Pop quiz. Who is the most popular American
to ever work in the medium of comic books? It's not Stan Lee or Jack Kirby. It's not Todd McFarlane or Jim Lee. It's an artist
most people couldn't even name. That's because this man, arguably
the most influential comic artists in American history, was forced to remain
anonymous by the Disney Corporation. His name deserves to be known. This is his story. Let's begin in an unusual place. In 1946, at a YMCA in Osaka, Japan, where a young Japanese medical student
was practicing piano. An American soldier
heard him playing and came in to listen. After the student finished,
the soldier responded by singing an opera. Due to their shared love of music
The two became friends. The medical student was an amateur artist and offered to draw a portrait
of the American soldier. As a thank you for that portrait, the soldier brought the medical student
a stack of American comics. That stack of comics changed his life. He would later say of the soldier, “My
friendship with him might have been short, but it became the reason I decided
to become a manga artist.” And that young man's name
was Osamu Tezuka. If that name sounds familiar, it's
because Tezuka is regularly referred to as the God of Manga
and is the single largest and most influential individual in
the creation of manga as we know it today. But what matters for this story is
what was in that stack of American comics that inspired Tezuka
to change the course of history. For a long time, no one seemed to know
or care what he had been reading. But thanks to the diligent work of comics
scholar Ryan Holmberg, we actually have a good idea. In 2012, Holmberg gained access to the Tezuka’s American comic collection
and published a list of what he found, as well as closely studying Tezuka’s early
work for references to American comics. So what was it that inspired Tezuka? He famously never had much interest
in superhero comics or even American crime or horror comics. No, the comics that held
the largest spot in his collection were Disney Comics,
mainly those starring Donald Duck. And Tezuka wasn't alone in being enamored
and inspired by the Donald Duck Comics. Around the world, people in the 1940
and 1950s had noticed their astoundingly high quality, clearly all being created
by the hand of a single, brilliant artist. Only that brilliant artist
was never credited. So dedicated fans around the world
made up their own names; the good artist, the good duck artist,
or simply the duck man. Now, hold on, before you start thinking
I'm some weird Disney adult, let me explain why this all matters. Because sometimes it feels like comic
history gets rewritten a little bit. While superhero comics dominate
the American comic market today, it's easy to forget that
that wasn't always the case. In the 1940s and fifties, funny
animal books were both common and extremely popular,
and none were more popular than Disney Comics, especially the Donald
Duck Comics drawn by the Duck Man. The series that his stories appeared
in was not only the best selling comic, but the second
best selling periodical in the country, outselling every single newspaper
behind only Reader's Digest. In the early 1950s,
the Duck man was selling 3 million comics every single month,
and yet no one knew his name. Fans,
of course, had tried to find out his name, but any requests sent to the publisher
were either denied or unanswered. You see,
Disney was intent on keeping alive the myth that Walt Disney himself
personally drew the comics. That's not a joke. Other artists regularly signed Walt’s
signature to their own work. And while many kids really believed that
myth, reality was just about the opposite. Some artists would later claim that Walt
didn't even read the comic books. But after more
than a decade of speculation, the Duck Man's fans were determined
to find out his identity. One of those fans was named Malcolm
Willits, and Willits had a plan to break through Disney's stonewall and finally
get the real name of the duck man. But hold on a second
before we get into Willits and his plan, we need to talk about why this matters. Why did anyone then or
why should we today even care about who draws the Donald Duck comic? Let me ask you another question. Are comics art? Because this, I believe, is the question
at the heart of the hunt for The Duck Man. Because how can an artist who doesn't get credit for their work
be considered a true artist? Whose work is printed on low quality
newsprint, whose original drawings are destroyed,
whose work isn't collected in books, whose subjects are characters
created and owned by a giant corporation? That sounds like disposable
mass media, not art. But The Duck Man's fans believed
his work was important, and they knew that
if nothing was known about him, written about him, discovered about him,
his memory would be lost to time, as the only printed copies of his work
turned yellow and ended up in landfills. So this begs another question:
why did so many people feel so strongly about these Duck comics? Well, here's the thing. The Duck Man
wasn't only fabulously popular. He was also really,
