Carl Barks tops the list of greatest comic book artists of many devoted fans around the world. He has often been called "The Good Duck Artist" by avid readers of all ages of his Disney Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics. Those Duck stories have been reprinted and loved again and again by millions. But, while the Duck oeuvre is easily obtainable, only a few elite fans have gotten rare glimpses of yet another fabulous, alternate universe that Barks created around the classic animation characters Barney Bear and Benny Burro. Hidden in rare, Golden Age comics only Scrooge McDuck could afford are wonderful, full-color fantasy and fun stories as only Barks can write and draw 'em! Collected for the first time in a deluxe, hardcover, full-color tome, are all of these masterpieces, meticulously restored. The Barks' Bear Book is edited and designed by Eisner-Award-winning comics historian Craig Yoe, with a fascinating introduction and special cover is by Barks-devotee Jeff Smith, the best-selling graphic novelist of the Bone comics series. As with the entire line of Yoe Books, the reproduction techniques employed strive to preserve the look and feel of expensive vintage comics. Painstakingly remastered, enjoy the closest possible recreation of reading these comics when first released.
| ||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Barney Bear was a problematic character in his starring cartoons. The best were made by Michael Lah and Preston Blair in the late '40s; these managed to exploit the genial appeal of Barney's overall design. Barney's earlier cartoons moved too slowly to accomplish much, and the later ones directed by Dick Lundy made the character the butt of several recycled Tex Avery gags that seemed more cruel than funny when directed at Barney.
Carl Barks was just getting good and warmed up with the Donald Duck one-shots and the 10-page leads in "Walt Disney's Comics & Stories" when the "Our Gang" backup stories were added to his workload. They represent a yeoman effort on Barks' part. His first couple "Our Gang" stories, which featured Benny Burro alone, are not included here. Too bad, because Benny started fairly strong as a single. Once paired with Barney, Benny's permanent "four-on-the-floor" stature (he was never humanized to the extent of Disney's Horace Horsecollar) left him looking subservient to Barney, who was already something of a bully. At best, these stories are well-crafted, with beginnings, middles, and endings. They're also interesting in their parallels to the stories Barks' was simultaneously producing for "Comics and Stories" as well as later backup stories he would create for the "Uncle Scrooge" title. Mooseface McElk, for instance, has a lot in common with Donald Duck's neighbor Jones.
Early buzz for this book hinted that it would be a color reprint of the 1979 black & white "Barks Bear Book." While the Barney Bear stories are intact, the "Andy Panda" and "Porky of the Mounties," as well as the "Benny Burro" and "Happy Hound" stories in the "Bear Book" are not reprinted here. From an aesthetic standpoint, this doesn't amount to a great loss. Barks admitted he had no knack for the Warner Bros. characters, and the Andy Panda tale is contrived and syrupy at best. The omission of the "Benny Burro" and "Happy Hound" stories is a shame, especially since the latter allowed Barks a little more room as a satirist.
As to the color: I compared a couple of the stories to the original "Our Gang" comics in my collection. IDW has actually printed the pages just a shade darker than the originals, so complaints of the pages looking "washed out" are without basis. Barks himself remarked once that he was more "displeased than pleased" with the coloring of his comics and didn't feel that the coloring improved till quite late in the game. Overall, compared to the rather light quality of the black & white photostats in the "Barks Bear Book" and the completely bush-league job that was done in the short-lived comic book reprints in the '90s, these particular stories look better than they have for a long time.
The Donald Duck stories that Barks produced during this same span of years showed remarkable growth in both storytelling and character development. The Barney Bear stories also evolved, though not as dramatically and certainly not as far. They are good for smiles and chuckles, but collectively, they are not much more than a footnote to the superior work Barks did for the Disney titles.
Carl Barks was just getting good and warmed up with the Donald Duck one-shots and the 10-page leads in "Walt Disney's Comics & Stories" when the "Our Gang" backup stories were added to his workload. They represent a yeoman effort on Barks' part. His first couple "Our Gang" stories, which featured Benny Burro alone, are not included here. Too bad, because Benny started fairly strong as a single. Once paired with Barney, Benny's permanent "four-on-the-floor" stature (he was never humanized to the extent of Disney's Horace Horsecollar) left him looking subservient to Barney, who was already something of a bully. At best, these stories are well-crafted, with beginnings, middles, and endings. They're also interesting in their parallels to the stories Barks' was simultaneously producing for "Comics and Stories" as well as later backup stories he would create for the "Uncle Scrooge" title. Mooseface McElk, for instance, has a lot in common with Donald Duck's neighbor Jones.
Early buzz for this book hinted that it would be a color reprint of the 1979 black & white "Barks Bear Book." While the Barney Bear stories are intact, the "Andy Panda" and "Porky of the Mounties," as well as the "Benny Burro" and "Happy Hound" stories in the "Bear Book" are not reprinted here. From an aesthetic standpoint, this doesn't amount to a great loss. Barks admitted he had no knack for the Warner Bros. characters, and the Andy Panda tale is contrived and syrupy at best. The omission of the "Benny Burro" and "Happy Hound" stories is a shame, especially since the latter allowed Barks a little more room as a satirist.
