Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey, this week we learn about the duck man, the duck man, also known as Carl barks, not to be confused with the other Carl sure. So this week we learn about the duck man who wrote the cut the Donald duck comic books in the fourties and fifties and didn't get the credit he deserved and then didn't make the money he deserved until later in his life. Yeah, but for a long time, no one knew who the duck man was yeah. So this is a story about how they found him and then what they did when they 00:28 found a speaking of people not knowing who they are. I have shows coming up. I don't when this episode comes episodes coming out like the fifteen five fifteen great this week in the Lynchburg, Virginia and then next weekend. I'm in Massachusetts and then November is the church comedy tour with Shamarama and my good one. I really hope to see you there. It will be in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, 00:53 Missouri, Kansas City, well, I should the Kansas side. I didn't choose it and then Texas and Florida, so I would love to see you at a show. All my tour dates are linked somewhere. You I hope you know where to find them at this point and yeah, let's get into the episode. 01:15 Have you ever heard of the duck man, the duck man? What is the duck man, the way your face lit up? I'm so I really want for once. I want my excitement to pay off. You know, like we're go oh and then it turns out to be like a freaking CIA code word for something. Yeah, you know it might. It might pay off. Yes, I want to see like a person who pretends to be ducks, not quite. I'm the duck man, so 01:44 when I go to Disney, there's all these acts at Disney. Yeah, that's yeah. That's if I talked about the Disney ducks on here before, I don't know if you talked about him on here now, because we think all the time every time we go to Disney, my wife is just like. Do you think these ducks landed here and they were just like oh my gosh, you know, because there's so much bread and pop all much dropped yeah. 02:04 and like and there's other ducks who live in freaking like North Dakota. You know where there's a there's no pop corn. Yeah, they live in crappy places where they're like oh, I'm just a star, you know, but the ponds at the the little water things at at Disney. I'm freaking I'm throwing bread at them. Yeah, I mean it just goes to show there's a wealth gap for birds to 02:26 that's what I'm saying like the life that those and like the wild life chooses to live there. I'm going to follow them. You know I'm in touch with nature. What are their animals just by having a season past a disney? What other animals just go to Disney land squirrels squirrels chipmunks? I think the chipmunks they pox I'm I pretty sure they put the chipmunks there though 02:56 I'm what I think that's part of like this where I went with it, but that's all right. Peacocks. Oh, are you talking the character? I was like dogs, mice and you were like. I think they put the chip on there and I'm like 03:15 now you're catching up nineteen eighty nine holiday and carpet. Anyways, the duck man also known as the good duck and the good, the good man is the names that he has by. Oh, I don't I should look like it used to be a cop and now you're just a freelance P. I in Miami 03:42 you just get jobs on craigslist and you're like I can solve this. I can solve this you get more murders than you saw. You accidentally get people murdered. It's like so not related to the case. Yeah, this is my fourth murder this week. Yeah, no, it's you going whoops 04:06 but here's my card case closed. I got the Vista print logo on it because you couldn't figure out how to do the back side. Accidentally printed the Vista print logo on every single one of your business. I can't figure out how to get it off. You're going to get that off there. All right, it's white it out, but only one layer, so you can still yeah. It's very faint. It's like your grasp on reality, just so close to not be in there. 04:34 Okay, the duck man, the duck man is was a I don't know what to call it conspiracy theory. Maybe I don't know that might be too strong of a word. The duck man was a name attributed to a character that a group of comic book fanatics gave to the creator of these comics. 05:01 I'm sorry the cameras like right in your way. I don't know if you can see this yeah. The camera is different position today. Okay, say you're I lost track of what you were saying in your sentence because you were talking like this. I well you're tracking to me. Okay, so say you're say it again. I'll say it again. The the duck man got his name from a group of comic book fanatics in like the forties, okay, who were big fans of 05:31 his comic books, but they didn't know who he was and he was making these comic books. So Donald Duck yeah, the Donald Duck comics is Walt Disney, the Duck Man, no, are you joking? Are you big? I brought up Disney. Here's the thing. No, no, I actually is there someone who lives in the ponds at Disneyland who like with like emerges from the waters like on the deck. He wouldn't say that he would just go quack 06:01 he's just saying the war he just swims back down. Is this related to Disney? Yeah, this is this is related to Disney. I actually did this intentionally because I feel like we've been bad mouthing Disney a lot lately. I haven't. I got an I love them. I freaking I mean yeah, that's the whole reason we moved to California was for Disney and the terms and conditions said that if I lived in California, they wouldn't shoot me on my porch. Yeah, I don't have a porch. I got an email from 06:30 I got an email this week from a Disney dot org. I don't even know if they use the dot org very often. What did it say the Disney out or dot org email said we are not telling you that you have to stop talking bad about us, but what we are telling you is if you don't talk good about us yeah, then we're going to kill you is what it said. That's what the email said and it said feel free to tell anyone about this. We don't care. Disney dot org side Walt 06:59 surprise. I'm back on frozen. The first thing he did was email us yeah. He woke up terrified. People are talking crap, the knowledge of what a podcast is. He knows who we are. He knows that we've breached the terms and conditions 07:20 and then he knows what an email is as well. He said and said, let me email. If waltz first sentence back is let me email this podcast. That sentence alone is something that could not have even been thought of. He's like he's like yeah, there's these dudes in Kansas City. One of them's got a really big head and the other one's got honestly really great style. He's dressed like perfect for the yeah or what he's used to right right like I am. I fit in 07:48 yeah, but they've been talking crap right. I don't know what would what will waltz phrase be for talking crap? What was