really good at making comics. This is technically a comic channel,
so let's actually look at these comics, because they might not be exactly
what you're expecting. Maybe you're expecting the early Disney
short films where Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse would find themselves in a comic situation
and then a series of visual gags would expand from that situation
and wrap up a few minutes later. But the Duck Comics were actually,
at their best, rip roaring, edge-of-your-seat
globetrotting comic adventures. They feel less like Steamboat Willie
and more like Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Or should I say Indiana Jones
and Star Wars feel like the Duck Comics? Because both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg grew up reading
and are vocal fans of The Duck Man. This famous sequence from Raiders of the Lost
Ark is a direct homage to the Duck Comics. And unlike the Disney cartoons, the Duck Comics are filled
with a cast of complex characters. The Duck man gives Donald, Huey, Dewey
and Louie more defined personalities. He creates Duckburg and fills it
with new characters. Most famously, Scrooge McDuck. and Duckburg
is more than just a background. It's a place so brimming with characters
and details that it feels real and lived in, like The Simpsons. Springfield. Or should I say Springfield
feels like Ductburg. That's right. Matt Groening
is another vocal fan of the Duck Man. The Duck Comics are also genuinely funny. Despite the sense of adventure,
they never avoid a good gag. And the gags work. The Duck Man uses funny animals to produce
sharp commentary on society and our shared human existence. In that way,
there are a lot like the works of very different cartoonist Robert Crumb,
who would also use-- Okay. You probably see where this is going. Yes. R. Crumb, the genius of perverse
and boundary pushing underground comics, has cited the Duck Man
as one of his main influences, calling him one of the rare cartoonists to combine
great art with great storytelling. So finally, let's talk about that
great storytelling. There's a reason
I started this video with Tezuka, because if there's anywhere today I can see the Duck Man's influence,
it's in manga. Tezuka would become an avid
fan of the Duck Man, putting Donald Duck in his own comics and traveling to America to pay great sums
for copies of the Duck Man's work. And while Tezuka took what The Duck Man
began and pushed it into the stratosphere, it's hard not to see The Duck
Man's large eyed characters, expressive faces, dynamic, rubbery body language,
and his contrasting use of detail all alive in Tezuka's
work as well as in the manga industry he helped give birth to. Even when I open manga for much later,
like Dragon Ball or One Piece by artists who, to my knowledge,
have never read a Donald Duck comic, I see the Duck man's influence
in those half page scene settings, splashes, the big eyes, expressive
faces, the sense of motion and pacing. But here's
the best thing about The Duck Man. None of this matters. He does everything so well
that when you read one of his comics, all of that technique just disappears
as you are drawn into the story. It's the kind of thing you see in movies
by Pixar or Ghibli or Spielberg or like in Nintendo games
where the level of technical craft is so high
that it just disappears completely. And what you're left with
is a pure, magical experience. The search for The Duck Man mattered
because people needed to know: How did he do this? What were his methods of working?
Who influenced him? If they didn't find him, all of that
knowledge would be lost to history. So Malcolm Willits made his plan. In 1950, like so many others,
he had written a letter to the publisher asking for the name of The Duck Man. And like all of those others,
he had been ignored. So a few years later, when he was running
a fanzine called Destiny, he wrote a long, flattering article
about Walt Disney to use as “bait,” as he called it. He mailed that glowing article
to Disney's corporate offices, along with a request to interview The Duck Man
in a future issue of his fanzine. Well,
someone at Disney fell for Willits’ ploy, because a few weeks later
he received this letter. For the first time in history,
someone outside the industry knew
the name of The Duck Man. His name was Carl Barks, and he lived in a small desert town
outside of Los Angeles. But Willits was too busy, or perhaps too
nervous, to write to The Duck Man himself. But a few years later, Willits shared
the name of The Duck Man with fellow fan John Spicer, who in 1960 finally wrote the world’s
first fan letter to Carl Barks. For a long time, he got no response,
but finally a letter came back. And what that letter
said was quite surprising. Barks opens his letter admitting
that he hadn't written back right away because he was worried
that this fan letter was a prank. Despite writing the Donald Duck comic
for 17 years, the publisher had only ever forwarded him three letters,
two of which were complaints. This is absolutely insane. Not only did the outside world
