Plot
Ten stories in this book, mostly unavailable since their original printings in comic books, are collected here together for the first time, along with a few other gems. Also included are several virtually unknown works by Barks which have not previously been collected anywhere. Four of the stories in this book appear in restored versions which are intended to showcase them as Barks originally intended for them to be seen. All of the stories are sourced from high quality masters except for three for which there are no known surviving masters. As collected in this book, newly colored and sourced from original masters, the stories look much better in this book than in previous printings. The 26 Barney Bear and Benny Burro stories, the bulk of Barks' non-Disney work, are in print in the USA in another book, The Carl Barks Big Book of Barney Bear; however, unfortunately, original masters were not used for their reproduction. The Unavailable Carl Barks also includes a comprehensive index to all of Carl Barks' non-Disney comics, and other introductory, historical, and background articles, totaling about 40 pages. Every story that Carl Barks wrote or drew featuring Disney characters during his career as a comic book creator has been reprinted, often many times, in comic books and albums and books. The Disney work is the most important of Barks' work, but Barks also wrote and/or drew 36 other comic book stories featuring non-Disney characters between 1943 and 1953; these have been less-well served in reprinting and are much less well-known. They are generally comparable in quality to the average of the Donald Duck work he was doing at the same time. A few of them are quite creative and delightful, and stand well with the best short story work he was doing at the time. Most of them have been out-of-print since their publication decades ago in comic books. This book is intended to remedy that situation.