Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Frozen Gold” is Volume 2 in Fantagraphics’s The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. The book collects comic book stories from September 1943 – January 1945 starring Donald and his nephews: Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It concludes with “Story Notes,” annotations by a team of writers; “Restoration Notes,” explaining the problem and solution regarding “Kite Weather;” “Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks,” a biography by Donald Ault, and a Covers Gallery.
Buy Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Frozen Gold”: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 2In the title story, Donald is tasked with flying penicillin to Alaskans in need. Some bad guys sneak a box on the plane for Donald to unknowingly transport, which contains a map of Klondike Joe’s gold claim. The box is picked up by Foxy Pete, a frequent nemesis of Mickey Mouse. It’s quite the arctic adventure, especially after Donald is left in the wild and ends up snowblind.
Donald is not the greatest of uncles. He’s jealous of his nephews, which leads to him competing against them or trying to one-up them. In “The Hard Loser,” Donald takes full advantage of the Screwball Derby’s rule that competitors “may resort to any crooked means to beat the other fellow,” but he soon discovers cheaters never prosper. The ducks battle on the slopes in “Snow Fun” and then an escalating snow fight between them leads Donald to become “The Duck in the Iron Pants.” During “’Kite Weather,” not only does he want to beat them at kite-flying, but he wants to humiliate them so he dresses up as a girl, which would be harder for the boys to take.
Donald and the boys are “Rival Boatmen” and compete to take millionaire J.P. Diamondtubs (the “P” standing for Pete, making his second appearance in this volume). Donald goes “Camera Crazy” and wants to sell photos to the newspaper like the boys do. His lack of success has funny-in-comics results when he tries to make a story by releasing a bear from the zoo. The boys train to be “High-Wire Daredevils” to compete in an Amateur Night for a cash prize. After they win $5, Donald is inspired and decides to go for big money by waking across Niagara Falls but it turns out “a log tougher than [he] thought.”
Donald declares “Too Many Pets” in their house “unless it’s somethin’ different” from what they have. As fate would have it, the boys meet an organ grinder on the day he gets drafted so they take in his monkey Jingo, who has a weird quirk: he freaks out and throws things at anyone who puts their hands behind their head. They trick Donald into liking the monkey, which has very funny results. A shady character comes along and takes Jingo off frustrated Donald’s hands and trains it to steal plans from a nearby factory for a new bombsight.
At the start of “Good Neighbors,” Donald and Mr. Jones call a truce, but after a foul wind blows a football Donald kicks right through Mr. Jones’s bathroom window, their acrimony reignites with funny results. “The Purloined Putty” is another story featuring Mr. Jones and they fight over a can of putty, generating similar laughs. “Salesman Donald” helps the boys sell egg beaters but the story is really an excuse for the wild and comedic antics between Donald and a local recluse who doesn’t like visitors.
“Three Dirty Little Ducks” seems particularly geared toward the young boys who read the comics as the nephews refuse to bathe, leading to funny high jinks as Donald tries to get them cleaned up. Also geared toward boys is when a bonk on the head turns Donald into “The Mad Chemist.” His injured noggin leads him to invent “duckmite, the most ghastly explosive ever cooked up.” In addition to explosions, Donald tries it as fuel. His car goes 836 mph and he takes a rocket to the moon.
Donald does come out on top some times. After “Farragut the Falcon” causes all sorts of trouble by bringing Donald different animals, like a neighbor’s rooster and a porcupine, to Donald figures out how to best use his feathered friend. In “Donald’s Bay Lot,” he is tricked into buying a shack advertised as a modern seaside home but he devises a plan to make a profit on it.
While this collection does feature stories set in different locations, Barks created more comedic stories than adventure stories during the 16 months “Frozen Gold” covers. He exhibits a good sense of humor and the very funny back-and-forth battles bring to mind Tom and Jerry cartoons and movie comedians like Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges.
Even though the ducks don’t travel as much compared to other volumes in this series, Barks’s artwork remains impressive. The stories set at home and around town have panels just as captivating as when the characters are in the mountains, at the beach, and in outer space. The characters are expressive with their facial expressions and body positions. There’s never any confusion how the characters feel or where they are in the geography of the story. The color restoration delivers strong hues that pop off the page.
