Walt Disney's Vacation Parade #3

by Carl Barks, Sarah Kinney, Gil Turner

Short stories and long adventures starring Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Pluto and other Disney characters. In Carl Barks' feature-length classic "Terror of the River," Donald and the boys buy a houseboat and venture down the Ohio River... only to run into trouble with the diabolical "Scarer" and his giant mechanical sea serpent. "Goofy Gives His All" when he joins the Global Helping Hands, an aid corps out to rebuild a storm-wracked island nation. Alas, what Goofy thinks is his destination is really a vacation campground. Pluto and Grandma Duck star in "The Not-So-Still Life," in which the serenity of Grandma's farm is disrupted by a traveling artist! "Pop's Duck Hunt" stars the Big Bad Wolf, out to bag himself some delicious mallards but invariably collecting only bumps and bruises. The legendary 1965 adventure "Fall Guy" makes its first North American appearance here! It tells of Fethry Duck's tireless efforts to go over Niagara Falls, and Donald's tireless efforts to stop him. Somehow Donald always ends up going over the falls instead... Finally the feature-length "Sandgate" takes Mickey and Goofy out to sand dune country, where they travel under the surface of the earth to meet a mysterious realm of sand beings!

80 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2006

About the author

Carl Barks was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He worked anonymously until late in his career; fans dubbed him "The Duck Man" and "The Good Duck Artist". In 1987, Barks was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
Barks worked for the Disney Studio and Western Publishing where he created Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), The Junior Woodchucks (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Cornelius Coot (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961).
He has been named by animation historian Leonard Maltin as "the most popular and widely read artist-writer in the world". Will Eisner called him "the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books." Beginning especially in the 1980s, Barks' artistic contributions would be a primary source for animated adaptations such as DuckTales and its 2017 remake.

Reviews

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another mixed bag of Disney comics, this one attains a 4-star rating largely because it contains The Crocodile Collector, a Duck family epic by Don Rosa. This is vintage stuff, perfectly paced and with the right blend of adventure and comedy. Don Rosa has learned well from Carl Barks, and in some cases such as this he easily equals his master.

Trial And Error is a tedious tale of Mickey Mouse facing trial in the Kafkaesque setting of Brutopia. It turns out to be a plot by one of his recurring nemeses, but Slyvester Shyster is nowhere near as compelling a villain as The Blot, Idjit the Midget or the old un-trusty Black Pete and this story is a bit of a drag.

Bargain Basement is a classic bit of business built around Donald Duck's foolhardy quest for a bargain - light and amusing and a little gross in a good way.

Stand-In Sitter has Hewey, Louie and Dewey in Home Alone mode, and it isn't my favourite kind of story. The ever-resourceful Junior Woodchucks deserve better stories than this.

Donald Learns The Ropes is a light Carl Barks romp with Donald trying to prove himself as a cowpoke against attractive yet economically drawn Wild West backgrounds.

The Metal Detector loses points for not giving a convincing reason why Uncle Scrooge is down in the dumps. It's a just a sketched-in premise for a series of mishaps and that's just lazy storytelling.

Road To Trouble is just awful. It's a saccharine-sweet story of Minne Mouse and Mickey's bucolic buddy Horace bonding despite Minnie's initial bitchiness. I kept getting a Brokeback Mountain vibe between Horace and Mickey, and while that's not a bad plot idea, it was clearly the product of inept storytelling rather than any deep subversive intent.

The Incredible Duck isn't awful, and is even based on a classic trope - Donald's anger issues - but too many recent Disney comics get by on referential premises and this tale of Donald as The Hulk follows suit. Any energy in the story is derived from the backhistory of Donald as a ragin Duck and the devices borrowed from The Hulk stories.

In fact, a lot of the stories were even weaker than the ones in Number 3, but an exceptionally good showing by The Good Artist and his disciple made this a great read overall.