the word in the? When did he die sixty? I don't know, but you know my favorite trivia about disney. Now have I told you this? I don't know. There's a lot of pictures of him doing this then there's like this two finger thing yeah and actually in the movie where tom hanks plays and there's a he does this yeah and it's like a hand. You know what that is everyone's like yeah Disney likes to point with two fingers like a flight attendant 08:15 Yeah, no, it's they photoshopped. He was smoking cigarettes all the time and so they photoshopped out the cigarettes and so all over Disneyland are pictures of Walt and he's doing this. It almost looks like a mason symbol. He's doing this weird like finger thing, but it's just they photoshopped all of his cigarettes out interesting. He was a chain smoker. Oh yeah, he died of lung cancer, but it is noble for the times yeah yeah, but now you don't want dare got a whole the Disney and was like hey guys 08:43 we got a problem with you telling all our kids about cigarettes, photoshop them out. I wonder if all the masons, because like you have the everyone's photoshopped, everyone's hands like this, what if that's photoshopped? What if they were holding cigarettes and they photoshopped their hands in their shirts? Is that what they were doing? Yeah, there's all this like free all the Illuminati people are like yeah. Look, they put all they all put their hands like this. What if they were holding a cigarette, everyone and they shot at that photo shopped it, everyone screen shot of that to take out a context 09:13 I don't know if everyone did, but I know our patrons did. I know it's all over the discord. Oh for sure. Anyway, this dude whose name looks to be star rose and his hand is in his button. He's clearly a part of the Illuminati. Anyways, so I don't remember what I was talking about. Oh look like you order a table side guac every time as they don't even offer it. We don't have guac and I'd like to have avocados. Then you got guac 09:42 You look like that guy exclusively drinks mohe dos no rob no rub and do you want to go to a club so to give a heat of a rum all the rum, sugar water and lime you want lime sugar water it's lime aid. That's yeah yeah yeah, but don't give me lime a I want to hand my homemade lime a mint yeah no, so there was a huge 10:08 group. So this is an interesting era for comic books because in this era, comic books were like this. When we think of comic books because of our post nineteen eighty brain that was so used to violence and wwe that we think we think fighting and combat and blood and super heroes, yeah and nerds. That's what I think 10:31 but it used to be, but it used to be comic books used to be these. They used to be in the forties and fifties. Comic books were all animal, anamorphic animals and an a pop morphe. Is there a P in there? Is it there's no P in there? Anamorphic, anapomorfic and anamorphic. That's feels better. Yeah right Alex. Thanks. So this was like the thing. It wasn't super heroes. It was these. Everyone was making these comics. I don't know why it was this, but 11:00 and then Stan Lee was like what if people talked in these yeah? What if we had people? I think it was because people couldn't the comic book artists were but we're good. We're bad at people. I think that's probably true. It is hard to draw people. No, I think realistically that's what look out. Look how hard AI is trying to draw people and messes it up. That is true. Yeah, those are robots. If robots can't do it right, but people still share that crap on Facebook like it's real 11:26 the number of people that I grew up with who will share obviously AI things. It's also crazy how fast we all got trained like you know people who are internet savvy. We got trained to recognize it immediately spot AI yeah yeah. I was I'm in a youth pastor group, so I tried to get booked there yeah and someone shared the there's a Justin Bieber worship song that is completely AI interesting and the thumbnail 11:50 is clearly a I and they shared it and they were like wow. It's so good to see this pop star tour and they were completely serious and the comments were like hey man. This is AI man. This isn't real. They were like oh really and it's like you should go back to serving the olds 12:10 you've aged out of youth ministry. If you can't recognize a I, I think that's that's a that's a true litmus test that you should have to do. I do think like there comes in you spot the AI yeah and are you going to be a creep to these kids? That's literally the bar is so low for youth volunteers and it's very difficult to find people who yeah, so can pass that interesting anyways. 12:35 so this didn't like that. This was a joke. I'm so freaking serious. This was the thing that was like super poppy. You look like you look like you share a things on Facebook. There you you are dressed like you sit on Facebook all day and you share the Tate Brothers podcast. Good perspective. I mean he's got a you look like you don't agree with everything. You look like you try to 13:04 convince people to sign up for Robin Hood to get the referral bonus as your full time job. You're trying to make that your full time thing. No, I don't even invest dude. I literally just make a living off of the referral bonus on a Robin Hood. The app, you know the investing app. I make her I make a living on man. They change the referral bonus Melaleuca. I also sell Melaleuca 13:26 I also have way in a you look like you try to make M L M's cool. Speaking of M L M's. There is a comedian that keeps popping up on my social media stuff and and his whole website and if I ever do this end it for me. His whole website is him selling and my M L M stuff yeah incredible. 13:52 So every other post is you want American made products and it's freaking Melaleuca and I go buddy. I've seen your material. That's the funniest thing you've ever done. That's hilarious. That's pretty good. So this guy was yeah. Here's here's here's something to understand about this era of Disney. Honestly, I think everybody was doing these anamorphic animal comics because Disney was doing it right. I think everyone's commenting con 14:21 copying, copying, copying their comics. Did Disney predate like bugs bunny and all that? I think so. I think so okay. When when did bugs bunny start bugs bunny biceps 14:47 I mean, he's got pretty big biceps. I should show you so I can't show you all these pictures, but I should show you some of the. 14:55 What? 14:59 Yeah, it looks like, yeah, by like 20 years. Yeah. and you probably noticed it in this picture, Because the myth they were trying to sell 15:26 That wasn't true. There was like a team of like a hundred some artists that were doing all these comics or all these different series and among that team was the duck man. Yeah. And so the duck man quickly became pretty famous because the duck man was doing things that no one