At the beginning of his career – well, the beginning of his Disney career. Like Donald Duck, he had many failed companies before that – cartoon legend Carl Burks worked as an animator and story director at Disney Studios, working on a variety of animated shorts. This was before Uncle Scrouge, or Duckburg’s creation. There were no casts with Gyro Gearloose or Magica de Spell or later a colorful cast of ducks.
Way, after Carl Burks jumped from animation to comic book, first went back, and the story of Donald Duck still didn’t feel like the story of Donald Duck. They felt like those animated shorts. In some stories collected in a new volume of the Complete Carl Barks Library, they see Donald at odds with his nephew, trying to cover them up as they progress through their wild childhood. The powerful trap makes neo tired of hearing Donald’s tall story. In response, they borrow old fur from Daisy Ducks and convince Donald that there are many traps in patches of the wilderness adjacent to the suburbs. The hijink continues.
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This story could have been easily animated and played in a shorter way, like Donald’s Snow Battle. It’s equally friendly blowhard Donald and the same go-getter nephew, tired of their uncle’s nonsense.
The most interesting thing about Donald Duck is the story of Pirate Gold suggesting adventure stories like the bare barks come to craft. First published in 1943, Donald Duck and Mummy rings feature a sense of action, danger, and wonder (also characterized by a mild misconception of foreign cultures typical of these types of adventure). The story watches the stolen treasure, the nephew, be lured and turn the villain by Pete.
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This is something Carl Barks fans will long for. Donald is a glove trotting duck, constantly being blocked by inanimate objects and annoying backyard pests. He’s still everyone – Berks’ more gag-centric strips show him bouncing from work to work, never succeeding – but he doesn’t get everyone hooked into exceptional situations and overcome them (but not). Pirate’s Gold has some such stories, and the faint bark of the vast world-building bark will take on in his career.
This volume begins with a nominal story that is remarkable for its origins. It is outlined as an animated feature and has been turned into a manga due to contractual events. But its wide open spirit of adventure is evident from the jump. The seeds of Berks’ continued masterpieces have been there from the beginning.
Donald Duck discovers that Pirates Gold is a historical document and an enthusiastic beginning of decades of character evolution. As you might expect, the Fantagraphics collection is lovingly edited, selected in Care and delivered along with the story notes. It’s a great opening salvo for the series, which is becoming more comprehensive and impressive with each volume that follows.
Above all, it shows ducks and artists with many possibilities.
‘Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold: The Complete Curl Burks Library Vol. 1’ starts a decades-long masterpiece
Donald Duck found Pirate Gold: Complete Carl Barks Library vol. 1
Finally, collecting the beginnings of Carl Barks’ comic book works, Donald Duck discovers that Pirate Gold shows a faint light that makes Barks’ Duck story so exciting.
Impressive historical documents.
A truly amazing adventure.
Classic Donald Duck attitude.
It contains a wonderful story of Pltune.
It predates the best of the best of barks Duckburg masterpieces.
