Walt Disney's Donald Duck "Maharajah Donald": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 4

Fantagraphics Books has been doing one fantastic job of reprinting the work of beloved comics writer and artist Carl Barks. I grew up with his work way back in the 1950s, and I easily recognized his style, though, of course, I had no idea then who this "good artist" actually was (nor did anyone else, for that matter). Until now, Fantagraphics has been concentrating on his later work, produced throughout the 1960s, so it was wonderful to learn that they're finally getting down to reprinting his earlier product. Especially welcome was the title story of this volume, "Maharajah Donald." Throughout the 1970s, when I was gung ho about comic collecting and was able to obtain copies of nearly all of his regular issues, this was one story that eluded me. An actual copy of this particular "March of Comics" release was out of the question -- it seemed a bit incongruous to pay hundreds of dollars for something that was originally given out to lucky kids for free, so I settled for a set of xeroxes that someone had made of the original pages of a copy. At the time, color copying had not yet really come of age, and the reproduction looked terrible -- not to mention that the print job itself was poor, with many instances of colors printed out of register. Still, even that was better than nothing! So when I opened this book -- talk about the difference between night and day! The story was reproduced brilliantly, the way it should have looked all along! Of course, the same goes for all the other stories in this fabulous volume. In addition to the title story, it includes 4C 108 ("The Terror of the River"), a year's worth of ten-pagers from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES (#69, June 1946 to #79, April 1947), as well as the 1946 Firestone giveaway "Donald and Mickey Merry Christmas". Just try collecting the books themselves today! So if you're a Barks fan, don't even hesitate to make this great volume a part of your collection. I see that yet another volume of early Barks is in the works, due to come out next year -- and I just know that it'll be another book well worth waiting for. In the meantime, enjoy this one!

After waiting patiently for many years, the Fantagraphics reprint effort has shifted to the earliest volumes collecting Carl Barks' work on Donald Duck and friends. This is volume 4 of the overall series; volume 3 is listed as the next to be published, I believe. Looking forward to these early volumes so I can see the evolution of Barks' work.

High quality binding, cover, colors-- a faithful reproduction of Carl Barks' work that will withstand a lot of use

Censorship strikes again.In Volume 20 Disney changed some dialogue balloons, which was bad enough, but you at least still got the artwork. Here, the entirety of page 3 from "The Bill Collectors" has been removed because it contains outdated racial stereotypes. The back of the book refers to it as a 10 pager, even though now it's 9 pages. We're supposed to pretend this page doesn't exist.The front of the book has the standard "These stories contain outdated racial stereotypes" disclaimer but apparently that isn't enough. The page still had to go. It's patronizing and condescending of Disney/Fantagraphics to assume that modern readers simply can't fathom that 80 year old social norms don't always match current ones.The Complete Carl Barks Library is no longer complete. Carl Barks and his fans deserve a complete archive of his work, warts and all, the stuff that inspires us as well as the stuff that's embarrassing. It's too bad that this page was removed, because this volume is otherwise excellent, especially the restoration work done on "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb." But as long as these volumes are subject to Soviet style censorship where pages are just disappeared, I'm giving them one star.

El producto llegó justo para la Navidad, y resultó un excelente regalo.

I never thought I'd enjoy these books but they are so good and with such brilliant stories that all ages can enjoy. More like Tin Tin then Sesame Street.

Really enjoy reading once again all those Duck adventures by Carl Barks in these great books i use to love reading when i was growing up in the comics .

Excellent Carl Barks Disney book in an top presentation. Once started did not stop till the end of the stories, have not read the background pages, I have to sleep sometimes!