else in the entire comic book industry, not just Disney was doing like he was very committed to his craft. I think is a word you could say most of most of that scene or art form was very 15:56 clearly the just trying to just pump out content yeah like what we're doing commodity comics yeah and so they were they're cutting corners. A lot of them weren't even coloring in and they were just black and white like they had the ability to do it, but most of them didn't even do it and I don't think that they lacked the ability to color. You know I'm saying like if they've drawn this incredible 16:24 comic with a story line and like it makes sense. You think they were like man. 16:33 I don't know what color this is they were color blind. Well, I just I just realized to a red green color blind person, your shirt just looks like beetle juice. I think no, so the I wasn't saying like they didn't have the ability to do it. Okay, 17:02 I think I it was more like they didn't have the ability to print. It was what I was alluding to got you, but they had that they had that ability. They could do that sure it's probably cheaper for them not to as well. Yes, but he was doing it in his comic, so it wasn't so much that like Disney was like. Oh, it's cheaper to let's do this. People just weren't doing it and then also the story lines and the concepts were very just bland. They were quick. They were rushed. A lot of them were very, very short. 17:32 full of plot holes, but he was doing something that was like it was a good story. It was well thought out. Things were put together and it was very influential. People loved it and so here's a just an example of like his colorings great yeah. I tell he sat down. You could sell he you could tell he really sat down and he colored. So this was just it was a standard. Are them full women buying with that fifty 18:02 Yeah, I should be on it. I should be. I didn't read this before I put this on screen. You know how it is. Those poor kids never have any toys. Well, well, a twenty five dollars is is for turkeys and the other twenty five yeah go on. Oh, this is Scrooge McDuck. Gotcha. What's the rich guy's name Scrooge McDuck Scrooge McDuck? Yeah, yeah. All right, keep going. So it's just it's just a higher quality of stuff that 18:31 anyone was used to in the comic book world and they were. They were longer for him well put together. He was due. He would do these large two page so the other Disney comics weren't good. I mean they were I. What I should say is the other Disney comics were fine. Okay, the other Disney comics were something that pretty much only appealed to kids, but for some reason there's Donald Duck, one like older adult comic book fans appreciated 19:01 I don't know if they, I would say it appealed to them, Later down the line, we started to see their art off of these Donald Duck comics. There is a famous graphic which I can actually grab 19:30 you know that scene where he's running from the the ball. Yeah, there's like a famous picture of that happening in one of these comics and it later happened in an actual animated Disney thing, but this whole concept was actually in Donald Duck first and so they copied that for rate is the lost arc. I shouldn't say copy. They were paying homage, homage, homage, homage, Amish 20:00 to hummage, the hummus to the duck man by doing that the duck. George Lucas also cited him as a major influence in a lot of the storylines and concepts in Star Wars. Oh Mr Lucas, how did you come up with the most groundbreaking series of the last fifty years? Things that has endured and created a fan base of generations, the duck man, 20:29 You're a lab rate on that. 20:36 Quack, quack. 20:45 In the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like a sign up for grammarly and use code till and and we got like fifteen cents and now we just do patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators. It's better for you as listeners and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on zoom. We just hang out and play games online and and get to know each other. It's a really fun time. So 21:11 but still use our code till in at grammerly dot com because I think it's still. I might get like a couple cents from that, but join us on patreon because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're going to have to start doing mobile game ads. 21:29 that's supposed to mean, but okay and then another pretty. Wait a minute, what's he doing with the scouts honor? 21:41 Is that what the scouts are doing? You all smoking? It was a children's smoking network all this time. Boys, guys, America Photoshop out the cigarettes from all the kids. What 22:02 Yeah, I'm an eagle scout. I got so many badges. This is why smoke is two packs a day badge wow yeah, I can start a fire. Yeah, I know smoky the bear jees all right, keep going with the story. Another person, another another person that this that this really inspired was a guy by the name of Osamu Tezuka. 22:31 I thought you were going with that. Saba, Tezuka, Osama, Tezuka. You recognize this guy? I don't. You might recognize his work. This is from his biography. Do you recognize this? Yes, this is Astro Boy. Yes, Astro Boy was one of the first, like widely publicized mangas, which is kind of like the comic version of anime. And so he was like a ground. They call him the God of Manga because he pretty much started it. 22:59 which essentially led to anime and he got into it from the duck man. Someone he was in Japan and a US soldier gave him gave him a couple of duck man comics and that was his first introduction. Introduction. What is happening? Introduction to comic books and he fell in love with it and he was very inspired and then he started doing what he was doing. So this is 23:26 the picture I'm trying to paint is this is a very influential artist, right? Right. The whole scene loves him, but no one knows who he is because Disney's like it's Disney and everyone's like. No, it's not. We've seen what Disney does and it's not this good okay, and so well, that's why they kept them secret. They killed him. They were like yeah, you're too good. So in the in the late fifties, a guy by the name of Malcolm Malcolm Willis ended up managing to track down 23:56 the duck man. I don't know how exactly he did this, but he started doing, he did the research. He hired a freelance PI from Miami. And it was the first success the guy ever had. Managed to track him down and he published his, he doxed him, he published his name and address. Why he did that and not, like, he didn't reach out. He's just like, I found the duck man. Here's his name, here's his address. And so there's a guy by the name of Carl. 24:26 I found the duck man. There's a guy by the name of Carl Barks. Okay, also in case you can't tell by what he's wearing an eagle scout and so Carl Barks had been doing this for about seventeen years when he was