Disney Had Cartoon, But Artist Put Character In Donald Duck

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - In the beginning, Donald was just a duck. A stupid duck. He had neither nephews nor nemesis. Personality? Character? C'mon, he was a duck. He had no charm. No future. No storytelling.

Then who should come along, way back in 1942, but Carl Barks, the son of southern Oregon wheat and a survivor of what he later would call that "windy, dusty, profitless life."

On the fragile pages of a comic book, Barks supplied the duck with flesh and blood. Gave him an uncle (Scrooge McDuck) and a home (Duckburg). Gave him a passport and an audience.

Barks didn't do this for Walt Disney Studios. Right off the top, we need to give Disney its due . . . or, in this case, its do-nothing. Disney and its animators didn't have much truck with the duck.

"They never did anything with comic books," says Don Rosa, the Kentucky-based artist who grew up with Barks' stories and now draws "Uncle Scrooge."

"Disney just used Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse as actors," says Rosa. "They were images. Dell (Comics) turned them into true characters.

"And it's Barks who defined the character of Donald Duck for comic books, the only place where the character was ever developed."

Once Barks signed on as the duck's official (but uncredited) storyteller, Donald became quite famous. So, of course, did Disney. Donald toured the world. Disney swallowed central Florida.

And what of Barks, whose comics sold 3 million copies each during most of the 1950s and captivated an estimated 10 million readers?

He ended up in Grants Pass, ducking publicity, a virtual recluse. In 1983 he returned to the same valley where he briefly weathered the Depression, expecting to age mellowly in a rocking chair and die with a paintbrush in his hand.

It just didn't work out that way. The enduring charm of his duck stories did not subside; they were reprinted for an entire new audience. His oil paintings - often re-creations of his most famous comic-book covers - began to sell for as much as $200,000.

And on Monday, at age 93, Carl Barks left for six weeks of adventure in Europe, where his reputation and his fame are far greater than in his native land.

For the past several weeks, Grants Pass has been under siege. Foreign journalists - stunned to find that Alitalia, Lufthansa and Swiss Air don't have direct flights to the Duck Man's hometown - have rolled down Interstate 5 and staked out Barks' studio, begging for a few words to carry home in advance of the Barks tour.

Barks doesn't have time to meet with all the pilgrims. He is partly deaf. He is usually tired. When he paints, he makes $6,000 a day, according to Bill Grandey, one of the managers at Barks' studio, but even the brushwork takes it out of him.

When he finally began writing and drawing stories for Western Publishing, the parent company of Dell, Barks yoked Donald and his strong supporting cast to "human frailties like greed, pride and arrogance." He pitted them against "the perversity of beasts, machines and nature" that he knew by heart.

And when the Ducks reached their mischievous limit in Duckburg, Barks - inspired by the photographic essays in National Geographic - transported Donald, Scrooge, the nephews and his readers on one treasure hunt after another.

They invaded the Land of the Totem Poles. Volcano Valley. Atlantis. The Andes, in search of square eggs. Back to the Klondike and on to the lost paradise of Tralla La.

His goal? "Escapist entertainment." A yarn that survived, even if the comic book didn't.

In that light, Barks' greatest creation was Uncle Scrooge. Scrooge was the successful entrepreneur that Barks wasn't. They had the same work ethic, but only Scrooge hit the jackpot.

The most Barks ever got paid for a page of story and art was $45.50.

"My wallet didn't fatten up until I was 85 years old," says Barks. "It has made no difference in my life, as I have all my earlier spending habits. My accountant likes my style."

When he is bent over a storyboard, Barks has never lacked for style, which elevated his art above the raw material of the medium.

"When Barks started, comic books were hack work," says Don Rosa.

Even Disney, which could never repay Barks what it owes him, wants to horn in on the celebration. Euro-Disney has 120 trained ducks prepared to "honk" Barks a belated happy birthday.

After Barks' trip to Europe, the pilgrimages to Grants Pass almost surely will continue. Readers who have traveled to Tralla La and back will make the long trek to Oregon, hoping to steal a glimpse of the storyteller who breathed life into the ducks and their idle hours.

If you're in the neighborhood, you're bound to bump into one of these treasure-seekers. It's not hard to recognize someone who has just emerged from one of Barks' tales. They surface with the same look we see on Scrooge's face after a dip in the money bin:

Rich beyond their wildest dreams. And desperate for more.