| 1901 |
Carl Barks was born on March 27 in Merrill, Oregon on a farm.
"I remember there in Oregon on the home ranch, there was a dust problem from
the wind blowing off the ploughed fields, and she got all fed up with taking
the curtains down and washing them. They had to wash everything by hand in
those days. She got the idea of making little stencils like doilies and painting
patterns like lace curtains. It saved all that washing, because you could
look in from the outside and think, well, that house has curtains up." (Interview
by Geoffrey Blum, December 10-11, 1991)
Picture from 1906: Barks is second from right |
| 1910 |
His family moved for two years to California where he
starts to draw at the age of about 10. |
| 1916 |
After the death of his mother, Barks left the school at
the age of 15 to help his father on the farm. He continued to draw and even
took part in a long distance course called "London School of Cartooning" |
| 1918 |
With 100 dollars he moved to San Francisco to start as
a comic artist in the newspaper but had to realize that they had too many
good artists to take a beginner. |
| 1920 |
Barks returned to Oregon. |
| 1923 |
Barks married for the first time. Because of a draught
he had to go to Sacramento to work for five and a half years in the "Pacific
Fruit Express" |
| 1928 |
He started to sell cartoons for the "Calgary Eye-Opener". |
| 1930 |
After the separation from his first wife he returned to
Oregon. |
| 1931 |
When the depression made him again jobless he started
to make drawing his profession and he moved to Minneapolis to work on the
editorial board of the "Calgary Eye-Opener". |
| 1935 |
Barks (now 34) applied for a job with Disney. He is soon
accepted after a few test drawings. He soon sold ideas to the comic strip
department which were so good that Walt Disney realized that he would be best
in the story board department. He then helped with 35 short cartoons. |
| 1942 |
His first co-produced (with Jack Hannah) comic story appeared
in Four Color #9 and is called "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold". Barks left
Disney on November 6. He then moved to San Jacinto east of Los Angeles. With
his second wife he owned a chicken farm. He continued to sell drawings to
several magazines. |
| 1943 |
Barks started to draw Disney stories for Western Publishing
beginning with "The Victory Garden" which appeared in WDC&S #31. For the
May edition he also wrote the script. |
| 1947 |
Barks invented Uncle Scrooge in his legendary tale "Christmas
on Bear Mountain". |
| 1948 |
He invented Galdstone Gander. |
| 1951 |
The Beagle boys are added to Barks' repertoire of characters. |
| 1952 |
The character who most closely resembles his self-portrait is invented:
Gyro Gearloose. |
| 1966 |
On June 30, Barks voluntarily retired at the age of 65. |
| 1968 |
Barks started to draw oil paintings featuring the Ducks. |
| 1976 |
Fans of the oil paintings speculated for various paintings
when Disney finally restrained Barks in his efforts. Up to 1976, he had drawn
more than 122 paintings.Prints of these paintings can be bought at http://www.brucehamilton.com |
| 2000 |
Barks died on August 25 at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon.
He had leukemia.Until the end, Carl Barks worked at his timeless oil-paintings
that made his life worthwhile. |