discovered with literally no recognition except for like Disney being like hey that was good make another sure like all he was known for and so a guy by the name of Bill Spicer, Bill Spicer, wrote him a letter 24:56 wrote him two letters and the first letter he didn't respond to the second letter he responded to and was basically like hey. I didn't respond to your first letter because quite frankly this second letter he sent me is the third letter I ever received like the third, not like in general, but like third fan mail. Yeah, quite really. I don't know how mail works. I've never seen this before. No is the third sent an email to the podcast 25:25 it was the third piece of fan mail he ever received. The first piece of fan mail he ever seed was fan mail that Disney forwarded to him and was like hey, you should take a look at this because Disney got it and it was someone who was really angry about something. He had they were like a you should see this don't do that again. That's the only fan that he ever got and then it was quiet for another ten years and then he got these this guy's two letters back to back okay, so you're responding back. He's like he's like I was hesitant to respond and he's like, but yeah, it's me, I'm the duck man. I've been doing this for a long time. 25:53 imagine, imagine a life where you work as an illustrator. You got a job at Disney and then there's if you ever find yourself writing the sentence. I am the duck man. 26:11 you know I'm saying like there's got to be a moment of self reflection where you go. Is this what I like got into yeah yeah you caught me. I am the duck man you got me so then Spicer, who was a writer, yeah was like. Let me interview you. I want to tell your story and so he flew out, met him and then wrote his story and published his story and this was kind of a 26:43 Don't just so we can be clear of what you just did. 26:51 is that you turn out to have to to to burp and then turned back. I'd like and burped you went like this. You were supposed to. This is where you should have burped. You were like and then come back, but you went which is okay. It's okay. It's fine. I just leave it just fine. I know I know 27:19 I'm drinking the Celsius, it hairs all mess up in the last two thousand and fourteen BMW convertible, not even a BMW. It's a one in the convertible. What's the what's the what's the one that Michael Scott drives? Oh a Chrysler yeah the the sea bring or whatever yeah oof. Okay, so the 27:41 the story gets published like you never watch the office. You just seen enough memes to fit in. You know we're like oh, what's that one that like Michael Scott Michael Scott? Where I that's right. You know what I'm talking about. He's like the world's best boss or something sleazy and it's like they're the meet their memes. So not all of them are actually in the show, so like he thinks stuff happen. Yeah, yeah, but he's still pieced together the whole story that way. You don't have time for the office. You're putting together your 28:10 drop shipping course. I made a million dollars this year on Amazon. Okay, so this is the story that we get for Carl barks. Carl was born in like southwestern Missouri in 1901. I don't remember the name of the town. I know where he ended up 28:39 but I don't know where the town he was marble hill, marble hill. You know where that is yeah. Do you really no? Oh, I mean it's basically it's earthquake area is where they are. Okay, southwest, Missouri, south east. You said southwest, but that's okay. That's why I was like where is it at? There's something wrong with my brain today. I'm telling you man just today. I keep saying all the wrong stuff. No, so anxious so 29:09 laughter 29:13 I'm out. 29:22 we can pause if you need to, but you're just going anyway. Sorry, I didn't mean to come for you like that, so he he was born in southeastern Missouri at a young age. They moved to Merrill, Oregon, yeah and his family was his dad was a farmer. They had like a one square mile plot of land and he actually grew up 29:47 The area he grew up, the closest school was two miles away. He walked to school every day, two miles there and back uphill both ways, uphill both ways. Yeah. There wasn't any other kids like within a mile and a half radius of him, like his closest neighbor was a mile and a half away. And so he just didn't have much of a social life. He had another brother, but he didn't have much in common with his brother. And so he went to school, walked home. And by the time he got home, it was one o'clock in the morning. I had to wake up in two hours and do it again. And it was kind of his life growing up. 30:17 His dad was working on the farm and at a young age found a decent bit of success in the farming industry and stock breeding. And so it was successful enough where he's like, hey, let's move to Santa Rosa, California and see if we can start setting up a new business there. And so they were going to get into vegetables and orchards and stuff like that because they thought it was going to be more profitable. So they moved down there in 1911. 30:47 but it did not work out so they fell on pretty tough financial financial times. They ended up moving back up to Merrill, Oregon and so throughout his childhood every couple years he was bouncing between different places right and this bouncing between different places made it really hard for him to get an education and so at that time at that era, I couldn't read well. I wasn't and you can only draw. He couldn't color. No one thought about a car couldn't talk 31:16 Yeah, you didn't know another kid. Only spoke to the ducks. He's in the backyard. 31:26 his dad's just so annoyed about it. Like our kid just keeps talking to ducks. I don't know what to do with them, and so he has kind of a if it's a hundred years from now, we put him in counseling, but we don't have counseling, so we're going to leave him in the woods, so I guess we just need to get him a job logging or something is twelve. He can cut down a tree and so he hadn't graduated school yet and I'm going to be honest. I probably should have looked into this. 31:56 I don't know when kids normally graduated in this era, but I'm guessing was early because they act like this was a big deal that he hadn't graduated twelve years old yet love years old has even and if that wasn't unusual, then I don't know. Maybe the point was he had years old hasn't put a penny in his four a one K what a lose and so he didn't complete grade school 32:25 okay, it is moving around at the age of sixteen. He does finally manage to get in school, finish grade school at sixteen and they make him go to class. That year was a tough year because his mother dies that year as well, and then he started developing hearing problems out of nowhere, and so it got really tough for him to hear and so so we're in headphones in that picture. I think they were hearing aids