Carl Barks

Carl Barks is famous for his work at Disney on the Donald Duck comics. For the better half of his career, he remained anonymous as an artist for Disney. Many artists that worked for Disney remained anonymous during their time at the company. They mostly did all the work and Disney took all the credit. For the longest time while he did remain anonymous, he signed his work with a signature barking dog so that it was known that it was his work. He was given the name “Good Duck Artist” after he was no longer anonymous.

The issue that I read was “The Beauty Business”. This issue focused on Donald running a beauty parlor and evidently giving Daisy a makeover.

This issue speaks to the self image that women have and how even in children’s comics this issue of beauty is engrained into the minds of the audience. Throughout the issue, Daisy’s Niece’s seek to sabotage Donald’s efforts to help Daisy. This undermines her self confidence and only further leads to the moral of the story. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that one shouldn’t put so much effort into what other people think.

This is good for the younger audience reading this because it teaches them of society’s messed up expectations of beauty.

The style that Barks chose to use for this is exaggerated and over the top. He uses bright color and expressive lines to give a hint at the ridiculousness of the topic.