Category: Carl Barks

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck volume 21: Christmas in Duckburg (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library)


By Carl Barks, with Bob Gregory & Vic Lockman, Rich Tommaso, Digikore, Gary Leach, Erik Rosengarten, Donald Ault & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-239-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68396-299-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, and raised in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in US history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books. With cartoon studio partner Jack Hannah (another occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for an animated cartoon short into the comic book Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 in October of that year and – although not his first published comics work – it was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, Barks worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing and drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters. These included Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the legendarily nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement Disney’s stable of cartoon actors. His greatest creation was undoubtedly crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged septuagenarian and the harassed, hard-pressed not-so-silent co-star of this show.

Whilst producing that landmark, material Barks regarded himself as just a simple working guy: generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when required, and contributing characters and stories to the burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Once Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his efforts – and other selected Disney strips – in the 1980s, Barks discovered a well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed. So potent were his creations that they even fed back into the conglomerate’s animation output, although all his brilliant comic work was done for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated series Duck Tales, heavily based on his comics output. Throughout his working life Barks was blissfully unaware that his work – uncredited by official policy, as was all Disney’s cartoon and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, a belated celebrity began.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, which led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comics blockbuster: blending history, plucky bravado, wit and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been Indiana Jones…

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books began collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing his year-by-year output in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet imagineer. These will comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. Physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and re-presenting works from 1947 – albeit not in strictly chronological release order. Today however, it’s seasonal yarn ‘Christmas in Duckburg’ that lends its title to volume 21 of this unmissable publishing event.

It begins with the eponymous full-length Holidays thriller (from Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #9; cover-dated December 1958 and scripted by Bob Gregory) as Barks’ most enduring creation Scrooge McDuck pressures Donald Duck and his miracle working nephews Huey, Louie & Dewey to head north and bring back a 100ft fir tree for Duckburg City square. This is not some aberrant act of civic largesse, but simply in response to being publicly joshed and barracked all year by obnoxious business rival “Jolly” Ollie Eiderduck who provided the previous prodigious record-breaking pine for the city’s seasonal blowout. Incensed and outraged, Scrooge gets the boys cheaply, since Donald has made another so-typical financial blunder and must find some way to pay for an entire Ferris wheel…

However, there’s no love lost between the turbulent tycoons, and as the poor young ducks head to a Canadian logging camp, enflamed ire turns to ridiculous wagers, and Jolly Ollie hires the nefarious Beagle Boys to sabotage the expedition. Nevertheless, despite their every spectacular attempt, most of the massive living monument makes it back to Duckburg, where the insidious Eiderduck has one last card to play… but so too do the ingenious nephews…

Undoubtedly, the greatest cartoon creation of legendary magnificent story showman Barks, Downy Dodecadillionaire Scrooge McDuck quickly took on a life of his own after appearing as simple throwaway miserly villain. The old coot was crusty, energetic, menacing, money-mad and yet honest and brave by his own standards and oddly lovable  and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent. He returned often and eventually expanded to fill all available space in tales from scenic metropolis Duckburg, either as star or as a motivating engine for Donald and the boys.

Another sterling creation – and ideal story cog – was super-lucky butthead Gladstone Gander: eternal foil for Donald and rival for Daisy Duck’s attentions. In ‘Dramatic Donald’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #217, October 1958) the fortunate one gleefully tramples all over Donald’s thespian aspirations and efforts to score a leading role in Daisy’s Halloween play, bringing out our hero’s dark side and inciting a stage catastrophe. Then, Donald’s hunt for rare and valuable marine creatures sparks a manic sea hunt and nautical chaos only curtailed by a large pod of ‘Noble Porpoises’ (WDC&S #218 November 1958).

Cover-dated February 1959, the duck tale in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #221 reveals exactly how parsimonious Scrooge was made to pay for Duckburg’s magnificent new Junior Woodchucks of the World Hall of Science in ‘Tracking Sandy’: a tale of mystery, masked and masquerading gold miners, canny nephews, investigations and a dynamic detective deduction, whilst WDC&S #219 (December 1958) offers a rare moment of failure as Donald, Huey, Louie & Dewey and even wise old Grandma Duck all fail to tame an orphan coyote in ‘The Littlest Chicken Thief’.

