Donald Duck in Comics - Early Developments Under Barks

Early Developments Under Barks

Barks quit working at the Studio and found employment at Western Publishing with a starting pay of twelve dollars and fifty cents per page. According to a later interview by Barks, the company originally expected him to illustrate stories based on the scripts of others. They had sent him a script along with the following note: "Here is a 10-page story for Donald Duck. Hope that you like it. You are to stage it, of course. And if you see that it can be strengthened, or that it deviates from Donald either in narration or action, please make the improvements." Wanting to script his own stories, Barks started working on the script provided, freely changing whatever he wished. When he had finished with it, very little of the original remained. The story was The Victory Garden, first published in April, 1943. Barks had made his point by improving the original script beyond what had been expected of him. From then on, Barks both scripted and illustrated his stories.

His production during that year seems to be at the pace he would follow for much of the following decade. Eight 10-pagers to be published in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, published in a monthly basis, and one longer story for the sporadically published Donald Duck. In this case the story was The Mummy's Ring, 28-pages long, first published in September, 1943. The shorter stories would usually focus on Donald's everyday life and on comedy, while the longer ones were usually adventure stories set in exotic locales. The latter would often contain more dramatic elements and darker themes, and would place Donald and his nephews into dangerous and often near-fatal situations. To add realism to his illustration of those stories' settings, Barks would still seek reference sources. The magazine National Geographic would usually provide most of the material he needed.

In both cases the stories presented Donald's personality as having multiple aspects that would surface according to circumstance. Or as Barks would say later: "He was sometimes a villain, and he was often a real good guy and at all times he was just a blundering person like the average human being." Adding another note of realism was the fact that Donald could end up being either the victor or the loser in his stories. And often even his victories were hollow. This gave a sense of realism to Donald's character and the characters and situations around him.

His nephews accompanied him in those stories and Barks also gave many aspects to their personalities. In some cases they acted as the mischievous brats Taliaferro had introduced, often antagonizing their uncle. In some cases they got in trouble and Donald would have to save them. But in others they proved remarkably resourceful and inventive, often helping their uncle out of a difficult situation. But most of the time, they would appear to have developed a deeper understanding of things and level of maturity than their uncle.