I merely polished up the other writer's gags and situations, and lengthened the tale, and lo! it didn't look too bad for that spy-conscious era. The Disney writer was named Merrill (something-or-other). He had been Walt Kelly's partner in a story unit at Disneys. I understand he got fed up with gag writing and bought a nursery (plants and trees) and lived happily ever after." (The artist's name is Merrill the Maris).
CBL-notes: Retouched, art looks muddy overall.
Correspondence:
Landmark: Porky Pig story.
Changes: Looking carefully at the heads of Bugs Bunny, Petunia and Porky, occasionally small black lines can be seen where drawings were pasted over Barks' originals. In an August 21, 1974 letter, Barks wrote: "... a few of the Porky or Petunia faces may have been reworked by the staff artists in the editorial room. All of the Bugs heads had to be redrawn, which pleased me very much. I am sure that if my Bugs had been acceptable, the office would have added that series to my work load."
Status: Original version is lost.
Appearances: Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Petunia, Dauntless of the Mounties, Canada.
Backstage: In a June 9, 1966 letter to Michael Barrier, Barks wrote: "Mickey Mouse and Porky Pig I barely touched. They weren't my cup of tea."
In a February 20, 1970 letter to Barrier, Barks wrote: "About how I happened to do the Mickey and Porky series in 1944 and '45 - I was asked to do so by the office. I wouldn't have ventured into those characters' field by choice."
Correspondence:
Cross-references:
Donald is sick of snow and cold. The nephews suggest: "Let's
Surviving material:
Backstage:
In 1976 and 1983 interviews, Barks has commented on how the Everglades became
the inspiration of this story.
Stephen Eberhart's article "Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Research: The Everglades is an existant place. It's the maze of mangrove islands at the south-west tip of Florida, in the United States of America. Nowadays, the Everglades is nothing like the place depicted in this story anymore. Detailed information
Cross-references: Although there don't seem to be any cross-references, this story might be some sort of continuation of what happened in «in Frozen Gold», after Donald and the nephews have finished flying supplies of penicillin to Alaska, and Donald is now complaining about the lack of adventure.
Interviews:
Landmark: Mickey Mouse story.
Appearances: Whoosit, living at 72 Verbena Boulevard (6.5 and 6.7).
Backstage: In a September 18, 1970 letter to Donald Ault, Barks wrote: "Strange to say, I had completely forgotten the story. Reading it, I could see my drawing style in the artwork. My old pay vouchers prove that I did do the art, so I'll puff out my chest and brag that I did a pretty fair Mickey and Goofy." Detailed information
Research: Barks used Floyd Gottfredson / Merril de Maris' "Mickey Mouse in Love trouble" (Mickey Mouse dailies 14 April 1941 - 5 July 1941, reprinted in WDC 36 - 39) as study for "Riddle of the Red Hat".
Congruences:
Correspondence:
Questions:
Changes: If The Carl Barks Library - Set I has printed the story as it first appeared, then Western has altered the lay-out of the first page. Possibly, they seemed to have needed room under the page and so they apparently reduced the page (keeping the ratio) and widened the panels with new art (most notably on the right side of the page) so that the first page would still use the horizontal width of the comic-page fully. Tier 1 and 4 have a larger height than tier 2 and 3, which could mean that some art has been cut from the panels during the process.
Status: If changed, the original version is lost.
Backstage: Barks, about how he tried to avoid censoring: "For 'The Terror of the River' I needed a villain that was a mean son of a gun. I felt that if I made him totally nutty, it would get by the editors a great deal more than if I made him murderous. I created a guy that didn't leave any bad taste in people's mouths, didn't cause children any nightmares afterward. I was not writing for the horror comics."
Interviews:
Questions: Is the original publication identical to the reprint in The Carl Barks Library - Set I?
Sources
| image: © [Walt Disney Productions]
Additional credits: This story has pages with nine to eleven panels each; most have ten panels. According to Barks's voucher, he was paid for thirteen pages "plus 30 panels," which was evidently Western's method of paying him for drawing more than eight panels per page. The vouchers for a few other stories in this crowded format carry similar notations.
Layout: Pages have nine to eleven panels each; most have ten.
Changes: The last two panels of this story are not by Barks: "The editors objected to the last couple of panels of that story because I had Donald set fire to the judge's wastebasket. [It] accidently burned down the courthouse, and he wound up in jail. Western couldn't have a Disney character looking out from behind bars in the final panel of the story, so they changed the ending. They didn't usually redraw my art like that; the editors would often suggest that the artist do the changing himself. But these two panels would have been done by one of the staff artists, either Carl Buettner or Tom McKimson."
As redrawn, Donald awakens and discovers that his adventures as a firebug have all been a bad dream. The original ending has no doubt been destroyed.
Lost material:
Status: Original version is lost.
Congruences:
Interviews:
Additional credits: See in "The Firebug", for more information.