well. 32:54 unproven sure, but they look like headphones. They do look like headphones. I should yeah. I stand corrected, but they got wires, hearing down is sure whatever year this picture was yeah. You know anyways, so he he goes back to school. He graduates his mom dies and then because of his hearing problems, it got hard for him. 33:17 to hear her in class. Okay, and so he did. They just make him go to class. So I question he so he just decided in class with a bunch of six year olds. Yes, yeah, and so he just decided not to go to high school okay, and so we have a lot of story to get to. That's why Tim's pushing through so he doesn't go to high school, but in grade school, something significant happened that year. The year he graduated great friend he met, which was a duck outside the school 33:42 and that Doug Todd of the drop. They were talking about mother goose. He was like wait. Is that my mom? Is that goose my mom? You're telling me the goose I've been talking to is my mom and then he saw Andy goose on TV and was like that guy walked out on us. My dad that goose is my dad. This is so foul. 34:13 hate that joke as bad as a bad one, so it's bad. Thank you for laughing at sixteen. He drops out of school and he just starts working labor jobs. He sure he does actually go. He becomes a logger. He works in construction about ten years, just working random manual labor jobs, farmhand, rancher, all this different stuff, but all the wild he's cultivating his passion, which is something he learned his last year grade school from one of his classmates who were eight was 34:41 drawing pictures. So one of his classmates took a he was a bully to that was the thing he was bigger than all of them. He one of his classmates took an art class in like his free time after school okay, and so during the school hours they would have like free work hours and instead of working on his homework. This kid was working on his artwork and Carl 35:09 Carl was like well, what are you doing there? That's that's some interesting math you're doing copying him thinking it's the math answers math over and his teachers like please see me six times eight is not duck his teachers like you're sixteen these the rest of your class is eight. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know the difference between those two numbers, so 35:29 it looks right to me. He did the same thing yeah. No he didn't no. He turned in his homework before you copied it also your copying of his artwork is really bad. It doesn't look anything like what he did yeah. I'm going to write you a letter one day it's from his teacher. She recognized it and she was like. I know these ducks. I know these ducks before 35:59 so he he talks to this other student, his classmates, her his classmates like yeah, I've been going to our school and so like hey, where did you learn to draw like talk? Someone is a kid and the kids like I shut the heck up. Don't talk to me like that. I can tell you how to draw, but you're not going to talk to me like that. You're basically an adult. You're still in grade school. I'm eight 36:25 This is age appropriate behavior for me, so get cigarettes and drawing pictures like that kids live in my dream and so ripping six on 36:41 so he starts giving him lessons like okay. He would go to this. This kid would go to art class and then the next day he'd be like here's what we learned in our okay, and so he taught him a bunch of stuff about art and that kid yeah, wall, disney, 37:00 and so Carl falls in love with art, but yeah he doesn't graduate high school. He has no connections genuinely with anybody. He has no this is what's crazy. Human connection. Let's just pause here for a second that this guy is now seventeen. No high school can just draw yeah and still had a pretty decent freaking life. Well, I want to say that you're you're you're jumping a little early. He didn't have a very decent life. I mean I would say a good career. 37:29 Well, later on in life, later on in life, it did kind of develop panned out it blot. We got more. He did have a tough go at it, but yeah, each of the jobs he took was like a manual labor job. So keep telling the story man. So you look like hallmark made a made a storyboard of what hung over looks like all right and they and like this is the best they could do to be like clearly like because they're selling 37:58 sorry you're hung. No, they're doing there. What is one of those movies where it's like the prodigal son, you know, and you're the son who clearly didn't turn out all right yeah yeah yeah and but they tall marks. They had to play in stereotypes. They don't know how to yeah. They don't know how to be normal yeah okay, so they really play it up, so he's he's going job the job and it's not none of the jobs are working out like their menial jobs. He's there for a little bit has some sort of issue. While he's there bounces to the next job, it's kind of in financial not 38:26 I want to say trouble, but not doing well at all yeah gets married and his wife and him kind of have a difference of opinion because he wanted every night. What he had always done is he would go to work all day and he would come home and he was draw his pictures okay. That was how he wanted to spend his time. His wife was like I want to go out on the town. I want to life was like I want to sit with you. I want to have kids. I want to I want to know you and tell me your name. It's like I can't 38:55 I don't know what those words you're saying mean he's he knows enough to communicate. I have no idea he was just gaslighting. I don't speak English. I don't know what you're saying right now. I didn't hear that water 39:15 so she wanted to go down the town. She wanted to have friends. She wanted to like have a life and he's like. I'd rather or not. I'd rather just sure, sure, sure, and so they would get in disagreements all the time and he just kind of spent ten years working these jobs. He didn't like drawing pictures at night yeah and then his marriage ended up not making it because she was frustrated that he just wanted to draw all the times is draw ducks. Yeah, all he does is draw ducks 39:45 And so yeah, their marriage didn't didn't make it. And so afterwards he's like, hey, instead of going to go get a new job, I think this is the how a lot of divorcees think he's like, he's like, yeah, do you think that let me reinvent myself? I'm going to move to San Francisco. Sure. I'm going to try to get a art job. And so he moves to San Francisco and he starts looking for an art job and it doesn't work that every once every job's full. 40:12 and that I think that's a testament to the times like I, I think you hear a lot of like boomers talk about the life that they grew up with. Like it was really hard and I do think that this was one thing that was actually probably pretty hard. It's like now before you move to San Francisco, you can look at