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Carl Barks story, cvr/art; Four Color #386; "Only A Poor Old Man" COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 7 (CBI)
By 1952 the popularity of the character convinced Dell to give Scrooge a try-out as a lead character in the seminal "Only a Poor Old Man." The story begins with Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money bin, speaking his now-famous line, "I love to dive around in it like a porpoise and burrow through it like a gopher and toss it up and let it hit me on the head!" This first issue in the regular series is considered by most Scroogophiles as one of Barks' finest stories.


Artist Information

Carl Barks "The Duck Man" was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and painter who's famous for his freewheeling, high adventure stories at Disney focusing mostly on Donald Duck, his nephews, and their curmudgeonly Uncle Scrooge McDuck. Barks, who's career began in the early 1940s in Disney animation before transitioning over to the comic books where he had more freedom, in addition to introducing Uncle Scrooge, created many of the other supporting characters that have become beloved by fans in the ensuing decades, he was known only as "the good duck artist" for most of his career as his identity was largely unknown until the 1960s. Once his identity was revealed, and after his retirement from full time comic book making, Barks began a second career making oil paintings featuring recreations and reinterpretations of some of his classic duck imagery that have become coveted treasures. Barks' work from the 1940s is credited as inspiring a young Osamu Tezuka to give up his medical studies and devote his time in becoming a cartoonist, leading him to create Astro Boy and become the grandfather of Manga, the most popular form of comics in the world.