The greatest duck of them all

Quick - name the most prized and collectible comic book character of all time, whose comic book at its peak outsold all DC titles combined? Easy one - Uncle Scrooge! How many other ducks do you know with their own long wikipedia entry?

Scrooge was originally going to be a one-shot, loosely based on a minor character in a 1943 Donald Duck cartoon. Disney, ever the masters of cross-media exploitation, had repurposed many of their cartoon stars in daily newspaper comic strips, then later in comic books. The artist chosen for the Duck stories was Carl Barks, who proved to be a most suitable choice. He resurrected the Scrooge character in 1947, and continued writing of his adventures for the next 25 years. Barks was a freelancer, not a Disney employee, but his influence on the duck universe was a mighty one and was fed back to the Disney organization.

What made Uncle Scrooge such a great character, and not just another "funny animal" comic? Mostly it was because of the terrific imagination and great heart of Carl Barks. Don Rosa and other European artists later continued with the character and its development, but it was Barks who created the tradition. I was a big comic book fan as a child in the fifties, and quite a follower of Superman, Batman, and (when I could sneak them past my mother), the great EC works of Bill Elder and Wally Wood. But Scrooge was in a class by himself. The only strip that approached it for pure storytelling and sophisticated character development and humor was John Stanley's Little Lulu (believe it or not, those stories were amazing and probably the second-most admired comic of the period).

Barks' comics were always entertaining, but there was something deeper. Even as a child, I never felt he was talking down to me. Scrooge never felt like a paycheck to him; the character was bursting with life a deep personality, with a fascinating back story that evolved over the years. As an adult, I can see the sophisticated social commentary in the tales; Scrooge was a complicated character much like the robber barons of the late nineteenth century, closer to Andrew Carnegie than Mickey Mouse. He was aggressive in his pursuit of wealth, but had a complicated personal value system, and was on the side of justice and right.

Something else other "kids" comics didn't touch was the paranoia of the 1950s. Scrooge had a huge money bin, but was in constant fear of being robbed by the ingenious (but not always bright) Beagle Boys. They appeared in various sized groups, but were always exact duplicates of each others, like anonymous clones. They wore masks covering their eyes, striped prison garb, needed a shave, and had their mug shot numbers around their necks (which were always combinations of 761-167). Interchangeable bad guys, with the implication there was a never-ending supply.

The leading characters in the stories (Scrooge, Donald, and his three nephews) had high ethical values, but the stories were never spoon-fed moralistic. Usually the plot line was based on the greed of Scrooge and/or Donald, with a twist ending of the plot somehow backfiring on them. They were a bit like Shakespeare, in that the characters seemed to have destinies based on classic fables of human motivations.

And the art! Scrooge and his crew traveled around the world to many historical places, often interacting with legendary characters. Barks cited National Geographic magazine as one of his prime inspiration. He had a wonderful sense of composition and layout, and his illustrations rank with the best. After his retirement, he turned to oil painting. Many of his originals sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it is more than just the draftsmanship and interesting characters; Barks had heart, and his ducks have souls.

Fortunately, his comics are readily available and aside from the more collectible editions, are quite reasonably priced. You can find them on eBay or comic stores, and nice collections of reprints are available on Amazon. If you haven't read these comics lately, I suggest starting with some of the Carl Barks classics (I like Don Rosa's work a lot too, but you might as well start at the source).

One of the great images in comic history is Uncle Scrooge jumping off a diving board in his vault and swimming through his coins like a porpoise. In real life, that would be like driving into a brick wall, of course. But to an imaginative young person, it seemed like the natural thing to do. If you have children, do them a favor and introduce them to this delightful literature.