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Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Totally awesome
In what is sure to be one of the most acclaimed comics events of 2011, Fantagraphics has announced that they will be publishing a definitive collection of Carl Barks’ seminal run of Donald Duck comic stories. In an exclusive interview with Robot 6, Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth revealed that the company – which announced their plans to publish Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comics last summer – had acquired the rights to reprint Barks’ work from Disney and that the first volume will be released in fall of this year. The comics will be published in hardcover volumes, with two volumes coming out every year, at a price of about $25 per volume. Although the stories will be printed in chronological order, the first volume, “Lost in the Andes,” will cover the beginning of Barks’ “peak” period, circa about 1948. The second volume, “Only a Poor Old Man,” will cover roughly the years 1952-54 and feature the first Uncle Scrooge story. Later volumes will fill in the missing gaps, including his earlier work, in a process somewhat similar to Fantagraphics’ publication of George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat.” For those who aren’t familiar with the name, the Barks library has been one of the great missing links in a time that many have dubbed the “golden age of reprints.” Acclaimed around the globe for his rich storytelling and characterization, as well as excellent craftsmanship, Barks has long been regarded as one of the great cartoonists of the 20th century, equal to luminaries like Charles Schulz, Robert Crumb and Harvey Kurtzman. He’s been one of the few major American cartoonists whose work has, up till now, not been collected in a comprehensive, manner respectful of his talent (at least not in North America), however, so this announcement comes as extremely good news for any who read and love good comics, let alone are familiar with Barks’ work. http://robot6.comicbookresources.com...fc-211x300.jpg |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Awesome news, but man the Disney license has been jumping all around lately. I'm actually a little surprised Marvel didn't get a chance at it.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Yeah, Marvel would have made sense as far as Disney stuff goes.
I'm a little mixed on what Boom has done. The newer stuff seems over the top, and the classic Donald stuff is respectfully treated, but seems almost too precious with the hardcovers, bookmarks, etc. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
I would love to own Bark's complete Uncle Scrooge stories reprinted in full color, but looks like I will have to keep waiting.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by dvdjunkie32
(Post 10592557)
I would love to own Bark's complete Uncle Scrooge stories reprinted in full color, but looks like I will have to keep waiting.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by davidh777
(Post 10590760)
Yeah, Marvel would have made sense as far as Disney stuff goes.
I'm a little mixed on what Boom has done. The newer stuff seems over the top, and the classic Donald stuff is respectfully treated, but seems almost too precious with the hardcovers, bookmarks, etc. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by Sierra Disc
(Post 10594596)
By Boom do you mean Fantagraphics? They're the ones publishing this. Anyway I'm hugely looking forward to this, and it's being done at a very nice price instead of some $100 monster.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Hasn't this been done twice already? First from the publisher Another Rainbow in multiple full cover hardcover sets in the 1980's and then in more affordable full color treasury editions in the late 80s thru the 90s from Gladstone? I have the Gladstone collections, are they impossible to find now?
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by Ish Kabbible
(Post 10598272)
Hasn't this been done twice already? First from the publisher Another Rainbow in multiple full cover hardcover sets in the 1980's and then in more affordable full color treasury editions in the late 80s thru the 90s from Gladstone? I have the Gladstone collections, are they impossible to find now?
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by fujishig
(Post 10598282)
They are pretty hard erto find now (did they do Hardcovers? I just remember dozens and dozens of magazine-sized softcover releases), and the market for collections is much greater than it's ever been before, so I can understand why they're doing this.
