Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge "Only A Poor Old Man": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 12 (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library, 12)

This is the first of FBI's hardcover reprints of Carl Barks's Duck stories that focuses on Uncle Scrooge. Overall, its actually the 12th volume. This one reprints the first 6 issues of Dell's "Uncle Scrooge" comic (actually "Four Color Comics" #386, 456 and 495 and "Uncle Scrooge" #4-6. The 3 "Four Color"/"One Shots" were counted as "Uncle Scrooge" #1-3).Growing up I read many Walt Disney Comics. One of my main sources was the great "Walt Disney Comics Digest" put out by Gold Key Comics/Western Publications. I liked many of the comics they reprinted, but among the best were the "duck stories", especially the longer Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge adventures, by Carl Barks. (like many, I wouldn't learn who he was until years later).There have been many attempts at reprinting this material. The most recently was the softcover volumes by Gladstone comics of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stuff (include Gyro Gearloose). I have several of them, but not all.I figured what with all the Duck stuff I'd read, that I would be familiar with most of the stuff, atleast the longer stories. Not so. While the short 1-3 page stories were new, even some of the longer stories I had not read before. Also, it seems some elements of Uncle Scrooge stories hadn't yet bet set down. The longer stories (32 pages) in this volume are:FC #386- "Only a Poor Old Man". Here, Scrooge's Money Bin is showed as being located within downtown Duckburg (not yet up on 'Kilmotor Hill'), allowing the Beagle Brothers to buy the empty lot next down and build next to bin in a bid to cut into it and steal the money. But Scrooge has outwitted them in moving his money. But did he?FC #456- "Back to the Klondike". This is the restored version that puts back some panels removed when it was first published. Here, we learn about Scrooge's past as a Klondike prospector, and his first encounter with Glittering Goldie, Uncle Scrooge's lost love. One of the powerful U$ stories.FC #495- "The Horseradish Story". A lesser known story that gives info on one of Scrooge's ancestors and Scrooge dealing with a shyster lawyer trying to rob him of his wealth.US #4- "The Menehune Mystery". A new story for me (don't recall every reading it!!). Here, Scrooge tries to move his money in secret to an island hideout, but is outwitted by the Beagle Boys. But Scrooge and family are helped by a group of fairies!US #5- "The Secret of Atlantis". An interesting story that touches on Atlantis. Scrooge tries to corner the coin market on a certain coin by rounding them all up but one, and dumping them in the Atlantic. But when he destroys that one, he has to find another by diving in the Atlantic.US #6- "Tralla La". Another classic story has Scrooge trying to relay in a "Shangra la" type world, but ruining it by the appearance of a bottle cap!There are 2 10 page stories. The first has Scrooge replacing his money bin with a round, water-tower like affair after converting all his money to greenbacks, with the Beagle Boys trying again to steal it all. His "#1 Dime" comes in handy, the first appearance of this item.The second 10 pager has US trick Donald and his neighbor Mr. Jones to tear up their garden and homes in search of a nonexistant treasure (so he can buy their land cheap). But Hewey, Dewey, and Louise fix things.What is interesting in several of these stories is that Scrooge has no problem with converting his money (to all coins or all greenbacks, etc). In later stories, the actual money in the bin is important to Scrooge, being the actual money he earned around the world, and would spur on stories from his past as he would pick up a certain coin and recall how he earned it.A change from the previous volume is they aren't organizing the stories by length, but by publication. Which is more logical.Rounding out the volume is an intro by George Lucas, and material at the end giving a short bio on Barks (a much longer one is in the 'first' volume), and explanation of the 32 and 10 page stories, and a listing of the original comics (now they are consistent in calling the "One Shots" "Four Color", but noting the other term, which they failed to do in the first volume.I look forward to the next volumes!!

I've been reading Carl Barks since I was a kid. My dad grew up with the old comics and passed them along to me. I still fondly remember the smell of the pages and have a soft spot for that type of thing. If I see one at a garage sale, I'll often pick it up, even if it's pretty battered.I've purchased newer versions of Barks' works over the years. I have the complete set of the Carl Barks Library that was published in the 90s by Gladstone. That is a beautiful set. Slightly larger than originally published with updated coloring techniques - mainly you'll see color gradients and wider palette compared to the original - or this edition here which stays true to the original coloring. However, I have a new generation to give my old Gladstone copies to.At first I planned on giving these to the niece and nephews, but when I got the first one I liked it so much I decided to give them the Gladstone ones instead and keep these for myself. ;) My niece and nephews are pretty young still, all under six, so the Gladstone books are easier for them to handle. These books are better for readers closer to 8-10 due to the size. They are hefty and well built, a little like a grade-school textbook in bulk. They look wonderful on the shelf all lined up. And what's extra nice for me, they have a lot more of the comics in each volume, so I can keep one by the bed and read a few each night for a while before swapping to the next.For people who've never read Carl Barks and are looking for something for yourself or for your kids, these are just the ticket. If you liked the DuckTales, you might be surprised to learn that some of the best DuckTales episodes were taken straight from Barks' Duck stories. Barks is a big part of what made DuckTales so great, since they had a wealth of adventures to pull from. Barks writes well. He doesn't write down to kids. Instead, he writes a great adventure tale and peppers it with names and places and characters that keep the kids interested. These are the best types of kids stories, because much like Pixar's work, it makes it so much more fun to take part in your kids interests if the stories aren't dumbed down. Creators have proven you don't need to do that to keep a child's interest and Barks illustrates that viewpoint perfectly.The art in the comics is also fun and expressive, with clean lines and not a lot of clutter, Barks gets a lot of emotion into a simple panel. Even the kids who aren't as good at reading yet can follow along. Barks also uses real places - he loved reading National Geographic and including those locales in his work. For a kid's comic, it's fairly sophisticated, but accessible.As far as value is concerned, this set is incomparable. I mentioned I've been buying Barks' work for years. This is by far the most affordable I've seen yet. While the Gladstone version was beautiful, now you'd be hard-pressed to get a volume for under $10 and most are closer to $20, with more than a few going for far more than that. It was a major investment for me when I got them, both in time and in money - hunting down all the volumes took a while since they're out of print. There were nearly 150 volumes of all his stories, and you only got five or less stories in each one. While I was glad to have them at the time since the only other complete collection was in black and white, if this set had been out at the same time I would have picked it up instead without a second thought.The hardbacks are durable and there are easily twice as many stories in each volume as the Gladstone versions. And while I've seen some comments that these are not identical to the originals in every single way - the covers are in the back, the original publisher information isn't printed on the page - those are gripes primarily for collectors. People new to the series, or introducing them to their kids won't have those issues with the comics.My highest recommendation!

