Customer Reviews

Walt Disney Presents Uncle Scrooge: Back to the Klondike (Gladstone Comic Album Series No. 4)

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

 

 

This is the first Scrooge story I had ever read (and first Carl Barks story as well) and I couldn't have had a better introduction to the talent of the Duck Man. Although I had read this story first in "Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: His Life and His Times", this edition is just as good of a read (I prefered the coloring job for this particular story in "Life and Times", although generally I prefer the color in the Gladstone reprint volumes.) Excellent artwork, a well-orchestrated storyline, and an appropriate and clever ending makes this a thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended reading experience. Also includes a Gyro Gearloose story.

This book is one of the finest Barks' comic books ever made. The story brings you to the Klondike and the beginning of Uncle Scrooge's career and also introduces his one and only girl friend. The whole story builds around Scrooge's thrift and the lure for more riches and has a surprising ending! It is definetly a must for all people who like humor, a good story and great images.

As a kid, I collected comic books, and this one was one of my prizes: a very early Scrooge book with one of the very best story lines. Less of the overdone fantastic and more realy storyline and characterization. Barks was superb in this one!

This is a graphic novel format comic album from Gladstone Comics, Uncle Scrooge #4 of 1987. It features stories by Carl Barks, the famous artist who drew Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge for 25 years, and became known to his fans as "the good duck artist" for the quality of his stories. Gladstone Comics reprinted many classic stories in comic, comic albums, and even comic digests in the 1980's through 1990's. They put a lot of love in their books and it shows. High quality paper and inks, nice covers, taking the original black and white art and having brand new coloring done for each issue. Later Gladstone and their parent company Another Rainbow Publishing created a hard cover library of all of the black and white stories by Barks. After that their last big project was the Carl Barks Library in Color, reprinting in color all of Barks works in softcover books, in chronological order. As they finished that series, Disney stepped in and took away their license to print. I miss the heyday of the Gladstone books, they brought an excitement and quality to the reprints that no one has matched ever since. In this issue we have:

The cover is by Barks, from the original publication of the cover story in 1953, one of the infrequent occasions when his covers were allowed to represent the story inside the book. That cover has appeared in reprint many times.
1) "Back to the Klondike" the cover story is a legend, and it was first printed in Four Color Uncle Scrooge One Shot issue #456 of March 1953. It was then reprinted in Gold Key's Best of Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck #1 of 1966; and then again in Gold Key's Uncle Scrooge #142 of July 1977. The story had art & script by Barks. In 1953 the comic book editors drastically edited the story submitted by Barks from the 32 pages down to 27 pages. These cuts were not made due to a lack of quality, but their hesitation over a fight scene. This also struck all the flashback scenes on pages 12 to 15. These pages have been restored for this issue when the art was relocated. The lower half of page 16 in this book was also cut, but the art has never been relocated. So Barks drew penciled sketches for the restoration, and they were inked by a popular duck artist from Denmark, Daan Jippes. Prior to the restoration, the story was about Scrooge's effort to jog his memory and relocate some lost gold nuggets he left in the Yukon when he was young, only to find that a dance hall girl he knew back then named Goldie has moved in on his claim. With the new pages back in place, we flashback to learn about Scrooge's early days, his huge barfight and his love for Goldie, that all had an impact on who he became. The song "After the Ball' mentioned on page 11 was a real song from 1892. The restored version of this took a good story and turned it into a great story with a peek into the past to learn what made Scrooge McDuck into the duck he became.
2) "Cave of the Winds" first printed in Four Color Comics Gyro Gearloose #1095 in April 1960. A 10 page story with script and art by Carl Barks. In this story, Uncle Scrooge hires Gyro Gearloose the inventor, to come up with a way to hide his money.
3) "A Campaign of Note" was first Printed in Dell Comics Uncle Scrooge #8 in December 1954. Art 7 script by Carl Barks, 4 page story about Uncle Scrooge running for Treasurer of Duckberg

All in all a great book, well worth adding to your Barks collection. Good for adults reliving old memories, or reading to the kids for the first time. Barks comics are what my parents used in the 1960's to get me reading.

"Back to the Klondike" is one of my favorite Uncle Scrooge stories. If you want to begin reading Uncle Scrooge stories, this is a very good place to start.

That Amazon keeps this in stock is something you shouldn't take for granted; I have had a tough time finding these Gladstone volumes anywhere else. If you like, read "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck," by Don Rosa after you check out this album. It will exponentially increase your enjoyment of each book.

Barks' storytelling and composition epitomize the notion of beauty in simplicity, a trait you don't find in too many comics today.

A Graet book A realy must have A there is only one word that says how graet it is and that word is GREAT