Scrooge McDuck is now such a fixture in the Disney universe that fewremember Carl Barks had been writing and drawing Donald Duck stories for half adecade before he cooked up the miserly multiplujillionaire for what he thoughtwould be a one-time Christmas yarn involving Donald, the nephews, Scrooge in abearskin, and (inevitably) a couple of real bears. Christmas on Bear Mountain isone of Bark's funniest holiday stories and a true landmark in comics history,and offers a fascinating look at a rough-edged, genuinely nasty character whomBarks would soon soften... Scrooge aside, there's plenty of fun to be had inthis volume. In Volcano Valley Donald and the Nephews end up stuck in Volcania,a south-of-the-border country inhabited by sombrero-wearing, siesta-addictedVolcanians. Other long-form adventures include the self-explanatory AdventureDown Under, as well as one of Bark's most atmospheric thrillers, the WestIndies-based Ghost of the Grotto, which includes a lovely night-time sequencedrawn in Bark's trademark silhouettes and a giantoctopus- vs.-hot-chili-peppersthrowdown that climaxes in an explosive splash panel. The book is rounded offwith seven of Bark's hilarious 10-pagers, and as with the previous volumes, WaltDisney's Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain has been scanned from crispvintage art and meticulously colored to match the original printing's warm,simple hues, and features abundant critical and historical notes penned by someof duckdom's finest experts. We are also offering a boxed set that combines thenewWalt Disney's Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain with the 2012 releaseWalt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown for a greatChristmas-themed box set.