Review by Booklist Review
The lack of a definitive collection of Barks' duck stories has long been one of the great injustices of the comics world, especially in this golden age of archival reprints. Rather than starting in 1942, when Barks first began drawing Donald Duck for Disney, this massive effort to publish the entirety of his works (expected to run to 30 volumes) gets the ball rolling with stories from 1948, when Barks' mastery of the craft was in full swing chronicling the adventures of Donald and nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The centerpiece story a trip to a lost city in the Andes in search of square eggs is considered by many to be Barks at his best. His finest creation, Scrooge McDuck, makes a few early appearances in these stories as well, though it would be several years before his personality crystallized to become a starring character. These perfect little gems of globe-trotting adventure, gleeful humor, and clean, charming cartooning have aged particularly well, so while there's plenty of nostalgic value, this book deserves a prime spot on kids' shelves on its merits.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
One of comics revered masters gets a fresh new reprinting worthy of his work and accessible to kids. Known as "The good duck artist," Barks toiled for Disney in anonymity throughout the 1940s and '50s while creating such great characters as Scrooge McDuck and Gyro Gearloose. This volume finds him at a creative peak, combining the bold adventuring of Tintin with the wisely cynical view of human weakness of John Stanley. In the title story Donald and his three nephews travel deep into a magical Andes region to find the source of the square eggs scientists covet-a sense of awe complemented by a knowing satire of stuffy conformism represented by the "squares." The best stories, however, set up Donald and his nephews as foes, a simple motivation comically escalating until the only result is total disaster. Donald is an everyman of frustration whose life is one big Chinese finger trap-the harder he fights, the harder the world fights back. In "The Sunken Yacht," a scheme to raise a sunken treasure with Ping-Pong balls (which inspired real-life scientists) is thwarted by greed and Scrooge's penny-pinching. Despite the dark undertones, the comic expressions and dialogue is still laugh-out-loud funny. A wonderful project that should put Barks's name in front of new generations of admirers. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