The complete Uncle Scrooge was done in chronological order. If memory serves each set cost about $75 but if you subscribed there were big discounts. I did not buy these but I did pick up the later soft cover Gladstones that included trading cards. What I did purchase from Russ Cochran was his very first Disney offering-an oversized hardcover edition collecting all of Carl Barks paintings. Came out about 1978 and I know that one is a very desired collectible |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by majorjoe23
(Post 10592851)
Wait, why? Because the time this will take? Otherwise, this sounds exactly like what I've been waiting years for.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by dvdjunkie32
(Post 10598927)
Did I miss something? I thought these were Donald Duck reprints, not Uncle Scrooge.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Originally Posted by majorjoe23
(Post 10599005)
In the comments of the story above someone asked if it would be just Donald or Donald and Scrooge and Kim Thompson of Fantagraphics said it would be "All Barks duck stories." But it did seem a bit unclear from the story itself.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Another interview with Gary Groth with a little more info on this project
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=31054 Though Fantagraphics only recently announced that it would also publish the complete Donald Duck strips by Carl Barks, Groth said that in fact the publisher signed Mickey and Donald together, but the Barks collections won't launch until November. "The main reason we're starting the Barks books later is because we have to recolor every single page, which we did not have to do with Mickey Mouse," Groth explained. "And of course, recoloring 200 pages takes time." The Donald Duck collections, too, face similar issues to the Mickey books, with some strips rendered controversial by shifting cultural mores. "These were all done in the 1940s, when there was an entirely different standard about what was racially appropriate. All of the Donald Duck stuff has been reprinted in various forms in the past," Groth said. "I can't guarantee this, as Disney has not yet approved all of the Donald Duck material as they have for the Mickey Mouse material, but I'm hoping to run everything unexpurgated. And there will be a number of essays in the Donald Duck book, also, giving historical as well as aesthetic context." Those essays will include a biography of Barks by Don Ault and essays on each individual story by Ault, Art Fiori, Rich Kreiner, Jerry Gardner, Frank Stajanno, Leonardo Gori and Stefano Priaroni. "We're getting an international mix of people, well-known Barks scholars and American critics and writers who have not previously written about Barks," Groth said. "And we're publishing an essay about Barks by Donald Phelps in the first volume, as well. I consider that to be pretty important. It's going to be about Barks in general and touching on stories in the first volume." |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Pre-order's up
http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disneys-D.../dp/1606994743 Price: $24.99 Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (November 1, 2011) http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Barks FB site:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ca...83627345037675 Fantagraphics blog: http://www.fantagraphics.com/compone...ml/Itemid,113/ Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes - a new look in our promo brochure Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Disney, Coming Attractions, Carl Barks 4 Aug 2011 2:05 AM We produced this "BLAD" promotional brochure to help hype Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks, and we are pleased to present it here for the first time. You'll notice a different cover design for the book than we've shown you before, and you'll see a good sample of the recoloring job done by Rich Tommaso — not to mention, of course, some glimpses of Barks's genius. Click each page for larger images, or download the whole thing as a PDF. http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._6931319_n.jpg http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4497331_n.jpg http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4596026_n.jpg http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._5247216_n.jpg |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
:up:
Hello, We have received new release date information related to the order you placed on August 30, 2011 (Order# XXX). The item(s) listed below will actually ship sooner than we originally expected based on the new release date: Carl Barks "Walt Disney's Donald Duck: "Lost in the Andes" (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library)" Previous estimated arrival date: December 07, 2011 New estimated arrival date: November 16, 2011 |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xxf9tw7vkgA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Been hearing for years what a great storyteller Barks was, and this story was supposed to be one of his finest. I think I may have owned it in a newstand version that Gemstone put out about 15-20 years ago, but if I did, I don't remember it making much of an impression. The Amazon pre-order price isn't bad, so I'll give it (another) shot.