indeed and you know true. Can I actually realistic? Can I have a job here? Yeah, 40:39 he didn't have that luxury. He moved out there on the off chance that there was an opening and there was none, and so he ended up getting another labor job in San Francisco. He was there for a little bit, continuing to draw every night and trying to sell it like sending it off to all these papers. Yeah, well, what he would do is he would write. He would drop these comics and he'd send them to papers and the papers. He just want to use this yeah, and that's kind of what 41:05 artists did at that time. They would draw stuff and they'd send it to papers and the papers would it's like when I buy out the caption contest in the New Yorker every week, he kind except for this was like this is going to be my big break. It's my big break is getting chosen as the caption on the New Yorker 41:23 but this was like they sent it in and they would actually buy it. It wasn't a contest. I understand. I understand so business works, so he did this and an entertainment and it was years of him doing this until eventually he managed. Let me see. Let me get the see if I can get this year right in 41:53 to Judge magazine, which I have no idea what that magazine does, and then after that he started having a lot of success selling comics to the Minneapolis based Cal Calgary, I opener, which I don't know if you can tell by the name I opener. This was not a well respected magazine sure it wasn't conspiracy. It was like racy stuff 42:22 and so like everything was kind of salacious. Yes, I think that's probably a good word for it like tabloid kind of stuff. No, no, no, no, like yeah, let yeah yeah got it. Yeah, you're getting it, but his comic I offer the oh 42:42 yeah, yeah, and then in the middle of like kind of racy like. I just love to read all these things and I also the articles would love a comic of a duck. 43:01 Thanks for checking out this episode. In that mailing list, we give updates on past episodes. and every week things are changing. So if you want to keep learning stuff, that's happening in the Tilen verse. 43:27 I like that. I've never said Till and Verse before, that's the best place to do it. There's a lot of ways to sign up for the mailing list But anyways, now back to this episode. 43:53 they end up hiring a full time okay, and so he's like people love these comics. People loves your comics and so they paid him a salary of ninety dollars a month, which I don't know. I don't know what that inflation calculator comes out to. Let's let's check that real quick and yeah. What year is this again? This is 1923. Oh well, he put it got hired a couple years after that, so probably like twenty five, twenty six something like that. So let's see nineteen, twenty six ninety dollars 44:23 Wow, I haven't used this one before. This is hard to look at. Ninety dollars in January 19, 25. Okay, today is sixteen thirty seven, so sixteen hundred bucks a month. So not great, but fine. Sure. So he's working for them. He's drawing these comics. 44:53 and then it's probably not a forty hour job right. It's not like your yeah. That's a good question. I don't know actually and you could probably work for multiple different publications is the idea yeah interesting that's could be the idea that wasn't what he was doing. He was just working for this one company yeah. He didn't have the he wasn't like I should go get another one is to yeah. Maybe I should burn the cano of both ends, but an opportunity opened up at Disney. 45:22 and this was an interesting opportunity because it was as an in betweener and the way things worked in Disney is you would always come in essentially as an intern with the art community, no matter how much experience you had. It was an MN, essentially as an internship and the in betweeners, what they did is they didn't draw it. They drew the in between slides in the movies and so 45:47 the there okay interesting the yeah every the like big time artists would draw the main points in the storyboard and then the in betweeners would draw the little detail movements in between those big storyboard moments yeah and so and they would have an army of them. There'd be like three hundred of them. Most of them want to make it to a second project, so it was kind of like we're going to test you as an in betweener for a little while you do good enough and you kind of make it through boot camp, a some be in betweener 46:13 or you can be the person who teaches that drawing class at California adventure. 46:21 Yeah, exactly. These are your choices. These are your choices and so this opportunity opened up and it was like okay. I could go work at Disney. This is a huge opportunity sure, but in that era there's no remote work, so he moves from Minneapolis to California right for a job that for all intents and purposes is a tent position. Yeah, who knows if he's going to be able to stay and he's got a good stable job that he's he's has a week or a monthly paycheck for right. He's like he's like. Should I give this up? Is this worth it? 46:50 He ends up deciding to take the big swing on it and go for it. and gets put on a project to do a Donald Duck comic. that they put out. and is like, hey, I want you to do the next Donald Duck comic. He did it. 47:20 And it was like a smash hit, that comic. And so they ended up hiring him on as like a full-time salaried position to create this comic. But what was interesting is the time between when he got hired and when he did that first comic was well over a year. And they didn't have like any feedback to him. They didn't talk to him. They didn't tell him how it was going. He didn't get reports. He didn't get the fan mail. 47:48 and he just had like no correspondence from Disney, no new assignments, so he ends up between releasing that first comic and getting the full time position moving out to the bow hadn't heard from him for a year. Yeah, he moves out to the valley and he gets a farm and he's like I'm going to farm now. I guess I'm a farmer and so he's like he's like I'm over that. I'm going to show them and say hey, you missed your deadlines. He's like a harvest ain't till fall. I don't know what you're talking about yeah, so he starts farming 48:17 still just drawing for fun in his free time, and then he gets a letter from Disney and they're like, hey, can you do another one of those and he's like, oh cool, yeah, and so he does another one. Yeah, I don't leave this farm to die. No, he's literally he stays. He's just does it at night farms during the day and then they just started steadily coming in. Never once did he get a report and like they never once did they tell him how it was doing and he's kind of disconnected from society. He doesn't really have friends. He lives on this farm on his hand, so he has no idea how 48:46 big this is becoming. He just knows they just keep asking for more and he's so passionate about the project that in later interviews he would say that most of the other people that he worked with and the people in the industry they would make mistakes. They would just leave it in. They would write a story, they would rush through it and he said I would genuinely go through five or six iterations of the storyline before I ever even started drawing it because I wanted this to be like a genuine really good story. 