Donald and Gladstone clash again at ‘The Beachcombers’ Picnic’ (WDC&S #224, May 1959) where a concatenation of bizarre events and fervent scavenger hunting antics result in a rare victory for “unca Donald” after which the loco parental displays an uncanny ability to transport anything anywhere in WDC&S #222 (March 1959). Typically, however, ‘The Master Mover’ goes too far only to come a crushing cropper after guaranteeing to shift an entire zoo to a mountaintop in one afternoon! A facility for lucky accidents and the nephews’ chemistry set results in a major step forward in ballistic science… until US military intransigence and Donald’s stubbornness reduce the race for space to a ‘Rocket-Roasted Christmas Turkey’ (WDC&S #220, January 1959), in advance of the accidental savant succumbing to ‘Spring Fever’ (WDC&S #223, April). With the sun out and flowers blooming, Donald craves a quiet day’s fishing, but his rush to relax causes chaos for the kids and makes him the target of a ticket-happy game warden…

Volunteer firefighter Donald finds respect, his happy place and victory over gloating Gladstone in all-action romp ‘The Lovelorn Fireman’ (WDC&S #225 June), before Scrooge resurfaces to fall foul of satellite technology after spotting and appropriating ‘The Floating Island’ (#226, July). It turns out to be a rare bad gamble and brutally depreciating asset, after which Donald becomes proxy prey for the Junior Woodchucks in fieldcraft test ‘The Black Forest Rescue’ (#227 August), again learning the kids know their stuff and that nature abhors a smug git…

Anthology Walt Disney’s Summer Fun #2 (August 1959) provides anthropological hilarity as Donald attempts to emulate explorer-documentarians’ ‘Jungle Hi-Jinks’ without leaving the house, only to end up lost, out of his depth and impersonating a caveman in Africa before a quartet of tales bucolic pastoral tales sees Barks as illustrator only. Scripted by Vic Lockman, ‘The Flying Farmhand’, ‘A Honey of a Hen’, ‘The Weather Watchers’ & ‘The Sheepish Cowboys’ all originated in Four Color #1010 (July-September 1959): a themed anthology entitled Walt Disney’s Grandma Duck’s Farm Friends.

With movie star guests such as Dumbo, Big Bad Wolf and Gus Goose augmenting Barks regulars Gyro Gearloose, Daisy, the nephews, Grandma, Scrooge and Donald, the vignettes detail how thieving Zeke Wolf fails to impress as a stand-in scarecrow, what Scrooge learns of the true cost of buying vegetables wholesale, why goats can derange meteorological predictions and where nephews seek size-appropriate steeds for their cowboy games…

With the visual verve done with again, we move on to a cover gallery and validation as ‘Story Notes’ provides erudite commentary for each Duck tale and Donald Ault details ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’ before ‘Biographies’ reveals why he and ‘Contributors’ Alberto Beccatini, Craig Fischer, Leonardo Gori, Thad Komorowski, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone, Francesco “Franky” Stajano, Mattias Wivel and Daniel F. Yezbick are saying all those nice and informative things. We close for Christmas – and the meanwhile – with an examination of provenance with ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’ explaining the somewhat byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics and origin points of all the fun we’ve just had…

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, and almost all his work featured Disney’s characters: reaching and affecting untold millions of readers across the world and he all too belatedly won far-reaching recognition. You might be late to the party but it’s never too soon to climb aboard the Barks Express.
Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Christmas in Duckberg” © 2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc. “Story Notes” texts © 2020 the respective authors. “Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks” © 2020 Donald Ault. Other text © 2020 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 11: Christmas For Shacktown


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you crave detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With studio partner Jack Hannah (another animator turned occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for a cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published in October of that year as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 and – although not his first published comics work – was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, he worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters, including Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) to supplement Disney’s stable of illustrated actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: world’s wealthiest septuagenarian waterfowl and the harassed, hard-pressed, scene-swiping co-star of this tome.

