#the forbidium money bin

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The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library by Fantagraphics began in December of 2011 with Lost in the Andes. Fantagraphics has released two volumes each year. The volumes are chronological, but Fantagraphics decided to begin with some of Carl Barks most widely acclaimed work by starting with volume 7. When the collection is complete it will span the entirety of Carl Barks’s Disney comics published between 1942 and 1966 and consist of 30 volumes. Carl Barks is known for penning some of the greatest Donal Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories, and has been known as “The Good Duck Artist.” Carl Barks was one of three inaugural inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1987.

The Twenty-four Carat Moon

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 22: “The Twenty-four Carat Moon” was released by Fantagraphics in June 2020.

The cover consists of two illustrations from stories in this volume. The top illustration on the cover of this book is from the story The Twenty-four Carat Moon and the bottom illustration is from the story The Forbidium Money Bin.

This edition of the Carl Barks library is 200 pages, and it includes 30 stories that were published between 1958 and 1962. There is a short biography on Carl Bark’s life as well as behind the scenes pictures and stories about each and every story that is included in this edition. It is full of great and interesting information. I am glad that it is included in this volume and every volume of the Carl Barks Disney Library.

Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 22 is available in hardcover and Kindle\Comixology versions. You can find a link to buy this book at the end of this review.

The next new release in this series, Carl Barks Library Vol. 23: Under The Polar Ice, is scheduled to be released in September 2020.

Included Stories

There are 30 Disney Duck stories included in The Twenty-four Carat Moon:

Uncle Scrooge and the Twenty-four Carat Moon

All Choked Up

Moola on the Move

Uncle Scrooge and the Strange Shipwrecks

Thumbs Up

Uncle Scrooge and the Fabulous Tycoon

Bill Wind

The Forbidium Money Bin

The Sleepies

Lights Out

Uncle Scrooge and the Magic Ink

Uncle Scrooge and the Flying Dutchman

Immovable Miser

Kitty-Go-Round

Pyramid Scheme

Return to Pizen Bluff

Poor Loser

Uncle Scrooge Crawls for Cash

Uncle Scrooge and the Money Champ

News from Afar

Rainbow’s End

Uncle Scrooge and His Handy Andy

Uncle Scrooge and the Prize of Pizarro

Turnabout

The Homey Touch

Gyro Goes for a Dip

The House on Cyclone Hill

The Wishing Well

Krankenstein Gyro

Gyro Gearloose and the Firefly Tracker

  The first story in this volume is also it’s titular story, The Twenty-four Carat Moon. This early Sci-Fi story follows an adventure with Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and the boys as they race to claim a second moon made of gold! Readers are treated to a story of preposterous proportions with a moral that everybody can learn from.

All Choked Up is a four-panel story about Uncle Scrooge and his “roll that would choke a horse.”

The single page story, Moola on the Move, sees Scrooge cross paths with the Maharajah.

When Scrooge McDuck learns that another of his ships has gone on the rocks in Doomgurgle Straits, the adventurous tycoon hires his nephew, Donald Duck, to solve the mystery in Uncle Scrooge and the Strange Shipwrecks. Oh, and there might be Beagle Boys in this story!

Uncle Scrooge is determined to get a fair deal from his butcher in Thumbs Up.

Donald Duck worries that his Uncle Scrooge feels small next to the latest tycoon who may be richer than Scrooge McDuck in Uncle Scrooge and the Fabulous Tycoon.

The half a page story in Bill Wind defines Scrooge McDuck.

The Forbidium Money Bin is a story that I had never heard of before reading this volume, but it is one that I will not forget. Another Sci-Fi story that takes us to new worlds (at least it did at the time it was published). Scrooge hires Gyro Gearloose to build an unbreakable money bin, and he succeeds. But things become complicated when Uncle Scrooge looses the combination to open the unbreakable safe. Thankfully, Gyro has a plan and it takes the two on a trip to the moon to find a new material that might allow them to break into the safe!

When Uncle Scrooge has trouble sleeping Donald has some advice that helps the richest duck in the world catch some Zs in The Sleepies.

How is Scrooge McDuck to finish reading his newspaper when the headline reads “Electric Light Rates Go Up!”? Find out in Lights Out.

Sometimes Uncle Scrooge must use extreme measures to collect money loaned to his nephew Donald Duck. In Uncle Scrooge and the Magic Ink Donald is jolted into action with Scrooge’s latest discovery.

