Sunday, January 2, 2011

New Carl Barks Library forthcoming!

From Fantagraphics. Given their work with Peanuts, there's no reason to believe it will be less than exemplary, though I could do without having the volumes released out of chronological order.
A comment on this, regarding ancillary information:

The only person I have really lined up is Donald Ault, who’s going to be writing the biography of Barks. Don edited a book called “Conversations with Carl Barks” that University Press of Mississippi published a couple of years ago. He’s been a Barks fan and admirer for quite a few years – 30 or 40 years. He really knows his stuff. He knows more than I do and he’s one of the people I’ve been consulting on this. He’s really very good and knows and loves Barks and is a good writer so he’ll be doing the biography.

Fine, but Geoffrey Blum needs to be involved with this if anyone is--his exclusion would be simply absurd. Really now.

If my response in general is a little muted, it's likely because A. it's hard to get super-excited over a project that won't be completed for fifteen years; and B. I already have most of Barks' work these days.* But I very strongly approve in principle. Also, I am/would definitely going to want to indoctrinate my extremely hypothetical children into duckdom, and if my brothers and I are any guide, the comics will not be treated well (and I certainly wouldn't want to make them neurotic by getting all super-uptight about proper comics treatment). So it would be nice to have a high-quality back-up on hand.

UPDATE: Should note that if this is to follow in the footsteps of Fantagraphics' Gottfredson reprints (assuming those go as planned), it should be completely uncensored. So that's nice.

*Specifically, according to inducks, 80.8%. And the missing 19.8% includes not only the Lockman stuff mentioned a few posts back (which will presumably be reprinted here, right? Right? Along with the Junior Woodchucks stories? I should HOPE so) but also incredibly weird shit like Brazilian releases of Barks ten-pagers in which Donald is replaced by José Carioca. E.G. Really now, Brazilian people--I know you love you some Carioca, but let's have a little dignity here, eh?

10 Comments:

Anonymous Richie said...

....................

...Remember when I asked you what releases I should pursue to start my own collection of Duck comics? Boom!'s offerings do look promising, yet this...

HOLY *#&$. Life is Good. Life is very, very good!!!

January 2, 2011 at 9:06 PM  
Anonymous Richie said...

By the way, José's case gets to a very amusing point once you realize the ''only'' reason José has nephews is because they needed brats to fill-in for HDL. No, seriously.

(Also, I promise not to double post in the future. Ducky swear!)

January 2, 2011 at 11:48 PM  
Blogger comicsnstories said...

I'm seriously considering selling off my Another Rainbow set (well, most of a set anyway) of CBL and making my wife happy and purging myself of a few long boxes of comics and making a commitment to just rebuy everything in the Fantagraphics versions once and for all.

After all, I'll only be 47 when it's done! *sigh*

January 3, 2011 at 10:02 AM  
Blogger Mike Matei said...

I think the entire gottfredson library would have to succeed first. And that project is more important since that material has never been reprinted. Whereas the Barks stuff has.

But this is a certainly a good idea. The blue CBL are pricy and hard to come by now. These stories should be available and easier to get for everyday people.

January 7, 2011 at 6:46 PM  
Blogger Mike Matei said...

They should either hire Susan Daigle-Leach to do all the coloring or just leave it B&W.

January 7, 2011 at 6:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ComicsNStories - you ever get serious about selling, let me know.

January 10, 2011 at 1:41 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

For what it's worth, "comicsnstories" is Rodney from the Disney Comics Forum.

January 10, 2011 at 1:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks!

January 13, 2011 at 9:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If it´s going to take them 15 years to complete their Carl Barks library, then I think I´ll stick with my Carl Barks Library in Color, from Gladstone. It´s not hard cover, but at least the panels are not smaller than regular comic book size panels, as they´ll be in the new library. Plus, I´ll still be able to read Geoffrey Blum´s great articles, which will not be in the new library, it seems.
Besides, how many versions of a Carl Barks Library does one need?

January 23, 2011 at 2:17 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I can't believe how het up some people seem to be getting over OH NO THE PANELS ARE SMALLER. As has been noted, they'll be so close to the original size that nobody would possibly notice the difference unless they were specifically comparing them side-by-side with a friggin' ruler. It's just silly.

January 23, 2011 at 3:29 AM  

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