not know the name of The Duck Man, but The Duck Man himself,
the most popular comic artist in the world, had no idea
how popular and beloved his work was. So after doing some research,
Barks had decided that maybe Spicer's letter was genuine,
and he cautiously decided to respond. But Carl Barks was nearly 60 years old. He was approaching the end of his career,
admitting in his letter, If in the future you notice a dropping off
in quality of my stories. Don't be surprised. The mind is not a bottomless well of new
ideas, and mine is about pumped dry. It was just a glimmer of who
this genius might be. Of his attitude towards his own work. But now his name was out there
and began to be traded among fans. Soon, Willits would go to California
to conduct the world's first interview with Barks, to finally get the story
behind this brilliant man. What would he be like? An introverted
genius like George Herriman? A blustery showman like Stan Lee? A tortured artist like Wally Wood? Well, unfortunately,
the world would have to wait to find out, because after Willits
conducted his interview, the Disney company refused to allow him
to publish it. Why? Well, for the same old reason, kids need to believe
that Disney wrote the stories himself. Willits and his colleagues would be forced to sit on that interview
until 1968, after Walt had died. And sadly, in the intervening years, Barks
had retired, retired from drawing comics before most of the world
even knew of his existence. But finally, the world would know
his name, would learn the story of one of the most important figures
in 20th century American art. His life was about to change dramatically. But before we get into that,
let's finally meet Carl Barks. And I realized that in order to sell cartoons,
you have to have an idea behind them, a little bit
of writing to go along with them. So I began developing the art of writing a little humor
to go with my cartoons. The Barks Willits interviewed
wasn't a recluse, a tortured genius, a showboat or anything
wild. In fact, Barks seems to defy all popular notions
of what a genius artist should be like. He was a kindly older man
in his early sixties with a slow, deliberate way of talking with a country
twang and a gentle sense of humor. He described himself as a pseudo cowboy,
and that certainly wasn't far off. See, Barks had always wanted to be a cartoonist,
but life seemed to constantly have other plans for him. He was born about as far from the world of art
as possible on a ranch in Oregon in 1901. The cartooning bolt of lightning
hit him early, in the one room schoolhouse he attended. A boy in his class had taken a correspondence course on how to draw
cartoons, and Barks was obsessed. Leaning over his desk and watching him
draw his little caricatures, Barks wanted to do the same thing,
but he wasn't from a family that valued that kind of thing. His father was a homesteader
and a man of few words. The only book he read was the Bible. Barks and his brother were expected to help out on the farm.
And although Barks loved school and learning, life at home often
kept him away. But Barks was obsessed with drawing. He wanted to be a cartoonist,
not a farmer. Finally, after a few years,
his father relented and allowed him to enroll
in a correspondence course on cartooning. But luck, again, was against Barks. Because soon after,
his mother passed away. Barks was forced not only to drop the cartooning course,
but drop out of school entirely so he could go to work
and help support his family. The boy who loved learning would never get any formal education
past the eighth grade. But that correspondence course, short
as it was, gave him the foundation to study
the comic strips he read. Every Sunday, he would pore over the San
Francisco Examiner, studying and imitating the styles of the great early cartoonists
like Winsor McCay, Roy Crane and E.C. Segar. And so, over the next two years,
he saved up his money, and at 17 years old, told his father he was going to San Francisco
to try and get a job in cartooning. He made it to San Francisco,
but the papers were stacked with great cartoonists, and with many men
returning from World War One, no one had interest in an untrained kid. Like it does for so many people, life forced him to put his dream aside
and focus on his day to day existence. He worked whatever jobs he could find
from a print shop to logging. He got married and had kids. But in the evenings, when he had time,
he still worked away at his cartoons and would mail them off
to papers and magazines. And then at 28 years old, 11 years after he left home,
he finally sold his first cartoon. It was to a small humor
magazine called the Calgary Eyeopener. Finally,
things were starting to happen for him. But yet again,
his personal life had other plans. His wife had no interest
in his cartooning career. She wanted to spend their evening
seeing friends, living life, but Barks wanted to spend that time
at home at his drawing board. Barks wouldn't give up on his dream
now that it was in sight and ended up separating from his wife and ultimately
losing touch with his daughters. He quit his job
