"Carl Barks - The Complete Works"

[tb]

Since I have not seen this described elsewhere, I wanted to post a few words about the most amazing comics publication I have ever seen. "Carl Barks - The Complete Works" is unfortunately only published in a few European countries (Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, ...?) and not scheduled for release in the United States. This is a very sad since it is without a doubt the most beautiful and exquisite printing of Barks' stories ever undertaken.

 

Just like Another Rainbow's "Carl Barks Library" from the 1980s, the collection is divided into 30 volumes which are published 3 at a time. The new set, however, is much nicer, in full color (CBL was in b/w), and has tonnes of interesting articles and background material. Another great idea is that the stories are ordered based on their publication date. For example, the 10-pager from WDC&S 31 follows the "Pirate Gold" story from Four Color 9 (see scan of partial Vol. I contents below). The first set contains volumes I, XI, and XXI and thus has stories from the early 40s, 50s, and the 60s. In contrast, CBL had all the Four Color stories in Volume I and II, Uncle Scrooge in Vol. 3 etc. As a result, very few collectors ended up buying the last few sets of CBL which only contained bland, lower quality stories from the 1960s.

 

The price is around $250 for each of the 10 sets for a total price of around $2,500. The first set was published in August and the next is scheduled for December.

 

I scanned in a few pictures to give other Barks fans around the world a glimpse of this gorgeous publication. These are from the Danish edition (which has print run of 1,800 copies sold through subscription). The quality is so breathtaking that I sincerely hope Steve Geppi is working on getting a US license.

 

[Bronty]

Looks very nice indeed.

[*paull*]

Presentation looks really nice, but what I see of the computer coloring here is dreadful.

[bobpfef]

Those look pretty nice. I like how there are ordering the comics in publication order. I don't think we will ever see those in the US though. The European duck market is much more robust then the US side. Gemstone can barely sell 6000 copies of US and WDCS here. Plus the Barks stuff has been reprinted so often, I think there is a limit to the number of times collectors are going to keep buying the same stories over and over.

 

What I really wish is there would be someting like that with Rosa duck stories.