On March 27, 1901, American illustrator Carl Barks was born. After much struggles as an artist, he found a place within the Disney empire, creating the Donald Duck comic books and characters such as Scrooge McDuck. But he worked anonymously for most his career, with fans dubbing him The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist before his identity was discovered.
He died in 2001.
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The character of Scrooge McDuck began as simply that of a wealthy miser, but over time Barks developed McDuck into a personification of Barks’ own values. And, in particular, Barks repeatedly used Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck to present two responses to adversity. In Barks’ stories, both Donald and Scrooge have terrible luck. Donald is flattened each time. Scrooge, on the other hand, expresses dismay or frustration, but then gets at the task of recovery.
Barks’ art is just beautiful. And one reason that he didn’t remain anonymous for his whole career is that even the Disney corporation realized that not allowing Barks to sign his own name would be too great an injustice.