As to the color: I compared a couple of the stories to the original "Our Gang" comics in my collection. IDW has actually printed the pages just a shade darker than the originals, so complaints of the pages looking "washed out" are without basis. Barks himself remarked once that he was more "displeased than pleased" with the coloring of his comics and didn't feel that the coloring improved till quite late in the game. Overall, compared to the rather light quality of the black & white photostats in the "Barks Bear Book" and the completely bush-league job that was done in the short-lived comic book reprints in the '90s, these particular stories look better than they have for a long time.
The Donald Duck stories that Barks produced during this same span of years showed remarkable growth in both storytelling and character development. The Barney Bear stories also evolved, though not as dramatically and certainly not as far. They are good for smiles and chuckles, but collectively, they are not much more than a footnote to the superior work Barks did for the Disney titles.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By J. K. Weston
Format:Hardcover
"The Carl Barks Big Book of Barney Bear", edited and designed by Craig Yoe, is a pretty nice book, but my strongest reaction to it is the disappointment that it is not the book it should have been and probably will prevent the book it should have been from ever being published, unless, perhaps, hopefully, Yoe already has a second volume planned and is working on getting rights. But you should buy this book anyway if you like the work of Carl Barks.
What it is: A reprint of all 26 Barney Bear and Benny Burro stories published in Our Gang Comics #11-36, drawn and mostly written by Carl Barks; this is the majority of Barks' non-Disney comic book work. It is 8 1/2 by 11 sized in full color scanned from original comic books and it looks pretty good, certainly much better than the Jack Kirby reprint books from DC such as Boy Commandos, which I have also reviewed for Amazon. Printed slightly larger than the original comic books, it looks quite good, and makes a good argument that the DC scanned comics should be printed original size, not reduced by 15-20% as they are in the Archives and Kirby reprints. I do have all the original comics reprinted in this book (and the ones that were omitted but should have been included), and I compared some of the originals to the reprints. The reprint books are close to the originals in color but are also darker, which is not a major problem, though it does obscure Barks fine lines a little in places.
Oddly, the book lacks a table of contents, though it has an index, several essays, other examples of Barks' work, photos, reprints of posters for Barney Bear cartoons, and at least one blank page where a table of contents could have been put.
What it lacks: First off, it lacks the Benny Burro solo stories in Our Gang Comics #8, 9, and 10. Second, it lacks the Droopy stories (actually titled Happy Hound) in Our Gang Comics #9 and 11. Third, it lacks the three Droopy stories Barks wrote and Harvey Eisenburg drew for Tom and Jerry's Winter Carnival and Tom and Jerry's Summer Fun in the early 1950s. And all of this is MGM material, just like the Barney and Benny stories, and could and should have been licensed at the same time. So the book should have at least had all of the MGM material.
Fourth it lacks the Andy Panda story from New Funnies #76. And finally it lacks the Porky Pig story from Four Color Comics #48. A book containing these additional stories would have had to have been a little fatter and cost a little more. But surely, anyone willing to pay $35 for the Barney and Benny stories would have been even happier to pay $50 for the complete non-Disney stories of Carl Barks. And probably a significantly larger audience would have been there for such a volume, because it would contain ALL of Barks' non-Disney comic book work together in one fairly luxurious but still compact volume.
That volume will likely not be published in this generation because of this volume. And that is my complaint with this book. Now it is possible that since Andy Panda is a Walter Lantz property and Porky Pig is a Warner Brothers property, it would have been difficult or impossible to get rights to have all that in the same book, but then, at least all the MGM properties should have been published together.
But perhaps Yoe is working on a second volume of the material missing from this one. At only about 96 pages, it would be a slim volume. But I hope so. Still, this book, is well produced otherwise, a bargain, and well worth buying. But it is still a disappointment.
NOTE: The story from Our Gang #35, starting on page 201 of this book, was rewritten and reused as an Uncle Scrooge story in Uncle Scrooge #6, reprinted in Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: "Only a Poor Old Man" (Vol. 1) (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library), which I have also reviewed, starting on page 205. Barks' duck work is generally better than his non-Disney work, and this is no exception.
What it is: A reprint of all 26 Barney Bear and Benny Burro stories published in Our Gang Comics #11-36, drawn and mostly written by Carl Barks; this is the majority of Barks' non-Disney comic book work. It is 8 1/2 by 11 sized in full color scanned from original comic books and it looks pretty good, certainly much better than the Jack Kirby reprint books from DC such as Boy Commandos, which I have also reviewed for Amazon. Printed slightly larger than the original comic books, it looks quite good, and makes a good argument that the DC scanned comics should be printed original size, not reduced by 15-20% as they are in the Archives and Kirby reprints. I do have all the original comics reprinted in this book (and the ones that were omitted but should have been included), and I compared some of the originals to the reprints. The reprint books are close to the originals in color but are also darker, which is not a major problem, though it does obscure Barks fine lines a little in places.