Research:
Donald, thinking of buying a model plane: "I can get one from the
war surplus people for much less! The army had lots of them during
the war!" (1.3) Nephews: "Unca Donald, there's a letter here for
As part of Volcano Valley's president's grumbling, a swastika can be seen. (18.5)
Donald's 313 car is described as "1920 Mixwell engine! '22 Dudge body!
'23 Paclac axles! Wheels off a lawn mower!" (panel 5.5)
Those are all puns on American automobile names. "Dudge" refers to Dodge.
"Paclac" is a gag-combo of PACkard and CadilLAC, the two competitors for
the high-end car buyers back in the old days. "Mixwell" refers to Maxwell.
(The last probably coming from the very popular Jack Benny radio program.)
Backstage: In a 1974 interview with Michael Barrier, Barks said that this story was a rare example of a story that was conceived as ten pages for "Walt Disney's Comics" and grew into a longer story for "Donald Duck": "I can remember the first idea I had on that was just trying to figure out something Donald could do. I thought of him sailing boats and came up with a potential ten pages of gathering seaweed, and selling this kelp, which would give me a lot of gags with boats. Like I told you before, I think of a scene, I mean a locale, and think, 'Well, I feel in the mood to draw boats, and the ocean, and so on,' and that would cause me to start working on that particular type of story. As I developed more and more things with the story, I think it's quite possible that that 'Ghost of the Grotto' was brought in as a menace. There is so much in that, I couldn't have thought of it in a whole bucketful of writing at once. It had to come out one thing after another."
On the Disney comics Mailing List, François Willot wrote: "A very important change in Carl Barks' work was "Ghost of the Grotto". Geoffrey Blum said that this story is a landmark, though one could also say this for "Adventure Down Under", submitted by Barks before "Ghost of the Grotto"." ("Adventure Down Under" was submitted on 4 April 1947.)
Interviews:
Donald! You're going to be sorrreeeeee!
-- Fate
Landmark: First appearance of Scrooge McDuck / Uncle Scrooge.
Landmark: Barks's first front cover for a comic book.
Additional credits: The invisibility spray may have been inspired by a similar gimmick in «The Vanishing Private». Another possible influence could have been «The Haunted Castle», an unproduced cartoon from 1940 in which Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are menaced by an invisible, sword-wielding ghost in an old Scottish estate. (As far as known, Barks did not contribute to that cartoon.)
Trivia: Reference to death. One of the castle's walls contains the skeleton of Sir Quackly. (panel 5.8, 6.7)
Backstage: "mybibliotitle" contains a newspaper quality, black-and-white 1947 Hemet News photograph of Barks, posing at his drawing board, with the original art of page 5A. As the art seems to look finished or almost finished, this photo must have been taken shortly before the story's submission.
Barks, about how he tried to avoid censoring: "There was certainly a bit of the horror story in 'The Old Castle's Secret'. A skeleton walled up in an old castle - that's almost the E.C. comics tradition. But such things are interesting, and I managed to put it over without getting too morbid."
Research:
Diamond Dick says: "With some chemical spray I stole from a foreign spy
during the war!" (31.6) Though it's not literally being said, this could be
a reference to
Uncle Scrooge's castle at Dismal Downs is an amalgam of historic architecture. The basic structure is that of Harlech Castle in Wales. To give the building a more antique air, Barks added turrets and battlements from Glamis and a tower of Cawdor, both Scottish castles which figure in the legend of MacBeth. Pictures of the "National Geographic Society" (the May 1946 and July 1947 issues) were used as source, they are reprinted in the The Carl Barks Library - Set I (page 1A-249).
Congruences:
Interviews:
Questions: What is the history behind the 1947 Hemet News photograph of Barks, posing with his comic book art?
Well! Well! A horseshoe! If some jerk found that,
he'd think it was a sign of good luck!
-- Donald Duck
1569 beans -
1570 beans -
1571 beans -
-- Donald Duck
Description: The nephews promise a prize for guessing the number of beans in their jar.
Congruences: September 11, 1939 Donald Duck daily strip contains a similar gag.
Congruences:
Description: Donald searches a suitable lot for the nephews to play ball, because he's awful scared of broken windows.
CBL-notes: Colored with shades of red.
Appearances: Daily Groaner (newspaper, 1.7)
CBL-notes: Colored.
Backstage: Barks caricatured himself on a wanted poster on panel 32.3. In a May 30, 1971 interview by Michael Barrier, Barks said: "That caricature originated in the old Disney studio days in the gag sheets that us guys used to draw of each other and circulate around. Some of the guys took to drawing me with this tremendous big schnoz, so I just copied that old caricature."
Congruences:
Interviews:
Is the braised quail satisfactory this morning, boys?
-- Donald Duck
Description: Donald pretends to be sick, making the nephews do the cooking and dishwashing.
CBL-notes: Colored with shades of red.
Yes! I said set it in the backyard!
-- Donald Duck
Description: Donald has a little test to prove the worm holes in a fifteenth century wig cabinet being genuine or faked.
CBL-notes: Colored.
Appearances: "An Egg" (painting, 1.6); "Ho and Hum" (book, 1.7).
