"Blow your horn, you invisible juggernaut!" Donald Duck: the Old Castle's Secret

The most recent entry in Fantagraphics' Carl Barks Library is the Donald Duck collection dubbed "The Old Castle's Secret" after the first tale reprinted therein. It's another fine hardcover collecting Barks' Donald Duck stories circa 1948, featuring Donald, his nephews and some early Scrooge McDuck appearances, plus the very first tale to feature Donald's insufferably lucky cousin, Gladstone Gander. The titular story involves Scrooge inviting Donald and the nephews to his ancestral castle in Scotland to investigate the legendary ghost supposedly haunting the premises. Other lengthy tales include a trip to Africa to find rare butterflies in "Darkest Africa;" Donald entering a rocket race in "Rocket Race to the Moon;" and Donald becoming a lawman in "Sheriff of Bullet Valley."

In "the Old Castle's Secret," it's amusing to note the supposed ghost is intended to be one Sir Quackly, a member of the McDuck clan - and therefore, a duck. The ghost's shadow, however, is definitely not a duck's, which you'd think the Ducks would take as their first clue that there's something screwy about the hauntings. I suppose in the adrenaline of the moment, they didn't connect the dots. Or ligaments.

Uncle Scrooge was still a new character in 1948 and while his personality is mostly in place (although his buried conscience seems dug into a deeper grave in this collection than in later tales), visually he's just a little off from later appearances. His whisker-feathers are bushier than the length they'd eventually settle upon and his top hat wasn't yet his chapeau of choice (he doesn't wear any hats in this collection).

"Rocket Race to the Moon" is a fun little tale; Donald is often punished in his own stories for ignoring problems, unwittingly aiding antagonists and hindering people trying to solve problems (like his nephews); in this tale, Donald gets to be a true protagonist, naively playing a gentleman as he races his rocket against Baron de Sleezy, only for de Sleezy to prove himself less than a gentleman; who could have expected a man named de Sleezy to be such a reprobate?

In Fantagraphics' previous Carl Barks Library volumes, I'd previously encountered at least one story from each collection; this is the first collection to be all-new for me, so it's a fine treat; if you can spare the change, it's worth following the series. Don't we all deserve something a little fun?

A meditation on "Back to the Klondike"

I was eager to sample Fantagraphics' new entry in their Carl Barks library: Uncle Scrooge: "Only a Poor Old Man". It contains the first six issues' worth of Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge. Although I had already read the titular "Old a Poor Old Man," one story I was especially interested in sampling was "Back to the Klondike," a story which delves into some of Scrooge McDuck's past as he created his incalculable fortune.

The actual plot of "Back to the Klondike" involves Scrooge suddenly recalling he has a fortune in gold buried in the Klondike, so he hurries up north with Donald, Huey, Dewey & Louie to unearth the riches. The major complication in this tale is Goldie, a woman who once tried to steal Scrooge's gold and is now squatting on his one-time gold mine with her pet bear.

I understand there's a lot of interest in Goldie amongst Barks enthusiasts; apparently some fans consider her "the woman" of Scrooge's life (just as some fans consider Irene Adler "the woman" to Sherlock Holmes or Rebecca "the woman" to Wilfred of Ivanhoe). What I found most interesting about Goldie is a brief moment from the flashback scenes in "Back to the Klondike."

Goldie is introduced as a singer in the Black Jack Ballroom who takes a gander at Scrooge's goose egg nugget and forces her attentions on him, even though he has little interest in her (Goldie opens by offering coffee; presumably Scrooge accepts only because he won't turn down free refreshments). After learning about Scrooge's valuable claim, Goldie drugs Scrooge's coffee and steals all of his gold. Scrooge revives "six miles from town" and storms back to the Black Jack Ballroom, brutally pummels every man in his path, then reclaims his large gold nugget from Goldie. However, as the rest of his gold is gone, Scrooge demands Goldie write out an IOU for $1,000.

Even after obtaining the IOU, Scrooge isn't done with Goldie; he drags her out to his claim and forces her to work on his gold mine, declaring, "You're going to learn how hard a miner works for his gold!" Goldie works on Scrooge's mine for a month at just $0.50 per day. At the end of the month, Scrooge pays her off, but she throws the money in his face and storms off. "I dug more gold than you did, you tightwad!" she rages.

The difference in Scrooge & Goldie's reactions to valuables, crimes, rights and wrongs is what I find most interesting. Scrooge, for all his miserly ways, obeys the letter of the law (especially when it's to his advantage). He promises Goldie $0.50 per day and he pays her just so. Goldie, however, believes her work was worth more than what he promised as recompense; her pride won't accept it. Contrast this with the earlier gold theft: then, Scrooge is entirely a hapless victim (although his explosive reaction after the theft is probably partially enhanced by earlier attempted thefts of his gold, mentioned in passing); Goldie is completely in the wrong, robbing an innocent man. Thus, Scrooge will use the letter of the law to take advantage of others, but won't tolerate being anyone's sucker. Goldie thinks nothing of cheating someone of their property, yet she bristles at the notion of being cheated. The qualities Goldie hates most about Scrooge are those qualities she has in abundance in herself.