Whilst producing all that landmark material, Barks was just a working guy, crafting covers, drawing other people’s scripts and contributing his stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only in the 1980s – after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his work and other Disney strips – did Barks discover the devoted appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comics were produced for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the Disney studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his Scrooge comics output.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comedy blockbuster: blending wit, history, science, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life, Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts – uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s strip and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabidly discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, Barks’ belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books started collecting his Duck materials in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing the output approximately year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library…

The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and showcasing works from 1947. Today we’re revisiting 1951-1952, with volume 11 offering another landmark Seasonal tale that critically reshaped the supposedly throwaway, 2-dimensional miser into the richly rounded character beloved by billions…

It begins eponymously with Bark’s most enduring creation in top form. The elder McDuck had debuted in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178, December 1947): a handy comedy foil stemming from a Yuletide tale of woe and joy. He was a miserly relative who seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and meanly opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephew Donald and his junior houseguests Huey, Louie and Dewey – by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

After the tale ended Barks realised that although the old coot was creepy, menacing and money-mad, he was also energetic and oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Further appearances proved that he was right and his expedient maguffin was undoubtedly his greatest cartoon creation. The Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often, eventually expanding to fill all available space in tales set in the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

Here. shifted slightly out of publishing chronology – because McDuck is not about wasting time or money – we open eponymously with the lead tale from Four Color #367. Cover-dated January 1952, ‘A Christmas For Shacktown’ begins as Donald’s nephews take a detour through the bad side of town and realise they cannot allow all the poverty-stricken children they see endure a festive season without food or toys…

Their discussion also inspires Daisy Duck, who resolves to organise a solution, and before long her women’s club is tapping Duckburg’s citizens for contributions. Daisy herself asks Donald – who’s experiencing a personal cashflow crisis and can’t afford his own Yule celebrations – who might make up her final $50 shortfall. When the nephews suggest Scrooge McDuck, Donald is reluctantly despatched to beg a donation, and does not relish the conversation…

That last 50 bucks is to buy turkeys and provide the joyless waifs with a train set, but after a titanic tussle, Donald can only get the skinflint to agree to $25… and that’s only for the food, not silly fripperies like toys…

Rapidly regrouping, Donald and Daisy are overwhelmed when the nephews hand over their savings and tell their “Unca Donald” to similarly donate the money put aside for their presents, but it’s still not enough and the trio then head off to shovel snow from sidewalks to make up the difference.

Ashamed and emboldened, Donald resolves to get what’s needed from Scrooge, embarking upon a series of increasingly wild stunts – including recruiting despicable rival Gladstone Gander – that culminates in disaster when Scrooge’s overloaded money vault collapses under the weight of its own reserves, plunging his entire fortune into the bowels of the Earth.

Confronted with penury, the despondent tycoon is saved by Donald and the boys who devise a means of retrieving the loot which gives the miser a new perspective on the value of toys: a view that rightly translates into Shacktown enjoying the best Christmas ever…

A month prior to that yarn, anthological Walt Disney Comics & Stories #135 (cover-dated December 1951) featured The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill’ wherein the old money magnate debuted his monolithic money bin, and invites Donald and the boys to inspect it… if they can get past all his baroque and byzantine security measures. Sadly, the visit also inspires the dastardly Beagle Boys to try to empty it…

WDC&S #136 (January 1952) then finds Donald suffering a braggart’s boasts again as his despised super-lucky rival recounts ‘Gladstone’s Usual Good Year’. Driven to distraction, Donald resorts to cheating just to raise his own spirits and something very unlikely occurs…

For #137, Donald and the nephews head to the mountains after he sells a song. Sadly, ‘The Screaming Cowboy’ is a particularly annoying tune that Donald smugly plays on every juke box in the region: the ominously named Avalanche Valley…

Scrooge returned in (WDC&S #138 March 1952), acting in a most uncharacteristic manner as ‘Statuesque Spendthrifts’ revealed him locked in financial combat with the proudly philanthropic Maharajah of Howduyustan to prove who was truly “the richest man in the world”. The battle revolved around who could donate the most ornate, ostentatious and gaudy monument of Duckburg’s founder…

When Huey, Dewey & Louie’s latest hobby – racing pigeons – inspires Donald’s disdain, the mean Unca attempts to sabotage and gaslight them, but learns his lesson when ‘Rocket Wing Saves the Day’ (WDC&S #139, April) after he has an accident…