Uncle Scrooge and the Flying Dutchman is one of the most iconic stories for the characters of Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and the nephews. I had never read the story before, and I was excited to find it was in this volume. My familiarity of the story stems from Carl Barks painting from the story, and many young Duck Fans may know it from the DuckTales intro.

The Flying Dutchman did not disappoint. It is a grand adventure story where the ducks head off in search of ship that went missing in 1659. What they find was startling, and they must piece together what is happening before they are lost near Antarctica!

Immovable Miser is another single page story of how Uncle Scrooge gets a free downtown.

Did you know Uncle Scrooge has a cat named Clementine!? He did in Kitty-Go-Round.

Pyramid Scheme is another grand adventure following the McDuck/Duck family as they travel to Egypt in search of a new business adventure for Uncle Scrooge. When they find an undiscovered pyramid his dreams of unearthed riches drives him to spend a fortune unearthing the tomb’s treasure.

Fans of Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck may recognize the location referenced in the title, Return to Pizen Bluff. In The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff Scrooge is between adventures outside of the USA when he returns looking for fortune. He finds himself in Pizen Bluff, AZ. Like most of Rosa’s stories the setting of that story is a reference to one of Barks’s stories. Return to Pizen Bluff has Scrooge and family revisting the site of his old mine in Pizen Bluff.

Poor Loser and Uncle Scrooge Crawls for Cash are both short stories that you may enjoy.

Let’s talk about Uncle Scrooge and the Money Champ. Glomgold, Glomgold, Glomgold! Money Champ is Barks’s second story to feature Flintheart Glomgold as the villain. Flinty comes into the story swinging (literally, he and Scrooge “go toe to toe” in this one), and challenges Scrooge to… gasp! A CONTEST TO DECIDE WHO IS THE RICHEST DUCK IN THE WORLD!? That’s right, here you have it, a story that would influence many future Uncle Scrooge stories. Don’t miss Money Champ!

News from Afar and Rainbow’s End are four-frame stories that perfectly capture the essence of Scrooge McDuck.

Uncle Scrooge and His Handy Andy is not the first mariner adventure for the ducks int his volume, but it might have made me giggle the hardest. Join Scrooge McDuck and his family as they sail in the Duckburg-Bahamalulu Race!

In Uncle Scrooge and the Prize of Pizarro Scrooge and his family follow clues on another globe-trotting adventure that leads them to discover lost Incan gold. What our adventurers do not know is that someone may still be guarding that gold.

In Turnabout Scrooge is being followed… and in The Homey Touch he decides to “beautify” his home.

The last five stories in this volume are Gyro Gearloose stories. Barks is best known for his Donald Duck stories and for creating Scrooge McDuck, but he also created Gyro Gearloose. Gyro Goes for a Dip, The House on Cyclone Hill, The Wishing Well, Krankenstein Gyro, Gyro Gearloose and the Firefly Tracker all feature Gyro as he tinkers away with his latest inventions. You know what should be expected from these stories, and they do not disappoint. If you are a Gyro Gearloose fan we know you will love the way this volume ends.

  Final Thoughts

I am a little behind on these volumes and had to skip ahead to read volume 22 for this review. I am glad I did. The early Sci-fi, the globe traveling adventures, and more Barks Flintheart Glomgold made this volume a joy to read. These collections are the best way for Duck Fans to enjoy the stories that have inspired well-written stories for decades. Barks was a gifted writer and even the four-panel stories provide pages worth of insight into Scrooge McDuck.

Once you read through the commentary on some of the stories you will find history on Carl Barks written by Donald Ault. If you are not familiar with the creator it is a nice introduction to his career.

I know in these reviews Steven likes to point out how much it would cost to collect all of these books on your own, and that Fantagraphics’ collections are a more economical way of owning these stories. This is true and you would be hard-pressed to find these stories in good condition.

We are grateful for Fantagraphics willingness to provide us with a copy of this volume for review. Their commitment to producing quality collections of this iconic library is commendable.

If you are collecting the Carl Barks Disney Library, you probably already own this volume. If you have not been collecting the library I hope that this review has convinced you that you should start with this volume. It is well worth the retail price tag. I own several volumes produced by Fantagraphics and I am always stunned by how gorgeous they are in person.

You can order the book at the following links:

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 22: The Twenty-four Carat Moon

*By purchasing from Amazon.com through this link above, you are supporting DuckTalks at no additional cost to yourself!

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 22: "The Twenty-four Carat Moon" Review! @Fantagraphics #DuckMerch #DuckHistory #TheFlyingDutchman #Read The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library by Fantagraphics began in December of 2011 with