Say, perhaps there is something to Goldie as Scrooge's "woman?"

Review: Donald Duck - Lost in the Andes

Carl Barks is easily one of the most widely-praised names in the comics medium, lauded by many with very few reservations. When I was young, I wasn't apt to notice the names behind the comic books I read, but I recall every Barks comic which entered our home - I was lucky enough to be living at a time when his stories were being rereleased as inexpensive reprints from Gold Key and later Gladstone.

Since becoming an adult, reading up on Barks has given me a new appreciation for his work. Before, I didn't understand how slapdash most comic books for kids were, just as being raised on John Byrne's super hero comics didn't help me realize not every artist was as gifted as he. So it is that I was pleased to bring Fantagraphics' Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes into my home. It divides up its sampling of Barks' career into three sections: his longer "epic" stories, his shorter 10-page tales and his quick single page gag strips.

I was already familiar with the lead feature, having read "Lost in the Andes" in one of the aforementioned Gladstone reprints (likewise the "Truant Officer" story, which was in a Gold Key edition my mother gave me during a very long cross-Canada vacation). Reading "Lost in the Andes" again, with its tale of Donald and his nephews seeking out the source for square-shaped eggs, it was interesting to note how the locals constantly one-up Donald after he arrives in South America. There's been some criticism of how Barks depicted other races in his stories, but here Donald is consistently the Duck of schmuck. I had also forgotten how funny the Southern-accented residents of Plain Awful were.

Still, the story in this volume I really want to talk about is 1949's "Voodoo Hoodoo," in which Donald is pursued by a zombie who's mistaken him for his Uncle Scrooge. It eventually unfolds that Scrooge once fleeced an entire African village out of their land so he could build a rubber factory (which is pretty damning of Scrooge if you're familiar with the rubber industry in Africa - read King Leopold's Ghost). A witch doctor vowed revenge on Scrooge and sent "Bombie the Zombie" to stab the malicious mallard with a pin which would shrink him in size - evidently a play on the idea of witch doctors and shrunken heads, which was all the rage in escapist fiction of the era.

Poor Bombie has searched for Scrooge for decades and by the time he arrives in Duckberg, he mistakes Donald for his unpleasant uncle and jabs him with the pin. While Donald worries he's going to shrink out of sight, his nephews try to solve the conundrum. Meanwhile, the silent and vacant-eyed Bombie, having completed his life's mission, seems at loose ends, if such a thing is possible. The nephews take Bombie under their wings even as Donald flies to Africa to beg a cure from the witch doctor.

It's surprising just how unlikeable Uncle Scrooge is in this story; I understand this was written before Barks had finished rounding off his character, but Scrooge does virtually nothing to help Donald after he learns the predicament his nephew is in. He does grudingly pay for Donald's flight over the ocean, but won't cover the full transportation. Huey, Dewey & Louie ultimately intervene on Donald's behalf thanks to a tidy fortune Bombie wins after appearing on a quiz show. You would think Uncle Scrooge would want to settle this unfinished business with the witch doctor himself, but no... he takes the coward's way and lets Donald face the danger.

The story winds up with Donald and the nephews being chased through the jungle by the witch doctor's men; the nephews wield Bombie as a living (unliving?) weapon, setting rubber cushions on his feet so he bounces down on the approaching enemies, brushing them aside. The nephews worry about what will happen to Bombie now, but Donald is simply happy to have made through the adventure intact; and here, the story ends.

I was a little surprised by the abrupt conclusion, even checking to see if a page was missing from my copy of the book. Bombie is thrown to the hordes of villains and... that's it? What about poor Bombie? The story closes with the nephews musing Bombie will be all right on his own since zombies don't need to eat and live forever; Donald remarks "I'll take vanilla!" and fin.

I was certain Bombie's story was being set up for some form of resolution; earlier, the nephews met Professor Cornelius McCobb, one of the witch doctor's shrunken victims and McCobb revealed "after several centuries," the drugs controlling zombies would wear off and they would become normal again. I believed this was foreshadowing Bombie's release from the drug at some opportune point in the climax of the story, but the moment never arrived.

When it was first announced Fantagraphics would be publishing these collections for Disney there was some comment about it around the internet, considering Disney already owns Marvel Comics and has a good licensing arrangement with Boom! Comics. Of course, what makes Fantagraphics so great for this sort of archival project is they try to make the product resemble the original publication as nearly as possible. There are also some brief articles in the back where various comics scholars discuss each and every one of the reprinted stories. Another volume will be served up soon, featuring Uncle Scrooge's earliest stories where he was presented as a protagonist. I'm glad I took the time to read this book last week; in the wake of my recent frustrations with the super hero genre, it's fine to settle back and read well-told, imaginative fiction of such consistent quality.