Carl Barks' Duck: Average American

by Peter Schilling Jr.

Overview

From 1942 to his retirement in 1966, Carl Barks drew Donald Duck comic books (the seventh greatest comic of the twentieth century according to The Comics Journal) for Walt Disney. He took what should have been a bland franchise and turned it into a classic of comics. Drawing on his own experiences (most notably a brief stint as a chicken farmer), Barks went to create a character who was remarkable . . . for not being remarkable. In his pursuit of a good job, his boredom with suburban life, his temper, his squabbles with neighbors, and his resolve in the face of his many failures, Barks's Donald Duck was truly your average American.

Peter Schilling, Jr. is the author of The End of Baseball and writes about film and the arts for a variety of publications. He has been reading and studying Carl Barks's entire catalog since he was a child.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780988901407
Publisher:	Uncivilized Books
Publication date:	01/20/2015
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 5.20(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Peter Schilling Jr. is the author of The End of Baseball, and writes about film and the arts for a variety of Minnesota publications. He has been reading and studying Carl Barks’ entire catalogue since he was a child.

Editorial Reviews

02/23/2015
Usually, when a homeless man drinks his life away on New York City’s streets, no one gives a damn. But in this case we do, thanks to Little (Shutterbug Follies) detailing the deep, deeper, and deepest lows of one nameless man’s homelessness. Little takes us through a series of endless raw deals: the homeless man loses his teeth, gets peed on, gets bed bugs, and gets arrested, yet he trundles on, chugging vodka in an almost constant daze. These darkly funny mishaps (accompanied by plenty of fart and barf sound effects) are amusing—especially paired with the brilliant use of the four-panel-gag comic strip format. But as Borb’s alcoholism becomes even more severe, and he continues to fall through the cracks of modern society again and again, a despair grows, and it’s unclear where the joke is really coming from. Little’s elegant linework, minimal dialogue, and unwavering focus on the man’s day-to-day struggles are powerful, giving us a gruesome, slapstick view of society’s underbelly. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Schilling cheerleads, gushes and obsesses, using smart, but not scholarly arguments to convince readers to share his duck love. Basically, he's a fan. Fortunately, he's an interesting fan, rejecting Barks' most popular works because he disdains Donald's zillionaire uncle Scrooge McDuck, partly because Scrooge's financial fixation limits him. Schilling loves Donald's flexibility: Everyone else is a slave to continuity, but Donald has new professions, hobbies and expertise in each story. To Schilling, that makes the duck more an actor than character, which corresponds to the essayist's idea that Barks' work is akin to early cinema comedies."—Jake Austen, Chicago Tribune

"Schilling regards the stories, as he says in his introduction, as “paper movies.” He approaches his subject with the same reverence, insight, and awareness that the late Roger Ebert brought to film. […] In his essay about the classic Donald Duck story “The Magic Hourglass” he references Citizen Kane as well as Eric von Stroheim’s silent epic Greed. […] By using our shared familiarity with another medium, Schilling expertly expands our understanding of another."—New York Journal of Books

From the Publisher