to focus on selling his cartoons mainly to the Eye-opener,
but his finances were deteriorating. It got so bad
that he tried to sell his overcoat, but it was too warm
and no one would buy it. Finally, he ended up pawning his dishware
so he could have enough money to eat and to send a telegram to the Eye Opener
asking for more money. But then he got a break. See, the Eye Opener was so poorly run
that the drunken editor printed a totally unfinished issue
and no one even noticed. The management needed stability
and they saw that Barks was, in his own words,
a hard working son of a gun. So they sent him a telegram
offering him a full time job. Once again, he left his old life behind
to start a new chapter in his pursuit to become a cartoonist. Now, The Eye Opener was not the San
Francisco Examiner. It was filled with racy images, cheap
gags, often about booze or women, and a lot of racist caricatures
that I won't be showing here. This might not have been
the prestigious cartooning career that Barks had envisioned. But finally, at 32 years old, he was a full time cartoonist,
and that might have been enough for him. But then he saw something
that changed his life. An article
about how the Walt Disney Studio, whose short films had become incredibly popular over
the past few years, was struggling to find animators as it began production
on its first feature film. So Barks put a bunch of his best Eye Opener cartoons in an envelope
and mailed it off to Disney. And right away, a letter came back. Disney offered him a job, but deciding
to take that job wouldn't be easy. When The Eye Opener found out
about Disney, they offered him a sizable raise, double
what Disney would pay him. And the job at Disney was hardly
a guarantee of success. See, Disney at this time was home to
the best commercial artists in the world. Barks might have had a job offer,
but that offer was more of a trial. Disney had a strict training regimen and anyone who couldn't keep
pace was promptly cut. He could easily end up
far from home and unemployed. But Barks thought it was worth the risk. He knew there was no future at The Eye Opener,
but he just might have a future at Disney. So once again, he upended his life
and pursued his dreams. Unfortunately, Barks
found Disney difficult almost right away. He was 34, a decade older than everyone
else in his class of animators. The pace of work was intense,
with art classes at night and drawing assignments
all day. Like all beginning artists, he was assigned to work
on the in-betweens. This work was difficult and repetitive, and Barks was having a tough time
keeping up with his younger classmates. It seemed coming up to Disney
had been a mistake. Barks was sure he was going to be fired
any day. But Disney also had a policy
of asking the whole company to contribute to each film
they worked on, and just like he had when he was trying to get into cartooning,
Barks sent in submissions. Lots of submissions. Finally, he sent in this gag to the team
working on a new Donald Duck short. Walt himself loved it
and paid barks $50 for it. But more importantly, Walt realized
that Barks’ skill was in writing, not drawing, and moved him into the story
unit for the Donald Duck shorts. Barks’ career at Disney was. His time at Disney gives us
another keen insight into his personality. While his peers at Disney
would characterize him as a hillbilly who was interested in no music that wasn't
Roy Rogers, no books besides Westerns, by night, Barks was studying, learning
from grammar books or history books, trying to give himself the education
that he'd sorely missed out on in school. And that work paid off
over the next seven years. He worked on 35 Donald Duck Short Films,
some of the most popular films Disney produced. During this time, it seemed like Barks
had finally found a job that suited him until things started to change. As World War Two began, budgets
were being cut across the studio and animators assigned to work on projects
in support of the war. The animators had gone on strike and
the atmosphere at the studio was changing. They had moved to Burbank and the air quality of the new studio
bothered Barks’ sensitive sinuses. He was thinking about quitting,
but then, almost as an afterthought, came the assignment that changed his life. See, at this time in 1942,
the comic book craze was in full swing. One of the bigger comic publishers Western
sought to capitalize on this popularity by licensing Disney characters
for a line of their own comic books. At first, these Disney comic books were largely reprints of older
Disney newspaper strips. But by 1942, they were running out
of newspaper strips to reprint. So they asked the studio, Do you have
anyone who could draw an original comic? This led them to the Donald
Duck Department. So Carl Barks and fellow duck man Jack
Hannah adapted an unfinished Mickey Mouse film into the 64 page. Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold. Carl Barks was 42 years old. He had no idea the importance
of that comic. In fact, a few months later,
he quit Disney to raise chickens in the desert
