I’m a little biased in more ways than one here. Carl Barks will always be my all-time favorite cartoonist, so just about any book with his prime work gets a thumbs-up from me.
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| Carl Barks (The Good Duck Artist) and Floyd Gottfredson |
Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge: “The Seven Cities Of Gold” (Fantagraphics) just came out, and it’s the last of the Uncle Scrooge books you really ought to get. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do with a misanthropic miser and the stories took on a formula: the ducks seek adventure or get challenged, Scrooge and Donald get captured, and the young nephews come to the rescue, usually with the goddamn Junior Woodchucks guidebook.
This collection, and the earlier volume collecting the historic first six Scrooge issues, only wade into that death trap fleetingly, so everything is still fresh and funny. When the new lettering style starts with “The Great Steamboat Race”, you can expect to see a decline in the storytelling.
It was around this time that Barks was caving into the insipid Western editor Chase Craig’s demand for blandness in earnest (see Michael Barrier’s upcoming book Funnybooks for details).
While very few cartoonists in history succeeded where Barks failed, it’s hard to muster the same enthusiasm for the later stories regardless of what the academics will tell you.
This particular volume has three bits of Barks literature that are required reading, however. True, this material has been reprinted to death, but Fanatagraphics is still doing a nice job of it, and you could do worse and more expensive.
“The Seven Cities of Cibola”
Scrooge and nephews on their first, and arguably best, hunt for an ancient treasure, sprung by Scrooge’s sheer boredom with the zillionaire lifestyle. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg cite the rolling boulder trap here as being the inspiration for the same iconic trap in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“The Mysterious Stone Ray”
After finding out that his daily money swim is clogging his pores, Scrooge must seek fresh sea air. When the boys find an S.O.S. in a bottle washed ashore, they take to the sea. But they get more when they bargained for when they arrive at the desert island and discover several Beagle Boys turned to stone. It’s a rather creepy and darkly humorous story, with Scrooge at his most human and the Terrible Beagle Boys at their – well, most terrible.
“The Fabulous Philosopher’s Stone”
Scrooge and family hunt for the philosopher’s stone (see, kids, this was when American publishers respected you enough to not coin a ridiculous phrase like sorcerer’s stone) through all of Europe, trailed all the while by a bearded diminutive Frenchman. Scrooge gets the gold all right, but is ultimately sabotaged by the world economics he holds so dear.
Oh, and his own mortality.
Meanwhile, that other Disney comics figure Floyd Gottfredson is getting another collection of prime newspaper dailies with Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 6: “Lost In Lands Long Ago.”
At the risk of upsetting colleagues, I’ll admit it: I liked Gottfredson a lot more when I was younger.
While my appreciation for his draftsmanship will never deteriorate (after you see his art here, you might wonder why anyone cares about Freddie Moore at all), the clumsy limitations and pulp fiction tropes of his storytelling have become rather annoying. That’s true of a few stories herein, but Gottfredson’s strip yielded more than enough classics to warrant serious examination.
A couple of highlights:
“The Bar-None Ranch”
Out west, Peg-Leg Pete is kidnapping damsels and collecting handsome ransoms for them. Clarabelle Cow gets a chance to shine when she’s suckered into being bait to help Mickey crack the case—and then falls for Pete!
“Land of Long Ago”
Mickey and Goofy are shanghaied (more or less) by Professor Dustibones, who brings them to the “Land of Long Ago” where dinosaurs and cavemen still survive (creationists and evolutionists take a hike to hell). A real sense of stakes emerges when an earthquake wrecks their shelter and it’s every mouse for himself.
“Love Trouble”
Mortimer Mouse arrives on the scene to sweep Minnie off her feet, and the flake goes along with it to make Mickey jealous. The only time Gottfredson abandoned the adventure element to brilliant effect: the strip was never funnier and the artwork was at its peak.
“Mystery at Hidden River”
Pete kidnaps Clarabelle, again, this time in the north woods—for real! One of Gottfredson’s greatest gifts was being politically incorrect, and this story is him at his best: plenty of misogyny, racism, and even a reference to marijuana.
Full disclosure: I wrote the book’s intro for this story.
“The Gleam”
A thieving hypnotist terrorizes the whole town at a series of swanky parties. Mickey and the police are having no luck. You’ll never guess whose special mind saves the day.
The Barks book is available now, and the Gottfredson ships in a few weeks. Do your part to support the efforts of Fantagraphics, Gary Groth, and David Gerstein by buying them.
But please. Please. No more Don Rosa.
Thanks.
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