Author Biography
Carl Barks was The Good Artist who created Uncle Scrooge and wrote and drew adventure stories of Donald Duck and a menagerie of waterfowl and other Disney comic book characters. He had the distinction of being the least known while at the same time the most popular storyteller of his day. Some authorities have reported that comic books with Carl's stories averaged 23 million copies world wide, EACH MONTH throughout his twenty-three year career. If these figures are anywhere near accurate, 23 million per month times 12 months times 23 years amounts to six billion copies sold, making Carl the most popular author in all history. The revenue generated by Carl's stories would easily have amounted to gross sales of over $600 million--an average of more than $26 million yearly--over a half century ago when a dime had meaning. Upon his retirement from comic bookery, he spent his remaining years creating oil paintings of scenes from his Disney stories, which today are purchased by collectors at enormous prices. For seven decades the work of Carl Barks has been translated into every major language, published by the millions, and enjoyed by billions of adults and children of all cultures. The characters he created have become household names, his stories treasured works of literature. Yet it was not until his retirement in the 1960s that Carl's name was made known to the public, for during the twenty-three years of his career, his work was presented to the public as that of Walt Disney. An American of humble beginnings from rural Oregon, Carl Barks became the single most prolific, most published, most read author in history. This series of pictorial books explores every aspect of his work and its ongoing global impact.
