Barks Remarks - a Carl Barks Podcast

Guest Hosts: Joakim Gunnarson & Henrieke Goorhuis Listeners, we finally get to release our highly anticipated episode covering one of Barks' all-time classic, "Back to the Klondike!" This story, from Four Color #456/Uncle Scrooge #2 is one of Barks' most legendary stories, dealing with Scrooge's memories of his time in the Klondike gold rush! The story is famous for many reasons, including the...

Guest Hosts: Warren Harmon & Sara Santiago Trick or Treat! Trick or Treat! Trick or Treat for Halloween! Listeners, if we have to have the song stuck in our head, so do you! Join us as we talk about this Barks oddity: a story with a provided concept, one based on a contemporaneous animated cartoon short (and subject to some editorial snipping). This story is a departure, but has the very memor...

Guest Hosts: Ryan Bailey & Eric Hartley This episode is all about Barks' famous "statue building contest." This is one of his more outlandish ten-pagers, featuring an absolutely wild competition between Uncle Scrooge (who opens his purse strings for once, in defense of his title of world's richest man) and the Maharajah of Howduystan! The story also features some neat world-building, in the su...

Guest Host: Thad Komorowski The Gilded Man is one of Barks' great South American-set stories, and features some frenetic hemisphere-spanning, as the ducks race to find, and then recover, a mail satchel containing the world's rarest stamp, held by the legendary El Dorado! The story includes memorable appearances from the Gilded Man himself, Philo T. Ellic, the forgetful stamp collector, and of cour...

Guest Hosts: Warren Harmon & Austin Kelly Ho, rugged listeners! Climb aboard our hot-rod iceberg and hear us talk about this all-time classic Donald Duck story, "the Golden Helmet!" This is a thrilling story with Carl Barks at his absolute best, with masterful art, hilarious dialogue (especially from the indelible villains) and some amazing character work. It doesn't get much better, so enjoy...

Guest Host: Joakim Gunnarson This week's episode is about Barks' famous "think boxes" story. It is famous as the first non-cameo appearance of Barks' original character Gyro Gearloose. In addition, the story is one of Barks' more notably creepy tales, with a voracious wolf hankering for roast duckling! Listen to the episode, which features Joakim Gunnarson, editor at Egmont publishing, who gives g...

Guest Host: Henrieke Goorhuis Gladstone Gander, Donald's ultra-lucky cousin, makes for a great foil for Donald. In this episode we'll talk about Gladstone and explore two of the all-time greatest Gladstone stories, one (Gladstone Returns) from before Barks imbued him with his supernatural luck and one (Gladstone's Terrible Secret) from afterwards, and in a rare example of Barks at least obliquely...

Guest Host: Patrick Block This episode's story needs no introduction, but here it is anyway! "Only a Poor Old Man," is a Carl Barks masterpiece, one of the Duck Man's all-time greatest and most famous stories, and absolutely lives up to its reputation. This is the story that launch Uncle Scrooge McDuck as a starring character, and provided inspiration for countless future stories, both by Barks an...

Guest Host: Austin Kelly It's our big Money Bin episode! We've got a double feature of two of Barks classic stories featuring one of his greatest non-character creations, Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin! "Big Bin" is the showcase this episode, as it really set the template for Scrooge's relationship with the building that secures his money and all its sundry defenses. "Round Money Bin" is a fun story a...

Guest Hosts: Warren Harmon & Sara Santiago Already our fifth Christmas episode! "Shacktown" is arguably Barks' most famous Christmas story, and, for the man who created tycoon Scrooge McDuck, striking in its exploration of poverty. This is another holiday story where much of the extended duck family is present, and much of the charm in the stories lies in their interactions. Join us as we talk...

Guest Host: Thad Komorowski Careful about knocking on our door, listeners, you might get a face full of Boer War surplus cannon! "Terror of the Beagle Boys" is one of Barks' most iconic Scrooge-centric ten-pagers, a sort of two-man stage play where the looming threat is almost beside the point. Join us as we talk about that iconic cannon, Barks' ancient messenger boys, and the great character work...

Guest Host: Patrick Block This episode is a real treat, as it features this all-time great ten-pager (currently the highest ranked on INDUCKS), and because I am joined by Patrick Block, the great duck artist who got to both meet and collaborate with Carl Barks! We have a great conversation about the Duck Man's best ten-pagers, the absurdity of the rare collectibles industry, and many of Patrick's...

