Barks' change in artsyle over time

[leo]

I just got the Carl Barks library vol 21 from FG and when I was looking through the pages it hit me: the artwork looks radically different from that from earlier books.

I'm reading through his works for the first time with this collection and am currently reading volume 8, so I immediately noticed how different everything looks on vol 21 compares to what I'm reading. The adults look rounder and shorter, their eyes look more googly, and HDL on the contrary look taller and a bit slender, and their facial expressions changed a lot too, they are simpler and way less "cute" now. Overall, I noticed in early volumes Barks was emulating perfectly how the characters look on the Disney cartoons, but then he apparently started caring less about fidelity and developing his own particular style. Oh, and of course the lettering changed too, but I guess that was to make it more readable for kids.

Now, I'm not saying the art looks bad at all, but I vastly prefer his early drawings (around 46-48, which is what I have read anyway). They look way more detailed, more delicate, it seems he used to put a lot more effort into them. HDL particularly used to look gorgeous, they body language and facial expressions were so cute and endearing, it really made you love the little guys. It made me a bit sad, knowing that moving forward with the books I'm not gonna see the same kind of art I've grown to admire.

Is this change in artsyle a known and discussed thing? Cause I've never seen anyone talking about it before. Maybe when people talk about the "peak period" they are also referring to a decline on art quality? What do you guys think, do you prefer the early, more Disney like drawings, or the later Barks' own version of the characters?

[deb]

Barks would blame the paper provided to him by Western Publishing, as they switched to a cheaper quality paper in which the pencil and pen he used would dig into it, not allowing him to draw as smoothly as he did before.

[RobbK1]

Carl Barks changed drawing styles over his career for several different reasons. The first was that his style in drawing the Duck characters he helped create in his animation storyboarding for the Donald Duck cartoons had been developed to stress action in the motion-driven 7-minute short cartoons. So, his first stories from 1942-45 or 1946, continued that style. Then, in the mid and late 1940s, he was ordered by his comic book editors at Western Publishing, requested by Disney Animation, that he keep his comic book characters on model with the current models used by Disney's Animation Department. Then, starting in 1947, Donald's beak became longer, and he became a little taller in the cartoons, so Barks changed accordingly. At that same time, Donald's nephews' who had previously been mischievous problems for him, became more reasonable in their behaviour, so, they were assumed to be older. So their design changed, with their heads becoming smaller in relation to their overall body size. It seemed, too, that their eyes now sat slightly less low on their heads, to make them look less like babies. Then, in the early 1950s, the animation Ducks' beaks got shorter, so Barks shortened them, too. In 1955, Western changed the final drawing paper supplied to Barks, to a flatter, smoother surface, which didn't hold the ink as well as the more expensive, more fibrous, bond paper used to that point. So, when inking, he had to tighten up his strokes to be shorter, and more deliberate. That took some elasticity and "life" (strong , free, movement) out of his characters in action poses. That same thing happened again in 1959, even more drastically, because the new, cheaper, slick-surfaced paper imported from Germany, made Barks tighten up his figures even more, because of needing to make even shorter strokes with his pen and brush. In late 1957 and 1958, he drew The Ducks standing taller (less bend in legs), and their legs were longer, too. I doubt that that went along with the little TV animation Donald appeared in at that time. In 1959, Barks put The Ducks back to their shorter stances. He told me that he had lost the youthful energy towards his comic book drawing about the same time as the second paper change. So, that was a contributor to the less-careful drawing technique used starting in about 1959.