{"id":31149,"date":"2024-12-24T13:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=31149"},"modified":"2024-12-23T17:18:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T17:18:27","slug":"walt-disneys-donald-duck-volume-21-christmas-in-duckburg-the-complete-carl-barks-disney-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/12\/24\/walt-disneys-donald-duck-volume-21-christmas-in-duckburg-the-complete-carl-barks-disney-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck volume 21: Christmas in Duckburg (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Carl Barks<\/strong>, with Bob Gregory<\/strong> & Vic Lockman<\/strong>, Rich Tommaso<\/strong>, Digikore<\/strong>, Gary Leach<\/strong>, Erik Rosengarten<\/strong>, Donald Ault<\/strong> & various (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-68396-239-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68396-299-1<\/p>\n

Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment…<\/strong> 10\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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<\/em>. It was published as Dell Four Color Comics<\/strong> 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\u2019 career.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> (1948), Gyro Gearloose<\/strong> (1952), Magica De Spell<\/strong> (1961) and the legendarily nefarious Beagle Boys<\/strong> (1951) to supplement Disney\u2019s stable of cartoon actors. His greatest creation was undoubtedly crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck<\/strong>: the World\u2019s wealthiest winged septuagenarian and the harassed, hard-pressed not-so-silent co-star of this show.<\/p>\n

Whilst producing that landmark, material Barks regarded himself as just a simple working guy: generating cover art, illustrating other people\u2019s 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\u2019s animation output, although all his brilliant comic work was done for licensing company Dell<\/strong>\/Gold Key<\/strong>, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated series Duck Tales<\/strong>, 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\u2019s cartoon and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabid and discerning public as being by \u201cthe Good Duck Artist\u201d. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, a belated celebrity began.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books began collecting Barks\u2019 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<\/strong>. Physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck: \u201cChristmas on Bear Mountain\u201d <\/strong>(for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and re-presenting works from 1947 – albeit not in strictly chronological release order. Today however, it\u2019s seasonal yarn \u2018Christmas in Duckburg\u2019<\/em> that lends its title to volume 21 of this unmissable publishing event.
\n\"\"
\nIt begins with the eponymous full-length Holidays thriller (from Walt Disney\u2019s Christmas Parade<\/strong> #9; cover-dated December 1958 and scripted by Bob Gregory) as Barks\u2019 most enduring creation Scrooge McDuck <\/strong>pressures Donald Duck<\/strong> and his miracle working nephews Huey<\/em>, Louie<\/em> & Dewey<\/em> 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 \u201cJolly\u201d Ollie Eiderduck<\/em> who provided the previous prodigious record-breaking pine for the city\u2019s 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…<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s 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…<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, the greatest cartoon creation of legendary magnificent story showman Barks, Downy Dodecadillionaire Scrooge McDuck<\/em> 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\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Another sterling creation – and ideal story cog – was super-lucky butthead Gladstone Gander<\/em>: eternal foil for Donald and rival for Daisy Duck<\/em>\u2019s attentions. In \u2018Dramatic Donald\u2019 <\/em>(Walt Disney\u2019s Comics and Stories <\/strong>#217, October 1958) the fortunate one gleefully tramples all over Donald\u2019s thespian aspirations and efforts to score a leading role in Daisy\u2019s Halloween play, bringing out our hero\u2019s dark side and inciting a stage catastrophe. Then, Donald\u2019s hunt for rare and valuable marine creatures sparks a manic sea hunt and nautical chaos only curtailed by a large pod of \u2018Noble Porpoises\u2019<\/em> (WDC&S<\/strong> #218 November 1958).<\/p>\n