This is the second published volume of Fantagraphics Complete Barks series. It will be the 12th volume of the completed series.I'd gotten the impression that the series was going to present the stories in chronological order (although the volumes would be published out of order), but it seems like they've loosened a bit up on that promise for this second volume. This book presents the early Uncle Scrooge stories produced between 1952-1954. The ten page Donald Duck solo-stories Barks produced within the same period have apparently been moved to the adjacent volumes. Oh well, I'm not really complaining. Uncle Scrooge is a popular character, and I can see the attraction of producing a 'definitive' first Scrooge volume that includes the early 'origin'-stories*. This book certainly feels very much like a complete and attractive entity for new readers.The coloring is still excellent. There were some complaints about the yellow color in the first volume, and it's been tweaked a bit for this second volume. It's less 'golden', and there are no stories in which this color dominates too much. The coloring still sticks pretty much to the original coloring - which was mostly very good - and my only real complaint is that they've chosen to keep the inconsistent colors used for Uncle Scrooge's clothes (I assume this was done by different colorists for the original books). This was before his jacket had been established as being red in later stories. It's not a major problem, though. I'm nitpicking here.So basically this book presents some of the greatest comic book stories ever produced in an attractive no-nonsense manner which is slightly (and fashionably) 'retro' and mirrors the way they were originally published in the 1950s, but which should still appeal to modern kids. I approve!A LOOK AHEADBased on me having borrowed the European Barks edition from my local public library, here's what you should (approximately) expect from the series in the future:- About 12 or 13 glorious five star volumes from the 'golden' era, in which Barks was on a roll, and pretty much every story was an amazing classic. I assume Fantagraphics will publish these volumes first, so you can expect pretty much pure gold for the next few years of publication. Best comics ever made! Seriously!- 2 initial volumes of early stories. These stick pretty close to the formula used in the Donald Duck animated shorts Barks had worked on previously. They frankly feel a bit slow and dated. But still... it's fascinating to see how Barks personal vision quickly evolved from this. And around volume 3 Barks starts to get REALLY funny and REALLY dynamic REALLY fast.- maybe 4 or 5 volumes (worthy of maybe 3 stars) in which Barks was experiencing creative burn-out (particularly around 1958-59) or was writing second-rate Junior Woodchucks stories for other artists. I assume the stories written for other artists will be published in the redrawn versions by the great Daan Jippes (these were redrawn a few years ago for the German/Scandinavian Barks Library), so the art will certainly be attractive enough, but these stories aren't particularly inspired efforts.- the rest (approx. 11 volumes) will feature a mix of classic stories and some lesser works, in which Barks was repeating himself a bit. I'd probably rate most of these volumes four starts or four-and-a-half-stars - the beautiful cartooning still makes them very much memorable.The volumes in this series aren't numbered on the spine, and each book works as a stand alone item. So if you aren't a completist or collector you'll be able to pick and chose between the volumes based on which periods you find interesting.*) note: the earliest stories in this volume ARE sort of 'origin'-stories, but only in the loosest sense of the term. They aren't the earliest Scrooge stories, but they define Scrooge as a new main character for his own comic book series. They also include a few brief flashbacks to his youth.

... and to old fogeys, too. Very nicely produced, at the original size or near enough; excellent, slightly 1950s colour; and a very good mix of stories, too.The long stories: Only a poor old man; Back to the Klondike; the horse-radish treasure; the Menehune mystery; the secret of Atlantis; Tralla LaThe short stories: Somethin' fishy here; the round money-bin; out-foxed foxplus eighteen single-page gags.Great stuff - full of memories and still very enjoyable for old folks! And I reckon pretty enjoyable too for people new to these stories, be they young or old.What a treasure!

Great quality and amazing stories! A must have for Ducks' enthusiasts and everyone who enjoys this kind of comics

Its nostalgia time, thanks Carl Barks for those wonderful memoriesI recommend especially to folks that grew up reading and traveling in our imagination and living those adventures but also to the young’s to see how supreme they are.

I love Everything Carl Barks produced. There is action in every Picture. And like Hergé he never travelled to all those places that the ducks go.