49:15 And he's like, so I was building, he was like, I would build the world, I would build the characters and I would try to like, does this make sense for this character? And he said he would even count syllables in every line to make sure it flowed and was easy to read. Like he was writing like poetry and so like he really took like a level of care that no one else in that industry was taking and it was working and that's why it was selling so well. But Disney is obviously like this is Disney doing it, not this guy. Right. Right. And so he ends up doing this for like fifteen years completely without 49:44 anyone ever knowing he's doing it and without him really recognizing that it's like become a that it's a big thing. He just knows he just keeps getting hired for it. He doesn't know he's not getting paid more or no. No, he's got a he's got he's getting a paycheck, but he's not getting paid more like they're not increasing his rates, maybe with like cost of living, but he is he is at this point later in the later in this timeline. He's doing it full time. I should say he's not doing the farm stuff. He still lives on the farm, but it's overgrown. It looks bad. 50:12 I don't know if that's true. Sure, and so he spends, he spends his career doing this, not really knowing if anyone really cares or anything about it, and he's just about at a point where he's starting to get frustrated with it because over the course of time, Disney is a corporation and this corporation is doing what corporations do, and so they started 50:41 for example, they went to him. One of the things he was famous for is he would do those two pages spreads right and they said hey instead doing two page do one page and whenever you're going to do that we're going to get an ad for the other page and he's like oh that's a kind of a bummer and so he started only doing one page spreads and then they started saying hey we're actually going to start doing this on cheaper paper and so he said that what would happen is because he would go over his art so many times he said that on this cheaper paper 51:07 when he would erase, they would actually put grooves into the paper and then it would make it harder for him to go back over it. And so then he started being less. He started going over less because it was damaging the price. The paper was cheaper and so starting to weigh on him just like how how much Disney kind of just didn't really care about it for him. This is art like this isn't like a just a job. This isn't just some comic for kids like this is him a way to express his art and a way to get paid to do art. Basically 51:36 He doesn't care that it's kids comics. Essentially, he just loves doing art, and so he was kind of at a point where he was getting pretty drained, starting to feel like he was running out of stories. I should mention that Scrooge McDuck was his character. He came up with Scrooge McDuck and a lot of other characters in the duck, Donald Duck, no, Donald Duck and Daisy had already existed, but he created Duck Berg. 52:06 which was like the town where they lived and then I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not a Disney adult. You might know some of these characters, but the characters he created were Scrooge Mcduck, Gladstone, Gander, Beagle Boys, the Junior Woodchucks, Gyro, Gearloose, Cornelius Coot, Flint Heart, Glomgold, John D Rocker Duck. 52:36 I don't know. I don't know that is this sounds like either Disney characters or your office fantasy football league teams. All right, that's all this sounds like to me. 52:52 John D Rocker Chuck Rocker Duck. Yeah, so he created a bunch of characters and a bunch of the big big story lines that you see in the Donald Duck universe and it's interesting. The the characters of Donald Duck, what Donald Duck became because he really was Donald Duck existed, but 53:14 because of these comics and many of these comics got adapted into feature movies, created this lore around he created who Donald Duck was as a character like there was a foundation. He created that and so Donald what it kind of was was Donald Duck was who he was Scrooge McDuck was who he wanted to be, but over time he started to realize that Scrooge McDuck has a lot of the same problems of who he actually is as well, and so Donald Duck was a guy who bounced from job to job and could never really find much success and had an anger issue. 53:43 because he had an anger issue as well. And Scrooge was obviously a very wealthy man who made it big, but then was greedy, and he kind of, I don't know, tied that string of like, well, I'd still have problems if I was there. And so all that lore and the character development was him. 54:06 but he started to feel like I'm not going to I'm running out of ideas. The ink, the the tank is running dry. I'm getting a little sure I'm tired of dealing with Disney because they're they're making this really hard on me. I give him me cheap paper. I give me cheap. I labor in the sun all day long with this cheap paper. You don't really work at the set. You should work inside. You don't have to draw farming. Yeah, but he well he's he's drawing. Yeah. Okay, drawing outside 54:35 I guess and so he's he's starting to kind of come to the end. I'm saying compared to farming drawing on this difficult paper. Yeah, so when he gets this letter, it's kind of in this this time in his life where he thinks this is all coming to an end. He's not going to be doing this much longer. He's tired. He hasn't really got the recognition he feels like he ever wanted. He's had two divorces now 55:03 and he's had just a lot of let downs in his life and when he gets this letter, one of the things that they ask for is they ask for a painting like a full size painting of the characters. Oh, okay, and yeah from him and I could you do like a big commission and painting yeah commission of canvas and he agrees to it. He does the commission and when what was this guy's name Bill Spicer 55:32 publishes his document on it, he says that he did that, oh, me too. So he starts getting commissioned And they were like, 56:02 Donald Donald Duck paintings and so he started out doing all these commissions, but he got so busy doing commissions. His name is Carl barks. Yeah, okay, why 56:18 I'm go ahead. I just I don't know that just it is hit me like I don't know half an hour later and so he's a communist dog, so he he started off comrade, so he's filling up so much time doing these commissions. I was