Cover-dated February 1959, the duck tale in Walt Disney\u2019s Comics and Stories <\/strong>#221 reveals exactly how parsimonious Scrooge was made to pay for Duckburg\u2019s magnificent new Junior Woodchucks of the World Hall of Science in \u2018Tracking Sandy\u2019<\/em>: a tale of mystery, masked and masquerading gold miners, canny nephews, investigations and a dynamic detective deduction, whilst WDC&S<\/strong> #219 (December 1958) offers a rare moment of failure as Donald, Huey, Louie & Dewey and even wise old Grandma Duck<\/em> all fail to tame an orphan coyote in \u2018The Littlest Chicken Thief\u2019<\/em>.
\n\"\"
\nDonald and Gladstone clash again at \u2018The Beachcombers\u2019 Picnic\u2019<\/em> (WDC&S<\/strong> #224, May 1959) where a concatenation of bizarre events and fervent scavenger hunting antics result in a rare victory for \u201cunca Donald\u201d after which the loco parental displays an uncanny ability to transport anything anywhere in WDC&S<\/strong> #222 (March 1959). Typically, however, \u2018The Master Mover\u2019<\/em> 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\u2019 chemistry set results in a major step forward in ballistic science… until US military intransigence and Donald\u2019s stubbornness reduce the race for space to a \u2018Rocket-Roasted Christmas Turkey\u2019<\/em> (WDC&S<\/strong> #220, January 1959), in advance of the accidental savant succumbing to \u2018Spring Fever\u2019<\/em> (WDC&S<\/strong> #223, April). With the sun out and flowers blooming, Donald craves a quiet day\u2019s fishing, but his rush to relax causes chaos for the kids and makes him the target of a ticket-happy game warden…<\/p>\n

Volunteer firefighter Donald finds respect, his happy place and victory over gloating Gladstone in all-action romp \u2018The Lovelorn Fireman\u2019<\/em> (WDC&S<\/strong> #225 June), before Scrooge resurfaces to fall foul of satellite technology after spotting and appropriating \u2018The Floating Island\u2019<\/em> (#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 \u2018The Black Forest Rescue\u2019<\/em> (#227 August), again learning the kids know their stuff and that nature abhors a smug git…
\n\"\"
\nAnthology Walt Disney\u2019s Summer Fun <\/strong>#2 (August 1959) provides anthropological hilarity as Donald attempts to emulate explorer-documentarians\u2019 \u2018Jungle Hi-Jinks\u2019<\/em> 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, \u2018The Flying Farmhand\u2019<\/em>, \u2018A Honey of a Hen\u2019<\/em>, \u2018The Weather Watchers\u2019<\/em> & \u2018The Sheepish Cowboys\u2019<\/em> all originated in Four Color <\/strong>#1010 (July-September 1959): a themed anthology entitled Walt Disney\u2019s Grandma Duck\u2019s Farm Friends.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With movie star guests such as Dumbo<\/strong>, Big Bad Wolf<\/strong> and Gus Goose<\/strong> augmenting Barks regulars Gyro Gearloose<\/em>, Daisy, the nephews, Grandma, Scrooge and Donald, the vignettes detail how thieving Zeke Wolf<\/em> 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…
\n\"\"
\nWith the visual verve done with again, we move on to a cover gallery and validation as \u2018Story Notes\u2019 <\/em>provides erudite commentary for each Duck tale and Donald Ault details \u2018Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks\u2019<\/em> before \u2018Biographies\u2019<\/em> reveals why he and \u2018Contributors\u2019<\/em> Alberto Beccatini, Craig Fischer, Leonardo Gori, Thad Komorowski, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone, Francesco \u201cFranky\u201d 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 \u2018Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?\u2019 <\/em>explaining the somewhat byzantine publishing schedules of Dell Comics and origin points of all the fun we\u2019ve just had…<\/p>\n

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, and almost all his work featured Disney\u2019s 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\u2019s never too soon to climb aboard the Barks Express.
\nWalt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck \u201cChristmas in Duckberg\u201d <\/strong>\u00a9 2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc. \u201cStory Notes\u201d texts \u00a9 2020 the respective authors. \u201cCarl Barks: Life Among the Ducks\u201d<\/em> \u00a9 2020 Donald Ault. Other text \u00a9 2020 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Walt Disney\u2019s Donald Duck volume 21: Christmas in Duckburg (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,351,302,113,119,128,303,125,97,127,371,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-apes-monkeys","category-carl-barks","category-comedy","category-comicsacademic","category-disney-comics-and-stories","category-donald-duck","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages","category-nostalgia","category-uncle-scrooge","category-world-classics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-86p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31157,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31149\/revisions\/31157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}