where the air was better for his sinuses. But as luck would have it,
the comic publishers needed more comics, so they tracked down Barks
and sent him another script to draw. He ended up changing
and reworking it so much they asked if he would do another
and just write that one himself. And so he did. And so in 1942, for $12.50 a page, he began on his 24 year
journey drawing Donald Duck Comics. And here, finally, we can begin to answer
some of our questions from earlier to start to understand
what made Barks so successful. Barks was working in an era
when American comics were moving toward assembly line production
and stricter editorial oversight. But Barks’ situation
couldn't have been more different. He had quickly gained
the trust of his publisher and was allowed to create everything entirely himself, with only his wife's
occasional help on inking or lettering. He didn't submit scripts for approval, and
he rarely got notes back on his drawing. He received the page count,
produced his story, and turned it in. But beyond it,
having no editorial direction, he also had no insight into the reception
his work had. Barks later speculated that this was
because the publisher worried that if he realized how popular he was,
he might ask for a raise. All he knew is that if he kept
getting hired, he must be doing okay. But Barks turned that into a superpower. He would say that he was, in fact, GLAD
he wasn't receiving fan mail because he might have written stories
to please the letter writers
rather than to please himself. I would argue that despite his massive
popularity, despite being employed by a huge corporation, despite often
referring to himself as a hack, Barks’ working style
resembled more that of an independent fine artist than it did
someone working in mass entertainment. And while this independent approach
was half of his formula, the other half was the incredibly high
standard of quality he held himself to. His publisher,
his fellow artists, everyone around him seemed to believe that comic books
were just a passing craze. The other artists in the industry
generally wanted to do the minimum effort to get a story by their editor
and to turn out as many pages as fast as possible. But Barks wanted to make his story worth
the readers dime, and so he would work his stories back and forth, often rereading
and rewriting scripts 10 or 20 times. He would use his grammar books to find ways to cut down the dialog
to be as short and punchy as possible, even counting the syllables in each line
to make sure they read smoothly, like lines of prose poetry. We also know from his time at Disney that Barks wasn't a natural
when it came to illustration. He claims that he did as much a erasing as he did
drawing, penciling each page in erasing it and penciling it again
until he got it just right. And then he would paste those pages
on a big board like they did at Disney,
and he wouldn't hesitate to rework them or throw them away entirely
if he felt they weren't perfect. Throwing away inked, completed work
just because he thought he could be a little better,
a little funnier. This is a guy
who's getting paid by the page. He got no fans or sales reports confirming
that this work was even worth it. What was motivating Barks to work so hard? Well, Barks had spent many years at hard,
laborious jobs and had always valued hard work. That much is clear. He also seemed to be grateful
to have a job in cartooning, just as he had
always dreamed of as a child. But beyond that, Barks
respected his readers, their intelligence and their taste,
even if they were mostly kids. And he respected the medium of comics. In interviews, years before the term
graphic novel even existed, Barks dreamed that someday comics might be printed in hardcover books on high quality paper
and be considered fine literature. But that was not the world. Barks lived in. And sadly, Barks may have had another more personal reason
for throwing himself into his work. You see, while the ducks traveled
around the globe, Barks, by his own admission, had never been anywhere. When asked about it,
he would point to his stack of National Geographic's and say,
That's my travels right there. But those fantastic journeys
he sent the ducks on were an escape, not just for his readers, but a chance for
Barks to escape his difficult home life. During this time, his second wife
had become a serious alcoholic, prone to violent fits in which she would smash things
around the house and destroy his artwork. But the worse things got hit home,
the more his imagination seemed to come to life. Barks would produce
some of his greatest stories at the motel where he would go to escape her
violent rages. They would finally divorce and Barks
would move out, bringing only his clothes, his art supplies, and his collection
of National Geographic magazines. But it was during this difficult period of his divorce
that he created the Beagle Boys, Uncle Scrooge's money
bin, and Gyro Gearloose. Barks
soon remarried a fellow artist named Gare, who had been assisting him with inking. And finally, it seemed that