Guest Hosts: Warren Harmon & Sara Santiago. Greetings, travelers! Have a sniff of these strange herbs, and come with us, back to old California! This all-time great story is one of Carl Barks' most deeply personal, as it takes place in the vicinity of his home of San Jacinto and draws inspiration from the old novel "Ramona," adapted into an outdoor pageant annually. This story stands apart, as the...

Guest Host: Warren Harmon.  Nothing can save you from this podcast! It is invincible! It is doom itself! Actually, this episode of the Ten-Page Podcast is all about a carefully curated selection of FIVE of the Duck Man's earliest ten-pagers. We talk about his first ten-pager, "the Victory Garden," a sort of trial-by-assignment that Barks drew but didn't write, followed by his first solo outin...

What makes a man great? Join us listeners, and find out as we discuss this tall tale about great men, snake charming, and sea serpents! Barks' second sea serpent-centered story, "No Such Varmint" is a delightfully odd one with some truly over-the-top comic artwork and one of Barks' highest of concepts, as Donald discovers one of his most unusual aptitudes. 

'Allo, listeners! We 'ave a great episode for you, zo please join us as we discuss this classic European-set saga, both a celebration and a send-up of Hollywood spy thrillers! Witness the ducks become embroiled in early Cold War-era espionage, as they encounter the mysterious and beautiful Madame Triple-X! This story is famously the Duck Man's most human-filled, to his editor's displeasure. Join u...

Guest Host: Ruben Olsrud This story is arguably the best of Barks' "Brittle Mastery" stories -- those where Donald masters an obscure occupation before things go horribly awry. Listen as my guest and I discuss the story's incredible timing and humor, the science and business of rain-seeding, the metaphorical green monster of jealousy, and what exactly an "Idle Dandy" is, anyway.

Merry Christmas in February! "You Can't Guess" is one of Carl Barks' all-time great Christmas-themed stories. As part of our mission to release episodes chronologically, we occasionally find ourselves going a bit off-season, but this story is satisfying to revisit any time of year. "You Can't Guess" finds Huey, Dewey, & Louie forced guess their Uncle's hoped-for Christmas gift in order to rece...

Guest Host: Suzanne Snow Severino Happy Valentines' Day, listeners! V-Day didn't lend itself to same kinds of well-remembered story-telling Barks was able to come up with for Christmas or even Halloween, but the Duck Man did have a few memorable 10-pagers, one of which we get to discuss in this episode (My Lucky Valentine), with another romance-centered story (Wild About Flowers) thrown in for goo...

The Circus! This venerable institution was once a beloved American tradition, and the arrival of the circus train might cause the town to shut down in excitement! Times have certainly changed, and the circus is nearly extinct. But in 1950, when Barks' Big-Top Bedlam was published, every TV show or comic series would certainly have had a circus-themed episode or show. This is what struck me most as...

Journey with us, by shark-powered boat, if need be, to listen to us discuss "The Magic Hourglass" -- the talisman that is the secret to Donald's Uncle Scrooge's wealth, at least, for this story! Barks will quickly abandon this aspect of Scrooge's background, as he would largely abandon this dark characterization of Scrooge. This moralistic story sees the ducks at loggerheads with each other for mu...

Vacation Time! This Carl Barks classic pulls a bit of a bait-and-switch -- nominally a fun vacation-themed romp, it turns into a surprisingly tense survival story at the end. One of the all-time greats, Vacation Time is Barks at his best, with wonderful art, an atypically grounded storyline, and a strong conservationist through-line. My guest host and I talk about this, as well as the possible inf...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...I count 25 episodes of Barks Remarks, 30 including the Ten-Page Podcast! You know who likes to count? Carl Barks' animal creation in this story, the Pixilated Parrot! This brisk adventure is a somewhat slight story, though it possesses one of Barks' all-time greatest gags! Join us as we talk about the story, the meaning of the word pixilated, Duckburg's location, and more!

Guest Host: Ryan Bailey Happy 2022! This episode is pretty loaded for an episode of the 10PP; we are talking about the Sunken Yacht, one of the earlier 10-pagers featuring Uncle Scrooge McDuck in rascal/antagonist mode. This is the "ping pong" story, that sees the ducks attempt to raise Scrooge's sunken vessel using thousands of the plastic balls, and it is one of the most famous Barks stories out...

Guest Host; Sara Santiago Happy Holidays! "Wintertime Wager" is a classic Ten-Pager, the story that famously introduces Gladstone Gander, before Barks had assigned him his supernatural good luck! It also, by technicality, serves as our holiday episode, as the ducks briefly reference it being Christmas at the very beginning! This is a great slapstick story, and rife with opportunities to talk about...