just going to say this is a this is an authentic Carl Borg's painting yeah, and then you're like whoa, whoa, 56:46 I love the idea of someone getting into an internet fight and they're like oh you should look such a Karl Marx fan. I do love Karl Marx. He's great. I love everything. I love Karl Marx yeah his duck stuff is like work. It was like duck stuff. Yeah, Karl Marx duck stuff. I especially like the stuff he did for that weird magazine or whatever it was. The I of all his writings I don't 57:17 I don't. I'm going to be honest. I'm sure for talking about the same car be wild if they were if at the end you're like and then later in his later and so now he's in his early seventies yeah and he's doing all these commissions, but it's taking him so much time like these are he because he's he's he cares about his artwork yeah and so he spends a lot of time in his commissions and he has so many of these commissions coming in. He can't keep up with it, so Spicer is like hey, what if we start just doing auctions and so 57:46 they go and they start doing auctions long story short, these start selling for thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars at auctions, because people want them so bad and so can see some of the paintings yeah. So in his seventies okay, I see so yeah here he is painting one, but yeah. These are these are the kind of paintings that he's trying. Carl barks paintings and I believe and I don't want to miss speak here, but I'm going to say this anyways. 58:16 if you go to Disney World or Disneyland, you'll see paintings like these there. I think he was the first one to do these okay, and so yeah they so that one twice yeah. I just like this one the most and so he started selling these at auctions long for short. This is what made him a millionaire in his late in his mid seventies. He started selling these prints on auction and I made him a millionaire and he then became kind of like the 58:46 and angry. He became everything Scrooge McDuck is and more and he became like a comic con guy. There wasn't a comic con at the time, yeah, but he would be at these conferences where all these comic and art fans would be and he would go to those companies. We would do the ham get on stage. There's there's music and dark lights and then it starts playing music and he's up there just as a to do 59:16 did you do to do to do to do? He's up there painting he's old, but he's a people like that's caro marks barks as caro marks. They all bark for him. That's like is they and then the end he just and it's Donald Duck. It's like oh my gosh, I thought I was gonna be the whole time Donald Duck being crucified, John, a picture of Jesus and he turns it over 59:56 incredible and then in 1987 he was driving home from work and he saw this light in the sky. 01:00:12 Okay, I wish that was true. I wish I did this whole thing and there was a ufo story at the end of it. The end, the end, I know, but in nineteen eighty seven he gets inducted in as the in the inaugural inducted, not abducted, it's inducted, it's inducted as the first artist in the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, which is like the comic book Hall of Fame now and that guy showed you a summer to Zuka ends up getting inducted in two thousand and two lot of other big name. 01:00:41 comic book artists are a part of this hall of fame now, but he was the first person ever inducted into it and he survived until it was ninety nine. So he really got to spend like the last twenty years. He was very rich. He never retired. He continued drawing until he died. He died at ninety nine. I don't know if I said retired or died. He died. Yeah, died at ninety nine, which was the year two thousand and so he spent his the latter half of his life making a lot of money doing these prints and kind of 01:01:11 It's a story that feels like what is that guy that we did that the singer who oh yeah, no one discovered until six to Rodriguez, yeah, six to Rodriguez. It feels it feels very similar to that story because he spent so many years just passionately pursuing the thing that he really loved and not getting a lot of recognition and then yeah all of a sudden out of nowhere he found out 01:01:32 I've got tons of touring fans are all across the world. Yeah, yeah, we're hopefully one day, hopefully one day, hopefully one day someone sends us a letter and Disney's like we're not going to send this to them. Hopefully one day this podcast pays off and you can stop being a landlord for old people in Branson. If you like this podcast, send letters to disney and tell him how much you send all of your family to Disney. You keep getting people who ask if we have a P O box, which we need to send one up. We haven't got around to it yeah. 01:02:02 but just if you if you don't, if you don't know where to send it, just send it to Disney, send fan mail to Disney. Yeah, we'll find it. Yeah, we read Disney's mail. So yeah, that's that's the story of Carl Barks or the duck man. He was a secret for a long time, but he ended up not being a secret and he got very rich off making really good comics. That's awesome. So that's a story. If you care about something and you want to do it, all you need to do is not graduate high school and pursue it at night. 01:02:30 so vigorously that it leads to a divorce and then pursue it. You're are like that message non graduate high school pursue something so much that it leads to a divorce and just keep pursuing it until it eventually hopefully pays on till you get rich. The age of seventy five yeah, it's right. You look like you sell beach front property at a lake in Indiana. Yeah. You want to see the beach views here in it a 01:03:03 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode of things early last night. If you liked it and you want more of it, we mentioned the six toe Rodriguez episode six toe was a musician who released an album, thought that it flopped and it did in the United States, but unbeknownst to him had gone platinum in a few other countries and then so he was just working as a construction worker, doing his normal thing back home in Detroit and then found out years later that he is this massive sensation across the world. So he's thrust into doing arena tours. It was an incredible story. 01:03:33 please go check out our episode about that. It is linked somewhere here or if you've already listened to the entire back catalog, you've listened to all two hundred episodes we put out and you're like I just cannot wait for another one. You can listen to next week's episode right now on Patreon. Patrons a great way to help support this show to help us keep doing more episodes, but you get next week's episode and you get all of our episodes ad free and you can do that by just texting till into six six eight six six or the link is somewhere around here, but anyway, we'll see you next week on things I learned last night.