Carl Barks wrote and drew amazing comics for decades without ever getting credit, since they were “Walt Disney” comics and Disney’s name was the only one listed, even though he had nothing to do with their creation, and probably never even read many of them. Barks’ identity would later be revealed, but while he was making these comics, he came to be known simply as “the good duck artist.”

He created Uncle Scrooge and basically re-created Donald Duck and his nephews by making them fully-formed characters that they never even came close to in the animated shorts they appeared in. He put them in all kinds of dangerous situations, and a lot of those adventures were later re-purposed for the TV series DuckTales (although they had to ditch Donald in the pilot, since his unintelligible voice wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of dialogue he has in the average Barks comic.)

Barks’ comics are funny and exciting and now Fantagraphics is officially printing his entire body of work (which he didn’t even begin until he was over 40) in GORGEOUS and affordable hardcover editions. I bought the first one today. By the time they are done printing his complete works, I will be so old it’s almost hard to believe I will still care about anything at all. 

But for today, this book makes me happy.