Walt Disney's Donald Duck "Balloonatics" Vol. 25: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library (WALT DISNEY DONALD DUCK HC)

The worst of these collections, to date. If this is what's ahead, I won't buy any more. Not a lot of Barks' Duck stuff, but tons of Gyro Gearloose and Granma Duck stories, and two of the latter are really awful. Many drawn by the Dutch artist. Save your money! I've bought almost all of the previous ones, but, I'm returning this one. Not worth $5.00 even.

It’s interesting that Fantagraphics chose “Balloonatics” as the title story in this collection, but I guess it’s because there really isn’t a signature story. In fact, there are TWO balloon themed stories. Long gone are the 20+ page adventure stories with all the Donald Duck stories here being 10 pages. All of the stories are good or better, but nothing really stood out to me. Rocks to Riches had one of the sloppiest plots I’ve seen from Barks. The funniest visual is from The Dog Sitter when Donald and the boys glue mattress stuffing and an old mop head on a dog.Next, we have four 8-page Grandma Duck stories. I’m not much of a fan of Grandma Duck because she’s a very dull character. I’ve enjoyed seeing other characters stay at her farm because they stories tend to be throwbacks to a bygone, simpler time, but that’s not what these stories play up. After reading the stories I checked the author and was unsurprised to see that they were not written by Carl Barks. In one story Gladstone Gander visits the farm to train with Grandma’s bull in order to become a bull fighter. He figures his luck will allow him to avoid any damage. However, after he leaves, the bull he enraged remains in a fury. The plot is strange, and the story is very un-Barksian. I didn’t love these four stories and they’re included because Barks did the penciling.Finally, we close with five Junior Woodchuck stories that were released between 2002 and 2008, years after Carl Barks passed away. Barks did the scripts and layouts with the pencils and inks done by Daan Jippes. Jippes is a more than suitable replacement for Barks with some really exceptional artwork. These stories may have been my favorite of the volume even though they were released posthumously. I have a soft spot for Junior Woodchuck tales.There are a lot of my favorite elements of Carl Barks stories that I feel have been lost. I like the mixture of longer adventure stories and 1-page gags, but there are none of those this time. We also don’t get any holiday themed stories, which I really enjoy. The Grandma Duck stories were pretty weak but besides that it’s a solid, if unremarkable collection of stories. When I say unremarkable, I’m judging it on the Barks scale which is much higher. This is probably the closest I’ve come to giving out four stars for one of these books, but I still think it’s mostly five-star material.

This is a nice collection of works of Carl Barks (along with few other Duck masters). There is variety in this collection - Donald Duck stories with occasional appearances of Daisy, Uncle Scrooge, Gladstone, Beagle Boys. There are exclusive stories from Grandma Duck's farm mayhems and the newest addition are the Junior Woodchuck adventures. The Barks stories themselves are not as long and sustained as some of the earlier adventures, but nevertheless they never fail to make you laugh. "Froggy Farmer" is a classic slapstick comedy, "Ballloonatics" again brings out the satirical side of Bark's story telling - army planes setting off to destory a mammoth balloon and guess with what - a dart ! ONe fo the rare instances when Gladstone's luck backfires on him. Another rare instance when Donald and nephews have a laugh over Uncle Scrooge.Overall this volume is more enjoyable than some of the previous versions. Fantagraphics is doing a great job in restorign and collecting these in durable hardbound volumes, which can be treasured for long time.

Have purchased this series from the beginning, always buying as they are released. In spite of that, the books always have a used look about them and have been dropped (like bent corners).

I appreciate this series of volumes for their accuracy, comments, and excellent use of color. As a Carl Barks fan, I think this edition is the best published so far and I intend to collect all the volumes in this series. Unfortunately, only two volumes are published per year by Fantagraphics publisher, so we have to wait another 4-5 years before seeing its completion. I got the book for myself (aged 73!).

I enjoyed reading all these "duck family" stories in the individual comics while growing up. They really sparked my enjoyment of reading, and all five of my children enjoy them too. It is nice to have these Carl Barks stories collected like this. (It was a birthday present for my youngest son, now 22!)

a wonderful addition from a renowned storyteller.

excellent

compared to other volumes of this series, this one contains a lot of "Junior Woodchucks" and newer stories, not all 100% Carl Barks. Quality of those stories not as good as the "pure" ones.Some of the stories had been "first published" after Barks' death, and the drawings are not his … I hope the further editions will go back to just consider "BARKS" stories, "pure Barks" ;-)

Si tratta del volume che conclude la serie completa di Carl Barks. Un “must” piacevole per gli appassionati, altrimenti è consigliabile rivolgersi ai primi volumi, tutti meritevoli di cinque stelle. Amazon impeccabile.