The Carl Barks comic collection gets better with each new volume, or it just keeps the level in such a way that duck adventures are not boring. I think the change in release has turned out for good, because now we get completely different comics than at the beginning of the collection. Different stories, drawings, details, as well as the attractiveness of the form of attracting the reader.
Title story
Lost in the Andes is really one of the few stories that has been incredibly refined in every detail and so far practically unknown to Polish readers (unless through its continuation Return to the Plain of Horrors).Donald and nephews have an important mission that is not on the orders of Scrooge McDuck to find square eggs. The trail is leading them to the Andes. I will not reveal more, but I would like to add that the comic ends quite strangely. What’s the most interesting thing in history? Styling the native language of the Andean land into a rural dialect, which in the American version takes the form of the dialect of the former confederate states. In Poland, this procedure could be achieved only by giving a rural dialect from our home yard, however, in Norway a completely different procedure was used, which caused quite a scandal, which we can read in the preface.
What is also noteworthy are the various funny jokes based on the descriptions of the objects, the stereotyping of academic professors and the insubordination of little ducklings. Isn’t it strange? Normally ducklings are polite, but here they are not. I am also pleased that the inhabitants of Peru, sometimes addressing the duck family with the help of Spanish interjections. This gives quite an element of realism. Maybe I would not agree with one word, but it results from my daily work with the Spanish language and too much detail.
Christmas atmosphere
It is wonderful that the volume was released before Christmas, and a large part of the story relates to the Christmas period and holidays. Among them we will find the story of the Golden Christmas Tree, which by mixing Halloween and December world elements, tries to tell us what is important in the celebration of December 24 and 25. There will also be a lot of cartoon gags by the witch (confusingly similar to Snow White’s stepmother) and Donald and his goofy wishes to heal his complexes. It is true that the fearful drake is up to the task and tries to save his nephews, and at the same time, a bit clumsily, a bit heroically, he fights black magic.
In the following stories, we can see the duck family getting ready for Christmas, testing Santa’s toys (who is not human, like most of the inhabitants of the duck universe), or having to deal with winter relaxation. The best gag that appears in Beware the Ranger is the piece with the thought light bulb.
This is not the end, however
In the volume I review, we can also find something from the history of the Wild West (and the modern one, from the 1940s), where Donald shows both his cleverness from the movies and stupidity. Numerous parodies of Western titles and shooting on comic pages indicate that these stories are more for mature readers (I think the series is aimed at them after all, because it is based on a sentiment to the Donald Duck magazine , which shone triumphs in the 90s) than children.
The funniest story of Barks hailed is the story of how excess knowledge can drive you insane, both before and after its acquisition, and other interesting stories that inspired Don Rosa. The first is Super-Kuper , which clearly shows us how adult Americans in the 1940s and 1950s viewed superheroes. Another one is Hard Come, Easy Go, in which Donald uses a truly engineering plan to extract the wreckage using ping-pong balls.
Many thoughts and many nice moments
I would definitely like to share a larger dose of my thoughts, however I do not remember many of them anymore, and I can assure you that there have been plenty of them while reading this next extraordinary volume. One thing that comes to my mind at the end is the fact that it is a huge neglect by most reviewers to make every article evaluating this collection shallow down to repeating a lot of generalities and adding a few sentences (two to ten) about the stories we find. It’s a real pity, because this collection asks for a deeper analysis, which is why I encourage you to read the next adventures of ducks in Barksowy Kaczgród. Sometimes I myself want to slow down the pace of reading comics and enjoy the stories.
