You need a bevy of bad guys to satisfy an adventure hero who has been around for nearly 75 years. Uncle Scrooge is just such an adventure hero. Most often given over to tales of treasure hunting abroad, Scrooge is no stranger to other explorers, mystical denizens, and rotund subterranean rowdies; he is likewise no stranger to domestic squabbles striking at the heart of his Money Bin in Duckburg.
Celebrating those rogues this week is A Little Something Special and Other Tales of Fiendish Foes, a massive hardcover collection from Fantagraphics. Collecting 15 long adventure stories over nearly 350 pages, the book also celebrates the work of dozens of cartoonists and creators to have worked on the characters worldwide since Carl Barks’ invention of Uncle Scrooge in 1952.
The heavy-hitters are here: The Beagle Boys, whose first appearance in the Carl Barks strip “Terror of the Beagle Boys” is limited to a sight-gag in the strip’s final panel; the preceding pages are given over to Scrooge and Donald worrying about the Beagle Boys, whose reputation precedes them. The Beagles are a repeat engagement and appear in stories throughout the book.
Fantagraphics
Also on board is beloved sorceress Magica De Spell, who makes a fantastic appearance in the Don Rosa-penned “A Matter of Some Gravity”, which sees Rosa playing with unconventional panel framing as Donald and Scrooge find their centers of gravity radically altered by Magica’s magics. It’s a visually adventurous story, one of the true highlights of the collection.
In “The Second-Richest Duck” (Barks), we see the introduction to Flintheart Glomgold, one of Scrooge’s fiscal villains. The story sees the two curmudgeons locked in a race to discover who has more: more mines, more money, more scrounged-and-saved string.
These big three come together in the titular “A Little Something Special” by Don Rosa. Rosa, who began his duck career as a sort of professional fanboy, pulls the ultimate comic book team-up: what if they all met?
Fantagraphics
But the book doesn’t waste all its pages on the big three baddies: it also contains what might be seen as less flamboyant, more benign baddies (or, at least, characters less familiar to us than the DuckTales inclusions) like Chisel McSue, whose schemes in “The Horseradish Treasure” is decidedly paperwork-based, or hapless Jubal Pomp, a sort of aspiring tycoon who gets swept up by Scrooge’s romantic nuisance, Brigitta MacBridge in “Lights Fantastic”.
Meanwhile, Danish cartoonists crafted the outerspace menance, Tachyon Farflung, from the planet Melbar. Green, apelike, and certainly flamboyant, Tachyon attempts – what else – a heist from the Money Bin in “The Terror of Outer Space” by Unn Printz-Påhlson, Stefan Printz-Påhlson, and Victor “Vicar” Arriagada Rios. The strip sees our heroes – and our villain – chased by a giant space monster in outer space.
A Little Something Special is a massive treasure-trove of wild adventures, each of them truly great in terms not only of action, but in inventiveness and craftsmanship. Disney Comics are often masterworks of cartooning, and the stories collected here all exemplify that reputation. It’s a delight to see such loving dedication to the characters, right down to each story’s insightful and academic introductions.
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