Disney Artist Carl Barks Dead At 99

Carl Barks, the Disney illustrator who is credited with giving Donald Duck his distinctive feisty and comical personality, died Friday at the age of 99.

Barks, who had been receiving chemotherapy for leukemia, died peacefully in his sleep.

"He was funny up to the end," said his caregiver, Serene Hunicke.

Barks, who was born on his parent's wheat farm in southern Oregon, drew Donald Duck for Walt Disney Studios from 1935 until 1942.

Although other animators had a hand at the comical duck, Barks polished up Donald, who was slimmer, with a longer beak, in his first appearances. Barks rounded him out, gave him a personality, and made him more jolly, although he still had a bad temper.

Among his early writing credits was the 1937 Donald Duck short Modern Inventions, in which Donald runs into trouble at an exhibit of comic labor-saving devices, such as a machine that wraps packages and a robot butler.

In 1942, Barks turned from cartoons to illustrating comic strips and books. He gave Donald a hometown (Duckburg) populated by such characters as Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, the Beagle Boys and Gyro Gearloose. Barks is credited with giving Huey, Dewey and Louie -- Donald's nephews -- their distinctive personalities.

The early comics were slapstick conflicts between Donald and his nephews or other characters. Barks later sent the ducks on exotic adventures around the globe and into space.

Barks, who bounced from Oregon to Minnesota and California in his 20s and 30, got his start drawing "gag strips" for magazines with one image, one punch line and few recurring characters.

Eventually, those one-panel jokes began to lose their allure.

"I was thinking then that I'd like to do comics with whole stories," he recalled in a 1994 interview. "You know, like Prince Valiant; stuff with continuity, not single, one-shot gags all the time."

In 1935, he saw an ad for cartoonists to work for Walt Disney Studios in Hollywood. Leaving a steady paycheck in Minnesota, he packed his bag and decided to take a stab at animation.

He quickly advanced from drawing the tiny details between the characters and the main background to primary character artist, and his handiwork could be seen in more than 60 short subjects, many featuring Donald Duck.

When Western Publishing gained the rights in 1942 to publish Walt Disney characters in comic books, Barks was asked to illustrate a 10-page Donald Duck story written by someone else.

"The story just didn't seem to hang together," Barks recalled. "I made some changes. Western kind of liked it and asked me if I wanted to do my own stories. From there on, I was their fair-haired boy."

From 1942 to 1966, Barks was the creative genius in the Duck universe.

Like every other artist in those days, Barks' name never appeared on a comic book.

But his anonymity ended after he retired. Comic book fans came out of the closet in the '70s, thanks to te creation of specialty shops, trade publications and conventions.

"I was astonished by the number of people who'd read my work and liked it. These comic book fans seem to want to shake the hand of the guy who drew all that stuff. It's still mystifying to me."

Barks stopped drawing in 1966, but continued writing duck tales until his retirement in 1973.

He painted Disney figures in oil at his home in Grants Pass until he contracted leukemia 13 months ago.