Customer Reviews

Carl Barks Big Book of Barney Bear

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

"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 10. 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.

Carl Barks and I got started together. Carl began drawing comics at the very time I was just old enough to understand them. The first year or two my father read them to me but soon I was reading them myself. The very first one was "Pirate Gold" and though Jack Hannah also worked that one; I was hooked. Barks never made a dud; even stories that I understand he considered very weak; we're great to me. I never knew until lately that he did the "good" Barney Bears. I remember the issue that came out that was the first Barks didn't do and I remember being disappointed in it. The Barney Bear book is one fantastic book for the Barks collector. Its interesting to see Carl sometimes used the same plot in Barney bear that he would use again in Uncle Scrooge. Yet the stories were still strong enough to stand alone. After 70 years, I still love Carl Barks work. I have the original Carl Barks Library published by Another Rainbow. I cannot recommend a book any more than this Barney Bear hardback. Anyone who can read and appreciate great cartooning will love it.

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. It is like you have found mint copies of these comics right off the stand in the 1940s. I compare the " non restoration" to early black and white films. If you take out all the film grain, the movie looks like a black and white TV broadcast. I think this is what the publishers wanted here, a book that shows what comics looked like in the forties. Kudos to Craig Yoe, Jeff Smith and IDW Publishing for a job well done.

Barks' Barney Bear stories are a real gem. They are extremely funny and enjoyable. I love all of them very much. They remind me a great deal of his work on Donald Duck and Co but they also have other ideas and insights. They prove that it was Carl Barks' genius behind his great Duck stories and not anything else that made them so great. So this book is a must read for any Barks fan but it is also very good for those who have never read one. They will be a fan afterwards.
Unfortunately, there are two problems that I have with this book. The first is the coloring. The makers of this book probably were of the opinion to recreate the feeling of the original comics. I would, however, prefer modern coloring which would emphasize the art work. This is a missed opportunity which a future edition could change. In any case, even black-and-white would have been superior to the colors used in this book. Other international prints are much superior in this regard.
A second issue is the decision to leave out the three Benny Burro stories before Barney joined. It would certainly have increased the size of the book but it would have made it more complete. In addition, Carl Barks also did a few other stories in the One Shot comic series and to have them included would have been great too. As such, the book is incomplete, which is a pity.
Overall, however, this is a great volume and I recommend this for anyone who wants a few hours of great fun!

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 BEAR. The mind reels (or should that be, "the bind beels"?) at the implications of that.

Barks' non-Duck work from the 1940s has long deserved a handsome color reprinting such as this one. The incomplete nature of the contents, however, is disappointing. I've no doubt that copyright issues kept Barks' one PORKY PIG story and one ANDY PANDA tale out of this volume, but why were the two HAPPY HOUND (aka Droopy) stories and the BENNY BURRO solo efforts left out, seeing as how they were also based on MGM properties? Indeed, I happen to think that Benny worked better as a solo character than as a partner of the slow-moving, slow-witted Barney Bear. Here's why:

(1) Benny and Barney's "universe" is superficially akin to that of Duckburg, populated by dogfaces and the like, with the occasional exotic critter (such as an alligator, an elk, or a gorilla) thrown in. In such an environment, the existence of Benny, a sentient four-footed beast, is problematic at best. Things get even hairier when we see Benny in the company of dogs and cats who are treated as plain ol' animals. So what's so special about Benny, anyway? It's almost as if Kimba the White Lion were living among humans and conversing with them as a matter of course, as opposed to it being a skill that Kimba had to learn from Roger Ranger.

(2) There doesn't seem to be any reason for Barney and Benny to pal around with each other. Barney, especially in the later stories, lives in a house complete with cranky neighbors, a yard to keep up, bills to pay, etc. Amazingly, though, we never find out where, or how, Benny lives until he's seen at home in a late story. Most of the time, he just shows up in order to get a story started, or else is already present when the story begins. Donald and the Nephews, of course, had the "blood relations" angle to keep them together, not to mention the clear precedents set by the animated cartoons and the DONALD DUCK daily strip. Barney and Benny, by contrast, are together because... well, the title says so. No wonder Barks quickly got tired of the "wartime duty" and handed off the responsibility as soon as he could after the shooting had stopped.