The family – and even outrageous inventor Gyro Gearloose – are united in WDC&S #140, working to uncover annoying wastrel ‘Gladstone’s Terrible Secret’, and the chaos-creating boffin is back in #141, much to Donald’s dismay and the nephews’ delight: upsetting the natural order with machines giving beasts human attributes in ‘The Think Box Bollix’…

Four Color #408 (July/August 1952) was an All-Donald/All Barks affair and opens with a brace of single page gags, starting with ‘Full-Service Windows’ as the wily retailer finds a cheap and easy way to clean his shop front and compounding interest with ‘Rigged-Up Roller’ (alternately called ‘Rigged Up Lawn’) wherein the nephews must find a new way to keep the yard maintained…

The main event was extended action adventure ‘The Golden Helmet’ wherein bored museum guard Donald stops a suspicious individual poking about in a Viking longship and uncovers a hidden deerskin map. It reveals how explorer Olaf the Blue discovered America in 901 AD, and left a golden helmet which confirms when and how the nation was born.

The museum authorities are exultant… but only until the meddler returns with his lawyer Sharky. Azure Blue claims to be the descendant of Olaf and invokes the ancient “code of discovery” law. It dictates that as proof of the event, the helmet also confers ownership of the continent on the heirs… but only if Azure finds it first…

Almost resenting his earlier dreams of adventure, Donald recruits his nephews and dashes off with the museum curator to Labrador. They are all intent on saving Americans from becoming Blue’s slaves: battling deadly weather, constant misfortune and the machinations of Azure and Sharky in a superb action romp anticipating, Dan Brown, The Librarian and the National Treasure screen franchise…

The fun finishes with Donald’s Nephews ‘Awash in Success’ beside a faulty drinking fountain, counterbalanced by a Donald and Scrooge single from Four Color #422, (cover-dated September/October 1952) with the money-wise miser benefitting from bulk buying in ‘Stable Prices’.

Back on track and sampling Walt Disney Comics & Stories (#142, July 1952) sees Donald drag the kids on a ‘Houseboat Holiday’ to keep their summer vacation pranks and hijinks at a manageable level. Instead, he finds himself at the centre of a storm of freak calamities and life-threatening disasters. Its only marginally less fraught one month later when he takes them to the desert as ‘Gemstone Hunters’ and is bamboozled by cunning fraudsters and again humiliated by Gladstone…

The remainder of Four Color #422 follows, opening with a follow-up action excursion. In ‘The Gilded Man’ avid stamp collector Donald believes he’s tracked down a hugely valuable item and heads for British Guiana, with the nephews in tow and Gladstone hot on his trail.

The quest is for fabled El Dorado, and the jungle trek ultimately leads them to victory of a sort after exposing the secrets of the ancient golden god…

Two more one-pagers wrap up the issue: detailing correct precautions for saving a cat in ‘Armored Rescue’ before adapting an old idea to avoid social commitments in ‘Crafty Corner’…

Scrooge stole the spotlight again in WDC&S #144 (September) as another storage crisis in his vault compelled the old bird to try and learn a new trick. In an effort to make room, he hires insanely profligate Donald to share the secret of ‘Spending Money’ but is far from satisfied with what he learns…

The story portion of this tome terminates with the remainder of Four Color #367, with ‘Treeing Off’ showing how the nephews brighten up the Christmas decorating, after which Donald pays the price for presumption with mistletoe in ‘Christmas Kiss’ and the boys have the last word when adapting modern science to list writing in ‘Projecting Desires’ (AKA ‘Stamp-Sized Christmas List’).

The comics are augmented by a sublime Cover Gallery proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners in Four Color (volume II) 367, 408 & 422, and Walt Disney Comics & Stories#135-144 which intercut context, commentary and validation in ‘Story Notes’ for each Duck tale gathered here. Following Donald Ault’s essay ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, ‘Biographies’ then introduces commentators Ault, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone and Matthias Wivel and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance in ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “A Christmas For Shacktown” © 2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

 

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto


By Carl Barks (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-779-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901. He grew up in rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With cartoon studio partner Jack Hannah (another occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for an animated short into the comic book Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. Published as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 in October of that year – and although not his first published comics work – it was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his first official retirement in the mid-1960s, Barks worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing and drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable, highly bankable characters. These included Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the nefarious Beagle Boys (1951), all supplementing Disney’s stable of cartoon actors. His greatest creation was undoubtedly curmudgeonly, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged nonagenarian…

