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As the creator of Scrooge McDuck, Carl Barks did more than any other comic book artist to widen the popularity of Donald Duck, bringing in the process a vast array of memorable supporting characters into the Disney universe, among them Uncle Scrooge himself, Gladstone Gander, Gyro Gearloose (and his Little Helper), the Beagle Boys, and the Junior Woodchucks.
Unlike many other artists working (all anonymously) for the Disney company, Carl Barks did not mindlessly churn out condescending, forgettable stories of a childish nature during his 24-year stint on the Disney Ducks. He consistently produced delightful top-quality material, both in his scripts and in his art as well as in his dialogues, which echoed with deep human resonance. "I polished and polished on the scripts and drawings until I had done the best I could in the time available", Carl Barks said. In both types of stories -- the 10-page comedies and the longer adventure stories -- Barks produced between 1942 and 1966 and Carl Barks managed to convey the intricacies and subtleties of the full scope of human emotions (from envy and cynicism and alarm and desperation to joy and scorn and triumph and smugness) while capturing the essence of exotic locations from the four corners of the world (from scorching deserts and primal forests to humid jungles and freezing snow-clad mountains through the urban setting of Duckburg).
Carl Barks mastery at this is witnessed to by, among others, Newsweek's homage to his artistry and by Time's conclusion that "Scrooge and his creator Carl Barks belong in the great mainstream of American Folklore." Beyond that is the plain fact that Carl Barks was known to his readers simply as "the good artist" (a descriptor necessary during a time when the Disney company didn't identify any of its cartoonists). Carl Barks’ publishers tried in the early '50s to replace Barks on the 10-page comedies in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories so that Carl Barks could concentrate on the longer adventure epics in Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge (these were the three titles that contained the bulk of Barks' output through the years); they were promptly flooded with a barrage of pleading and irate letters from readers demanding that "the good artist" be brought back.
Carl Barks was sprightly and active until the very last. People half Barks age reported that Carl Barks could remember events they had long forgotten. Barks pace was such that during his 1994 trip to Europe (Carl Barks first outside North America) to celebrate Donald's 60th birthday, young Disney handlers and PR staff (imagine yuppies in their 30s) at Paris' Euro Disneyland had to quicken their pace to keep up with the then-93-year-old man. Carl Barks philosophy could be summarized in these words: "I worked hard at trying to make something as good as I could possibly make it... I always tried to write a story I wouldn't mind buying myself."
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