I do have to admit that the Thor omnibus has really spoiled me as far as recoloring goes. Barks work here is so open in terms of flat areas of color, that the judicious use of modeling/gradients etc would have gone a long ways to zipping the work up and making this material simply even more enjoyable in a reading/entertainment capacity. Not talking about going hog wild with lens flares and cheap photoshop gimmicks, but rather using Barks series of oil paintings of the characters as a reference and inspiration to give the color comic pages more form and nuance. The capacity is already built into the artwork- it's a shame to not take advantage of it and the modern color printing techniques available. JMO, of course. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Given how awful the it looked the last time Barks stories were recolored, I'm glad they stuck closer to the original look. I think it worked with Thor, but I don't want to see everything recolored.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
I don't want modern coloring techniques used on vintage comics. Where does it stop? Do you reletter as well? I think the original coloring style is the way to go.
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Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
If we were talking about stripping out something that was already on the boards and replacing it with something else, I would likely agree with you. However, that's not the case at all. What's more, the original coloring was done with an understanding of what it would eventually be printed on.
The color, brightness, and whiteness of newsprint is vastly different than the modern coated stocks these are being reprinted on now. The big reason Thor was such a success was that they ditched a lot of the gaudy and garish fuchsias and yellows, and neon blues that were so emblematic of the coloring of that time period (and done that way because of the newfound liberties in regards to new paper stocks and printing tech), and approached the material in a more sophisticated and nuanced way. Fuchsias gave way to earth tones and pastels that would have been washed out or muddy when printed on the mando paper back then. That kind of coloring would have gone over like a lead balloon back in the 80's, but with a dramatic change in paper stock and printing here, the new coloring was instituted as it was because the new choices here simply serve the story better. That to me is the bottom line. This is commercial art and a commercial product and the point of the coloring is to serve the story, not to be reverential to the limitations and constrictions of a bygone era. There's a big difference between putting out something like the IDW Artist Editions (that reprint the original boards, warts and all) and putting out something like this where the primary intent is to just enjoy the storytelling. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
But not everything is done on glossy paper these days. I'd be surprised if the Barks book isn't on something more matte-like.
For me it's kind of like George Lucas "improving" the special effects in His films. I don't think works need to be updated to fit modern times. Restored, sure. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
introducing SW and Lucas into a discussion is a little like bringing up Hitler and the Nazis in an argument- that's usually the point where everything degenerates so I'm gonna bypass that analogy for the moment.
From the vid David posted, it does look like the Barks book will be on a matte stock- but my comments as to the other aspects of the paper difference still stand. Now here's where I think I'm being consistent and in agreement with contrary views, but I still usually find myself in the minority. I'm 100% for the original color keys being used when the work is being reprinted and collected like DC has done for it's Jack Kirby Omnis and some of it's Classic Library titles. This is a paper that looks and feels like newsprint, but is actually a hell of a lot finer grade of it than anything that was ever used in monthly books 30+ years ago. As someone who started collecting in the early 70s, the paper used in these new books makes for a sublime evocation of the original sense experience. It serves a re-mastered like version of the original 4 color process look, while at the same time being just all around better (no registration errors, no process dots, better density and saturation, etc). Using this grade of paper also yields another benefit to large compendiums in that the weight of the book block is significantly less so there is less stress put upon the spine. I have to wonder just good these 600-1000 page Omni books are going to look after 15-20 years of gravity (I realize the Barks book is not an Omni- just tossing this out there). But many fans seem to be hung up on glossy, or just bright white, paper stocks, equating gloss with quality. Since this is a form of newsprint, it is automatically inferior and therefore not considered a 'quality' product. Which is ironic since this is the only circumstance where I can accept that something close to the original flat, primary heavy coloring is both appropriate and desired. |
Re: Fantagraphics to publish the complete Carl Barks
Well, I just got my copy from Amazon and- I like it. Quite a bit.
They did in fact use a paper stock much closer to the DC books I mentioned above, than the usual coated/uncoated stock we see in these kind of releases. Much whiter/brighter than the paper DC has used, but the coloring doesn't come across anywhere near as garish as I was expecting from looking at the PDF preview. There are also about 20 pages of story notes at the end, interspersed with cropped repros of the original covers. All in all, it looks like a fine production- and the price at Amazon makes it a killer deal. |
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