Although producing all that landmark material Barks was just a working guy, generating cover art, illustrating other people’s scripts when asked and contributing stories to the burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Barks material – and a selection of other Disney strips – in the 1980s, did he discover the well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output itself, even though his brilliant comic work was done for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his works.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries, rationality-based fantasy and epics of exploration. This led to him perfecting the art and technique of the blockbuster quest tale: blending wit, history, plucky bravado and wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps to utterly captivate readers of every type and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life Barks was blissfully unaware that his work (uncredited by official policy like all Disney’s cartoon and comic book output) had been singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, his belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books began collecting Barks’ Duck Stuff in wonderful, carefully curated archival volumes, tracing his output year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally do justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. The publisher also placed some of the most engaging (How to choose? How to choose?) in three accessible landscape paperback collections. At 185 by 140 mm, they are the perfect size to introduce kids to the master’s masterpieces. They’re all available in digital formats, and this particular tome has a spooky Halloween vibe to further entice you…

The majority of inclusions here come from 1947, so please be aware that – despite Bark’s diligent research and careful, sensitive storytelling – modern readers might be upset by some depictions crafted over seven decades ago…

It begins eponymously on a nautical note: ‘Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto’ is an early masterpiece originating in Four Color #159 (August 1947), with Donald and the rowdy, know-it-all nephews who live with him currently residing in the West Indies, running a kelp boat and harvesting seaweed from the abundant oceans. Here, Huey, Dewey and Louie are the sensible ones in a risky, get-rich-quick venture. Although prime catalysts of comedic chaos in other situations when the mallard miser was around, in Barks’ comics the devilishly downy ducklings’ usual assigned roles were as smartly sensible, precocious and a just a bit snotty kid-counterfoils to their “unca”, whose inescapably irascible nature caused him to act like an overgrown brat most of the time. Nevertheless, all too often the kids fell into temptation, reverted to type and fell prey to a perpetual temptation to raise a ruckus…

When a freak accident temporarily strands them on an isolated reef, Donald and the lads discover a long-lost, shipwrecked galleon, encounter an ongoing abduction mystery dating back centuries, battle genuine monsters, confound a particularly persistent phantom and win and lose again a fabulous treasure in a  thrilling romp and supremely beguiling mystery that has never dated…

Originally from Four Color #147 (May), ‘If the Hat Fits’ is an 7-panel gag split over two of these landscape pages, detailing chapeau japery, and precedes ‘Fashion in Flight’ (FC#178, December), exposing hot-headed Donald’s views on car culture.

Thanks to the nephews and some imprudent bee-keeping, a potty scheme to make more cash becomes another painful and humiliating experience as the bellicose bird tries growing blooms commercially in his garden in ‘Donald’s Posy Patch’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #80, May 1947), after which ‘Turn for the Worse’ (Four Color #178 again) reveals just how annoying – and violent – people looking for directions can become…

From the same issue, ‘Machine Mixup’ sees kitchen confusion for Donald as he experiences the downside of modern white goods, before ‘Donald Mines his Own Business’ (WDC&S #81 June) finds the loco parent-ish duck and his boys prospecting in New Mexico. It’s barely moments before they all fall foul of America’s post-war arms rush and missile-race, with devastating and spectacular consequences…

From FC #189 (June 1948) ‘Bird Watching’ exposes the hidden perils of the gentle hobby before  superstition is painfully debunked in ‘Horseshoe Luck’. The fluffy fun finally finishes with an epic farrago – first seen in WDC&S #86 (January 1947) – as telling tale exposes the rise and fall of ‘Fireman Donald’ whose smug hubris ultimately deprives him of a job he’s actually good at!

Carl Barks’ efforts are readily accessible through a number of publications and outlets and every one of his stories is a treasure beyond price. If you’re new to his work and have never experienced his captivating magic, Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto is a perfect introduction. No matter what your age or temperament, you can discover “the Hans Christian Andersen of Comics” simply by applying yourself and your credit cards to any search engine.

Always remember, a fan’s got to do what a fan’s got to do and treasure is out there just waiting to be unearthed…
© 2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.