Hello, Acme Toy Shop? I want you to rush over three train sets, three
bicycles, three atom splitting cyclotrons, three pairs of skates, three
sleds, three baseball outfits, three -
No! I ain't crazy! Charge 'em to Donald Duck!
-- Donald Duck
Additional credits: Based on a story by the editor.
Changes: The editors ordered Barks to tone down his initial version of the story, which resulted in segments being redrawn and rewritten. Detailed information
Status: Original version is lost.
Correspondence:
Interviews:
This tricycle's no good! The wheels break off!
-- Donald Duck
Details: The top left of panel 3.3 seems to show a bomb as one of the toys.
The streets are swarming with last minute Christmas shoppers!
I'll have a time getting through that jam with this tree!
-- Donald Duck
Three more days of this, and I can squeeze my middle through a
doughnut!
-- Donald Duck
Changes: In this story, Western objected to the accent Barks had given the Plain Awful people and so they (for example) replaced incorrect use of "d" with "th" in their dialogue. Apparently it's something Western was making a conscious effort to do at the time, although they didn't bother to do it some years later (there are some late-1950s Br'er Rabbit stories that use "d" for "th" again, but they're fairly few).
Most notable are panels 20.5 ("th" letters slant differently than surrounding words; presumably replacing "de"); 22.8 (balloon extended on right-hand side to rewrite "dere" as "theah", rather cramped); 23.6 and 23.8 ("that's" for "dat's", "theah" for "dere"; in pic 6, "evah" seems to be a substitution too, perhaps for "nevah" -- eliminating an ungrammatical double-negative); 29.1 (some words cramped by the relettering); and 29.3 (sound effect lettering obviously cramped in places where "th" replaced "d").
Status: Original version is lost.
Backstage: In a 1983 interview for "The Carl Barks Library", Barks answered a question about his National Geographic research and how he drew the large panel with the complex stonework that gave the Ducks their first glimpse of the hidden village of Plain Awful. Detailed information
Research:
The songs "Dixie" (19.4) and
"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (20.1) are
existant songs. "Dixie" was published in 1859 and "Old Virginny" was
published in 1878.
Detail: Later in the story, it is explained that the natives learned the
song from professor Rhutt Betlah who visited the valley from 1863 to 1868,
which means that (in real life) he couldn't have known about
"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny".
"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is about a
former slave who reminisces about the good old days back on the plantation
before the US Civil War, when all his needs were met by his kindly master and
mistress, and life was good. The sentimental attitude towards the days of
slavery is nowadays considered politically incorrect, so there is talk of a
re-write of this Virginia state song.
Interviews:
Fight! Squawk! Beef! Gripe! Life is just one big war around here!
-- Donald Duck
Unca' Donald! This little tyke is crying!
How can we make him stop?
-- nephews
I'll just hop from rug to rug!
-- Donald Duck
Changes:
Barks originally drew the zombie of "Voodoo Hoodoo" with blank eyeballs.
The editors at Western Publishing feared that the vacant eyes might frighten
children and so they added pupils and half-closed lids.
In panel 1.4 and 20.8, the editors substituted "done for" for "dead".
In panel 6.7, "dead" was left unchanged.
Surviving material: bombie the zombie [preliminary study]
Status: Original version is lost.
CBL-notes:
The faces of the natives are changed and the sharpened teeth are removed. The
native dialect is deleted. Bombie the Zombie's nose is changed and the ring
in his nose is removed. In panel 1 of page 15, the dialogue
referring to the ring moving as the correct answer to the quiz master's
question is changed.
In panel 8 of page 22, the words "done for" are replaced with
"dead". They were changed by the Western editor before the story's first
publication. (More dialogue has been changed. Information on that will
follow.)
Reconstructions: In The Carl Barks Library - Set II, the dialogue is changed back. Unfortunately, this reprint is censored.
Congruences:
You beat me on purpose!
You -
You -
-- Daisy Duck
Congruences:
Additional credits: Barks credits Dana Coty with the idea of this story.
Landmark: First appearance of Gladstone Gander in the "Donald Duck" series.
CBL-notes: In three panels, words may have been reordered in the sentences of an Eskimo's dialogue to become slightly more grammatical.
Question: Possibly, this is only the case in the Carl Barks Library in Color. Can someone check if it's in the b/w Carl Barks Library, too? Also, which dialogue has been changed?
Details: In panel 14.3, Donald's eyes are drawn like Gladstone's. (Apart from the beak, instead of being attached to it.)
Unca' Donald, we dug out some bricks to make a playhouse,
and look what we found!
-- nephews
Wonder if
Santa brought us
what we ordered?
-- nephews
Sources
| [0009 - 0262] | 0263 - 0495 | 1010 - 1055 | 1073 - .... |
| [One Shots] | Comics and Stories | Our Gang | Giveaways | Donald Duck | Uncle Scrooge | Junior Woodchucks | Various | Europe |
| INDEX | ART | ANIMATION | [COMICS] | CHARACTERS | QUOTES | DIARY | PHOTOGRAPHS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | LINKS | SOURCES |
|
|