his personal life was in order. But sadly, the difficulties were just
ramping up in his professional life. Despite Barks enthusiasm for his work,
he did eventually come up against the forces of working at a big company. While many of Barks greatest stories
were the longer standalone Scrooge or Donald Adventures, the publisher began
moving away from them, limiting Barks mainly to the ten page stories
which curtailed his imagination. They also switched to lower quality paper. For some artists, this might not be a big deal,
but for Barks, this was devastating. As we know, Barks would spend a lot
of time erasing and reworking his pencils. But on the cheap paper,
his pencils would cut grooves. So even after erasing, his pencil
would fall back in the same groove. Over and over, it became impossible for him to rework his drawings to perfection
as he previously had. And those big, beautiful splashes
he would spend days on? The publisher realized that they could
cut them out and replace them with ads. Barks
decided to stop drawing them entirely. He was feeling defeated. While hiswork from this time
still has merit, He would admit that he stopped
putting as much effort into it. Eventually, Barks began to feel his
stories weren't worth the dime anymore. He was 61 years old, and while he had been paid for his work,
he had no money left for retirement. He was ready to quit to figure out a new career
because he had no idea how popular he was. That is, until a letter
from a fan arrived and changed his life. After the
publication of Willits’ interview in 1968, which was accompanied by a short
biography of Barks by Michael Barrier, his name began to grow and gain
recognition in fan circles. But while Barks gained praise,
he was still struggling financially. He ends his interview with Willits
by admitting that he's currently painting a local high school
for $300, an amount that to an old retired hack looks
as big as Uncle Scrooge is money bin. But Barks’ fans worked tirelessly
to get him the recognition he deserved, to elevate his reputation
to something resembling a true artist. And then in 1971, a fan requested an oil
painting of the ducks. Barks asked for Disney's permission,
and they agreed. Once people saw it, a craze
began immediately. Barks had a waiting list years
long for oil paintings of the ducks. Over time, the prices of these pieces
would grow to well over six figures. I do find it ironic
that after all this talk about comics art, that the man who worked so hard
to elevate the status of comics would finally become wealthy
in his seventies selling oil paintings to fine
art collectors. But Barks’ story doesn't end there. In the seventies,
he finally began to be invited to comic conventions and to take his place
among the comic book celebrities. If I hadn’t stayed home,
I would never have written the stories. But I stayed home and worked. And now I get all this praise and thank yous from people. And I see that I didn't waste my time. And thanks to my friends at Ayakuweb
who helped me out by researching Barks in Japanese sources,
we know that at Comic-Con 1980, Barks actually got to meet arguably
his most influential fan, Osamu Tezuka. The two had become friends, with Barks
gifting Tezuka an original drawing and Tezuka sending Barks
this adorable holiday card. And then in the 1980s,
the man who 30 years earlier dreamed the comics might someday be printed
hardbound on nice paper saw his own work given that very treatment. Today, his work is available
in these absolutely beautiful editions from Fantagraphics,
just as they deserve to be. But to end this story at 94 years
old, Barks finally got to travel overseas. That small boy
who dreamed of being a cartoonist, who didn't draw his first comic book
until he was 40 years old, was now, at 94 years old, welcomed by rapturous crowds
in distant countries, and sat in numerous interviews
where foreign reporters unironically compared him
to William Shakespeare. Like another Shakespeare,
your stories will continue to live, be read and enjoyed
by generations to come. Do you ever think about that? Well, I often hope that that will happen. Yeah, it is a pleasant thing to sort of
get a swelled head once in a while and think that I have written something
that is undying literature and will go into infinity. But I have been disappointed in so many of such pipe dreams that I, I don't push it very far. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this episode,
you can really help out by liking, subscribing or leaving a comment below,
and subscribe to Ayakuweb as well. Barks’ story is a reminder of the powerful
positive impact fandoms can have. Both Barks’ own story and this video
would not have been possible without fans like Spicer, Willits, Autl, Barrier,
Don and Maggie Thompson. And so, so many others, including artists
like Don Rosa and Daan Jippes, who've continued his legacy. If you want to get deeper into Barks,
his story, I really recommend Donald Ault's collection of interviews with him
as well as Michael Barrier's Funnybooks, both of which I relied on heavily
making this video. Thank you guys so much. (Unitelligable)