Books collecting Barks’ non-Disney comics

As the title say this is not really about Disney comics, but it’s all about the work of Carl Barks. I recently got the new book The Unavailable Carl Barks (in color) by Kim Weston, and did a little comparison to earlier books collecting the comics.

Barks Bear Book

Published by Editions Enfin in 1979 this book collects all non-Disney comics Carl Barks drew, but not the three Droopy stories he wrote. All stories are black and white facsimile copies from the original comic prints.

Bruno Bjørn og venner/Bruno Björn och vänner
 

In 2010 Egmont published a book collecting Barks’ non-Disney comics in Norway and Sweden as part of a companion series to Egmont's Carl Barks collection. The book collects all stories except the Andy Panda one. Unlike the previous collection that uses facsimile copies, this book is using high quality black and white proofs with new coloring. The exception is one of the Droopy stories (the 1953 one) and the Porky Pig story where no high quality sources seems to exist. The Droopy story is a facsimile copy in this book too, while an attempt to clean up the black lines has been done to the Porky Pig story. In addition to the comic stories the Egmont book has a couple of great articles by Geoffrey Blum and Ulf Granberg. Unfortunaly this book is only translated to Norwegian and Swedish, it would have been great to have the same book with the original English dialogue too!

The Carl Barks Big Book of "Barney Bear"

Published by IDW under the YOE Books imprint in 2011, this book collects all 26 Barney Bear and Benny Burro stories. But does not include the three single Benny stories, or any other non-Disney stories by Carl Barks. But we do have some great articles in the beginning with photos and artwork. Like the Barks Bear Book, all stories in this book are also facsimile copies from the original comics, but this time in color – and in a lot better reproduction quality.

The Unavailable Carl Barks (in color) 

Published in July 2016 by Kim Weston using the self-publishing service CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. The book is aimed to be a companion book to the Barney Bear book from IDW/YOE Books, publishing the stories that are missing in that book plus some extra stuff. The book even has two Disney-stories. One is a restoration of Kite Weather to a 3-tier layout - the same version published in The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial, that I made a blogpost about earlier. The other one is a one-pager from Donald Duck #36, that Kim thinks must have been written by Carl Barks. The book is using a mix of sources, some are facsimile copies with various editing work, some are b/w proofs that are colored, and some are restored to a layout closer to how Barks originally drew the stories. As with Kite Weather, the restoration work on the non-Disney comic stories are done with "educated guesswork", but I'm sure a lot of time and effort is used to reconstruct the layot as cloesely as possible. Exactly how Barks’ original art looked like we’ll probably never know. In-between the comics we also have nerdy (but great!) comments and articles by Kim Weston. At the end of the book there’s also a 10 page cross reference index to "everything" in Barks’ non-Disney comics.

Some of the different restorations used in The Unavailable Carl Barks book are previously published in The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial. I think most are exactly the same, but the Happy Hound one was not colored in the Fan Club Pictorial. In the picure under you can also see a comparison of the layout used in Our Gang #11 (and the Egmont book) with the 3-tier restoration.

From the Egmont book (left), The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial vol.4 (middle) and The Unavailable Carl Barks (right)

 Here's another example of a layout restoration. This time the Barney Bear and Benny Burro story from Our Gang #18 restored from 6 pages to 8 pages but still 4-tier per page.

From IDW's Barney Bear book (left) and The Unavailable Carl Barks (right)

 To have a better overview of which stories are in what book, I made this table:

	Original publication
Andy Panda	New Funnies #76 (1943)
Benny "The Lonesome Burro"	Our Gang #8 (1943)
Happy Hound	Our Gang #9 (1944)
Benny "The Lonesome Burro"	Our Gang #9 (1944)
Benny "The Lonesome Burro"	Our Gang #10 (1944)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #11 (1944)
Happy Hound	Our Gang #11 (1944)
Porky Pig	Four Color/One shots #48 (1944)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #12 (1944)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #13 (1944)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #14 (1944)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #15 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #16 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #17 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #18 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #19 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #20 (1945)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #21 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #22 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #23 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #24 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #25 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #26 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #27 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #28 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #29 (1946)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #30 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #31 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #32 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #33 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #34 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #35 (1947)
Barney Bear and Benny Burro	Our Gang #36 (1947)
Droopy	Tom & Jerry Winter carniva #1 (1952)
Droopy	Tom & Jerry Winter carniva #2 (1953)
Droopy	Tom & Jerry Summer Fun #1 (1954)

Duck Avenger #0 from IDW

Duck Avenger #0, all cover variants

Duck Avenger #0 hit the comic shelves last week. I know some fans have been waiting a long time for this, but are there enough old fans to keep the series going? That was my first thought when I heard the news... I guess the majority of American readers picking up this comic don’t know much about what they’ll get – but I hope enough people get this bargain of a comic anyways and get hooked, making the series last. Because for $4.99 you’ll get a lot of comics for your money in this premiere issue!

The new series from IDW starts collecting the Italian PK series, or more specifically the PKNA (Paperinik New Adventures) series. As the American title is simply Duck Avenger we could possible see the continuation PK² and the stories under the unofficial title Paperinik New Era (Gli argini del tempo and Il raggio nero) being collected in the same title too. But that is too far in the future to hope for yet.

We also got a related series PK Pikappa, but unlike the ones mentioned above that one is a reboot with its own continuity. PK Pikappa already is partly published digitally in English as Superduck, and works better under another title I think.

Even if the title name is just Duck Avenger, the series is actually referred to as "Duck Avenger New Adventures" in the bullet points in the August Previews catalog.
 

From the August 2016 Previews catalog

Judging from the cover and description for the next issue, it’s going to collect the original "Zero/2" issue while calling it #1. I don’t think what numbering IDW choose to do matters that much; the important thing is that the series seems to follow the original chronology. (Side note: The text in the image above say Lila Lee, but the final name used in #0 is Lyla Lee.)

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So, what should people expect from the new Duck Avenger series? First, a lot of action! Both the storytelling, art and page layout will differ from what we are used to in a regular Duck story. It might look a bit strange at first, but you’ll get used to it fast.
 

Action scene in Duck Avenger #0

We’ll see Uncle Scrooge once in a while and Huey, Dewey and Louie in a couple of the first stories – but they seem to be busy with Junior Woodchuck camps. For the most part Donald/Duck Avenger has new allies and is fighting new villains in this series, and you won't see any of the "classic" characters. The stories are partly crime-fighting superhero stories – but with gadgets (like Batman) and not superpowers. But the series is also a sci-fi saga. Most of the stories are from 60-70 pages long, but we also have shorter side-stories I hope will be included by IDW.

The first issue was translated by Jonathan Gray, and from what I’ve understood he will continue doing the rest too. And if you follow his twitter, he seems to be really excited about being able to do this – being a huge fan of the series. In fact I don’t think we would have seen this series in English at all if not for him! For more information read this interesting interview at Diskingdom.
 

IDW often order new coloring for European stories in their Disney comics. But the coloring in Duck Avenger #0 is the original Italian coloring from 1996, with some minor adjustments like Scrooge’s spats. Even if the coloring is 20 years old and from the early days of digital coloring, I don’t think it appears dated at all.
 

Currently a new issue is scheduled for release every second month (alternating with Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories). If IDW keep that schedule it will take eight and a half year to publish all 52 PKNA issues. That’s a long time, but I hope sales will allow that to happen! I’ve read most stories before, but I look forward to reading them again in English.