Oddly, the book lacks a table of contents, though it has an index, several essays, other examples of Barks' work, photos, reprints of posters for Barney Bear cartoons, and at least one blank page where a table of contents could have been put.
What it lacks: First off, it lacks the Benny Burro solo stories in Our Gang Comics #8, 9, and 10. Second, it lacks the Droopy stories (actually titled Happy Hound) in Our Gang Comics #9 and 11. Third, it lacks the three Droopy stories Barks wrote and Harvey Eisenburg drew for Tom and Jerry's Winter Carnival and Tom and Jerry's Summer Fun in the early 1950s. And all of this is MGM material, just like the Barney and Benny stories, and could and should have been licensed at the same time. So the book should have at least had all of the MGM material.
Fourth it lacks the Andy Panda story from New Funnies #76. And finally it lacks the Porky Pig story from Four Color Comics #48. A book containing these additional stories would have had to have been a little fatter and cost a little more. But surely, anyone willing to pay $35 for the Barney and Benny stories would have been even happier to pay $50 for the complete non-Disney stories of Carl Barks. And probably a significantly larger audience would have been there for such a volume, because it would contain ALL of Barks' non-Disney comic book work together in one fairly luxurious but still compact volume.
That volume will likely not be published in this generation because of this volume. And that is my complaint with this book. Now it is possible that since Andy Panda is a Walter Lantz property and Porky Pig is a Warner Brothers property, it would have been difficult or impossible to get rights to have all that in the same book, but then, at least all the MGM properties should have been published together.
But perhaps Yoe is working on a second volume of the material missing from this one. At only about 96 pages, it would be a slim volume. But I hope so. Still, this book, is well produced otherwise, a bargain, and well worth buying. But it is still a disappointment.
NOTE: The story from Our Gang #35, starting on page 201 of this book, was rewritten and reused as an Uncle Scrooge story in Uncle Scrooge #6, reprinted in Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: "Only a Poor Old Man" (Vol. 1) (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library), which I have also reviewed, starting on page 205. Barks' duck work is generally better than his non-Disney work, and this is no exception.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By M. Sonntag
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the things I've noticed of late, people expect reprints to be fully restored. In some cases you can and it looks great. But the reality is, printing in the 40s was done very cheaply which means plates didn't always align and the paper was cheap causing bleeding of inks into the paper creating thicker lines. Now, unless a publisher has access to the original art or proof sheets(most of which were thrown away after use especially by Western Publishing)it is difficult to do anything but reproduce the published pages as they are. The Disney stuff is well preserved, and original art saved, I guess because it was Disney and far more popular hence the great reprints of recent times.
I like this book, it is a trip into the past, you are reading the stories as they were published, this isn't the Disney Barks we all know but it is a fun journey and is still very Barks. If you want modern restored comics this isn't for you, but if you can place the comics back into context of their time then you'll love this. Remember, Barks was doing Disney comics at the same time.
I like this book, it is a trip into the past, you are reading the stories as they were published, this isn't the Disney Barks we all know but it is a fun journey and is still very Barks. If you want modern restored comics this isn't for you, but if you can place the comics back into context of their time then you'll love this. Remember, Barks was doing Disney comics at the same time.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Clearly Puzzled . . .
I have to say I am puzzled by all the reviews here that are raving about the quality of the reprints in this volume. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Jeffrey Pepper
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond Donald Duck
Carl Barks was an illustrator for the Walt Disney Company in the 1930s and 1940s. He became famous for the illustrations he did in print of Donald Duck and company. Read more
Published 14 months ago by tvtv3
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book despite some shortcomings
Barks' Barney Bear stories are a real gem. They are extremely funny and enjoyable. I love all of them very much. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Stephan Ortmann
4.0 out of 5 stars
The return of (most of) BARKS' BEAR BOOK
Well, at least IDW/Yoe! didn't go completely crazy and give this reprinting of (most of) the contents of THE BARKS BEAR BOOK (1979) a title like BARKS' BIGGEST BIG BOOK OF BARNEY... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Christopher Barat
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Good Bear Artist
Cark Barks has been rightfully celebrated as one of the giants in comics. Even before fans knew his name they referred to him as "the good duck artist. Read more
Published 18 months ago by David Burd
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carl Barks never drew a dud
Carl Barks and I got started together. Carl began drawing comics at the very time I was just old enough to understand them. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Brigadier Victor
5.0 out of 5 stars
I like it!
I love Barks and I love this book! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!! What a treasure! What beautiful reproduction! And such a beautiful packaging!
Published 19 months ago by Robert
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book at a great price.
My copy of Carl Barks' Bear Book arrived yesterday and I was greatly impressed. I agree with the first reviewer, this is a great book. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Gilbert B. Goodman
2.0 out of 5 stars
Meticulously restored?!!
Carl Barks deserves all the stars there is, but this crappy bunch of bad xeroxes of old, below averige comic pages need only forgetfulness.
Ed. Read more
Ed. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Uncle B.
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
