Review by Frank Plowright

Carl Barks conceived the idea of Uncle Scrooge diving around in his money bin for his opening solo story, and it’s a crowd-pleasing scene whenever it occurs, like opening this album. Here it’s used to re-establish Scrooge’s credentials as a tightwad as we see the tip of his vast fortune before learning of the utterly cheap Christmas gifts he intends giving his nephews. Instead he’s hypnotised into spending his money, although not as Donald Duck intended.

What follows is masterfully illustrated farce as Scrooge decides the ideal is to emulate the Christmas carol ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and supply every last item. Of course, chaos ensues, and Barks looks to be enjoying drawing Scrooge with money stuffed under his hat and falling from his pockets as he tries to buy ten leaping lords and eight milking maids. It’s the sort of madcap anarchy that Barks usually produced for his ten pagers, and the hilarity of the art overcomes a staged story.

Far more memorable is the second story, ‘The Many Faces of Magica de Spell’. Again, it’s the art that really resonates, but on a stronger plot designed to maximise it. Magica once again has her eyes on the first dime Scrooge ever earned, believing it to have magical properties, and her plot this time involves a spray that changes someone’s face into that of the next person they look at. Cue many panels of different creatures and people with Magica’s face. As seen on the sample art, it’s a more disturbing visual effect than you’d imagine.

Scrooge reacts as he often does when his money is under threat, and decides to move it somewhere he considers even safer. It’s rather the contrivance that he discovers a valley of faceless people, but it also opens up the subsequent visual possibilities of fundamental identities being switched. A hilarious selection of facial changes ensues, and if the ending is a little simple, Barks having perhaps boxed himself into a corner, Magica’s appearances are always a treat.

Both stories are now more easily located in the hardcover collection Lost Beneath the Sea.