The above being said, Barks' "Book of B&B" makes for a pleasant read, even if it rarely rises above the level of professional craftsmanship. Barks' artwork is certainly a highlight, with Benny being drawn in an especially charming fashion. Occasional flashes of Barksian cynicism are seen, with Carl sending up modern artists in OUR GANG #28 (Barney's messed-up attempt at a painting wins a blue ribbon) and getting comical mileage out of the postwar housing shortage in OG #34 (Barney sells his home to get away from obnoxious neighbor Mooseface McElk but then can't find or build a new home to save his life). In terms of story themes, Barks seems to bounce from "phase" to "phase" in a manner that he generally avoided in the DONALD stories in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES. Early on, B&B are mostly "on the road" (occasionally showing up in places like Mexico for no apparent reason), and many tales center around Barney attempting to master some skill, generally with Benny's unwilling assistance. Intriguingly, many of these "would-be mastery" tales involve becoming a hunter of some sort, which one might think would come naturally to a bear (but then, maybe that's the point of the gag). Along about 1945-46, the stories begin to resemble contemporary DONALD stories, with the unfortunate exception that the "sensible" Benny often causes trouble for Barney himself. By the end, with Barks' Western Publishing associate Gil Turner now providing many of the scripts, the tales boil down to a repetitive string of confrontations between Barney and Mooseface McElk, the Neighbor Jones wannabe.

If I had to pick favorite stories from this bunch, they would probably be "The Rainbow Pixies" (OG #29) and the very first story, the tale of the giant horn (OG #11). "Pixies" is a pretty straightforward, but funny, "tit-for-tat" tale. The horn epic, meanwhile, is the closest that B&B ever get to an "adventure," as the boys foil a kooky scientist's bizarre plot to create the world's largest and loudest horn through manipulation of a natural Western rock formation. I doubt that Barks would have tried to get away with such a zany antagonist in a DONALD story -- a walk-on gag player, perhaps, but not a legit foe -- but at least B&B accomplish something vaguely meaningful in stopping the guy.

The ancillary material here is pretty decent. Jeff Smith provides a bland but serviceable introduction, in addition to crafting a charming cover illo, and we get some real rarities in the introductory pieces, "Bear Right" and "Barks Bio Bits." A mid-50s photograph with Barks and such other Western Publishing luminaries as Phil De Lara, Carl Fallberg, Tony Strobl, John Carey, and Al Hubbard is very much appreciated; oh, to have been a fly on the wall listening to those fellows talk shop. Even better is a tantalizing sample of a newspaper comic strip, PIPSQUEAKS, which Barks worked up in 1953. I know that Barks was interested in drawing realistic human strips, even managing to get some human characters into his Duck stories of the early 50s, but was he really interested in "giving PEANUTS a run for its money," as Craig Yoe implies? I will have to consult Tom Andrae's book for more information, I suppose. Not that I think PIPSQUEAKS would have been a success -- it's drawn in an anachronistic style that somewhat resembles those advertisements of the 20s and 30s featuring adult cartoon characters with large heads and tiny bodies. But the mere existence of the strip suggests that, even while Barks was committed to working with the Ducks, he wouldn't have minded spreading his creative wings in a somewhat freer manner than was possible when he was working with Barney and Benny.

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." These stories collected from vintage Our Gang comics show that Barks was much more than the best teller of duck stories. Barks was also a master of bear and burro comics.

It's easy to assume that these are somehow lesser works than his Donald Duck comics. I would argue that the Barney Bear and Benny Burro stories are as good if not better than the Donald Duck ten-pagers from Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. Granted, these are not sweeping tales of adventure like the book-length Uncle Scrooge material, where Huey, Dewey and Louie are traveling the globe solving mysteries and seeking treasure. But for ten pages they have plenty of comical characterization and lots of laughs. I admit I laughed out loud more than once reading this book. And that's not a phony chat-room LOL, that's real laughter.

Comparing these to the Donald stories of the same period there are significant differences. This isn't Donald Duck in a bear suit! Where Donald lives in the suburban setting of Duckburg, and the plots revolve around the problems he encounters in the neighborhood, the B.B. & B.B. stories are set in the wilderness and most fit in the category of Man vs. Nature (or Bear vs. Nature). Barney and Benny encounter other animals, engaging in conflicts with cougars, bees, bulls, turtles, etc. Of course, in only-in-a-comic-book fashion, our heroes talk and act like humans, while the animals growl and act like animals.

Barks displays excellent draftsmanship here, with genuinely funny poses and vivid expressions on the character's faces. I can think of no other comics that make you feel so much like you're watching an animated film rather than looking at still images. There's plenty of action! I should add that Benny Burro is a wonderful character the way Barks renders him and writes his dialogue. I only wish Barks had created dozens more.

It goes without saying that Craig Yoe has done a terrific job reproducing these comics from the printed page. (In my opinion, much superior to the retouching and re-coloring you often see in other collections.) As always, there's an informative introductory section illustrated with rare art that puts these stories in their proper context. In a short time, Yoe Books has become the gold standard of comic book reprints.

I recommend this book highly to lovers of good comics... duck, bear, burro or otherwise.

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!

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. to add: I've read it now very thoroughly, and I may have been a little harsh at first. Still, publishers use of word 'restored' keeps eluding me; 'using any old comic pages we can get our hands on and making a shoddy facsimile' is definitely NOT the definition of it.