Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “Duck Luck” is Volume 27 in Fantagraphics’s The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. This book collects comic-book stories starring Donald (that originally ran from February-September 1961), stories and one-page gags starring his girlfriend Daisy (December 1960-February 1961), and stories starring his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members of the Junior Woodchucks (April-October 1971). It concludes with a Cover Gallery; “Story Notes,” which are annotations by a team of writers; and “Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks,” a biography by Donald Ault.
Buy Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Duck Luck”: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 27The book opens with “Duck Luck” and longtime readers of Donald comics won’t be surprised that lucky cousin Gladstone Gander makes an appearance while Donald has a funny run of bad luck. In “Sitting High,” Donald and his nephews visits Palm Sands and with all the celebrities around, Donald seeks fame and is willing to try things like flagpole-sitting.
Moving to the Northern Seas, I presume Captain Donald is “The Madcap Mariner,” leading Uncle Scrooge’s ship in the Fisherman’s Gold Cup. They are having a tough time of it…until they open the box Scrooge sent them containing a secret device. After a Daisy Duck page, Donald Duck proves to be a “Terrible Tourist” by trying to woo a couple of senoritas whose boyfriends don’t appreciate his attempts. One sends him away with a special souvenir.
In “Lost Frontier,” Donald tries to prove a TV adventurer the boys like is a fraud. He may be right yet a funny twist occurs when they get stranded and need his help. In “Stranger Than Fiction,” Donald (and Barks) has some fun with Gyro Gearloose’s new invention, a transmitter than can send objects “electronically along beams of cosmic rays.” Things get comical when Donald gets stuck in both ends of the transmitter.
When Donald gets “Boxed-In” after Daisy commands him to take her to a box social, he takes the boys’ savings to pay for it. In response, they pull pranks on his car to keep them from attending, but Barks pulls the final prank on them. Donald puts his detective skills to the test in “Mr. Private Eye” by trying to keep the Beagle Boys from stealing an opal that Uncle Scrooge intends to present to a visiting king. Adding to the difficulty of the task is sunlight passing through the opal can knock people out. It also adds to the hilarity.
The book then presents five stories from Daisy’s Diary that Barks only did the art for. The scriptwriters are all credited as “unknown” and have written sillier stories. “A Sticky Situation” is what Donald finds himself by story’s end when Daisy wants him to sit still while watching the fights. Daisy finds a ring and tries to make Donald jealous in “Ring Leader Round Up.” In “Too Much Help,” Daisy gets a tear-stained letter from Grandma Duck. Daisy goes out to help her, bringing Gladstone for luck, only to learn good intentions are not enough. Daisy is “Ruling the Roost” as Scrooge’s secretary when he goes missing. She makes business decisions contrary to what Scrooge would, but how happy is he going to when he learns she’s spending money? In a boring subdivision, Daisy makes some “Daringly Different” choices for her home but what if her neighbors share her tastes? Ends on a funny note.
After a few one-page gags featuring Daisy, the four Junior Woodchucks stories are next. Barks wrote the stories and did the layouts and the pencils and inks were done by Daan Jippes, so the characters are drawn curvier and with thicker black outlines. The Woodchucks have to be “Saviors of the Lake” when it becomes polluted by Scrooge’s factory. In “Bottled Battlers,” the Woodchucks deal with Magica De Spell who lost her Formula X in the trash they have collected. When Duckburg allows “all citizens free right to gather maple sap” in “Maple Sugar Time (How Sweet It Is),” it’s a funny free-for-all with everyone competing and assuming they are stealing from each other. The book concludes with “Traitor in the Ranks.” The Woodchucks test new recruits and Donald, tired of having to get up early and the house being filled with their medals, sabotages them with funny results.
“Duck Luck” meets fans’ expectations with fun stories of Donald being his own worst enemy and stories of Woodchucks being local do-gooders and those new to Barks are have an enjoyable entryway with this volume. Aside from “The Madcap Mariner,” the scope of the adventure is small, but that makes them no less entertaining. And while he didn’t write them, the inclusion of the Daisy stories are a fun treat. Barks’ art continues here to be of high quality at nearly 20 years of working on Duck comics. The characters look consistent across the year and because of their body language, there’s never a question of their mood. The colors pop off the page in strong hues.
