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Carl Barks (1901-2000, b. Merrill, Oregon; d. Grants Pass, Oregon), one of the most brilliant cartoonists of the 20th century, entertained millions around the world with his timeless tales of Donald Duck and Barks's most famous character creation, Uncle Scrooge. Over the course of his career, he wrote and drew more than 500 comics stories totaling more than 6,000 pages, most anonymously. He achieved international acclaim only after he semi-retired in 1968. Among many other honors, Barks was one of the three initial inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame in 1987. (The other two were Jack Kirby and Will Eisner.) In 1991, Barks became the first Disney comic book artist to be recognized as a "Disney Legend," a special award created by Disney "to acknowledge and honor the many individuals whose imagination, talents, and dreams have created the Disney magic." He has been similarly honored in many other countries around the world. First active in comics as the indie creator of Captain Kentucky and The Pertwillaby Papers, Don Rosa (b. June 29, 1951) made his jump to official Scrooge sagas with the launch of Gladstone Publishing, the watershed 1980s publisher of fan-friendly Disney comics titles. Rosa later switched to producing Duckburg comics for the pan-European publisher Egmont, leading to his capturing a remarkable international fandom. He lives near Louisville, KY. Romano Scarpa (1927-2005) trained as a fine artist and an architect. He left his own animation studio in 1953 to draw original comics stories for Walt Disney's Italian publisher. He is most famous for his stories starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Snow White. Daan Jippes (b. 1945), an internationally beloved Duck artist, lives in the Netherlands. Giorgio Cavazzano is an Italian cartoonist and one of the most famous Disney comics artists in the world. He is recognized for bringing his outrageous energy, emotive characters, and wild "techno" style defining the modern expressive Italian style of Disney comics. Marco Rota is a celebrated comics artist who served as editor-in-chief for Disney's Italian office from 1974 to 1988. Rota's first Disney art was created for the publisher Mondadori in 1971. He is acclaimed for his highly detailed Scrooge McDuck adventures "The Money Ocean" and "Night of the Saracen," as well as his many tales of Donald's medieval ancestor Andold Wild Duck. Animator and cartoonist William Van Horn (1939-), today a Canadian citizen, was born in Oakland, California. A frequent contributor to the Fantagraphics anthology Critters, Van Horn has also been a beloved Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and DuckTales comic book talent since 1987. |
