Above and below left: Jippes’ redrawing of the splash panel from “Hound of the Moaning Hills,” compared with Kay Wright’s original version.

The Disney Comics editorial staff at Gemstone provided Scoop with, well, the scoop on some of the content of the first issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories this week. So naturally, we simply had to share...

Disney legend and uncontested fan favorite, Carl Barks, will continue to be featured in the books, not only in the form of classic reprints of his stories, but as new European stories drawn by modern Duck master and Barks scholar, Daan Jippes.

The stories star Huey, Dewey and Louie as the Junior Woodchucks and were written by Barks - after his retirement - for then-Disney publisher Western Publishing circa late-sixties to early-seventies. Barks quipped to a fan in 1972: "Yes, I'm still doing a few scripts for Gold Key [Western Publishing], doggone it! The editor [Chase Craig] seems so desperate for scripts that I crank up my tired brain and do one now and then for the Huey, Dewey, and Louie: Junior Woodchucks magazine."

Barks scripted 24 Junior Woodchucks tales in all, which originally appeared in HDLJW 6-17, 19-23, and 25 (1969 - 1974) and all stories were drawn by Western Publishing staffers, like Tony Strobl and Kay Wright. In his inimitable way, Barks chose to provide 9" X 12" penciled page breakdowns with his scripts, for Wright and others to utilize in composing their art. But Barks aficionados have always regarded that art as inferior to that of the "master," finding it stiff and awkward by comparison.

Now Jippes has undertaken to return to Barks' original pencil layouts and recreate these stories in a Barkslike style. Truly protean in his abilities, Jippes is well-known as one of the foremost Disney Duck artists in the world today, and is renowned not only for his own unique style, but for his talent for capturing the styles of both Walt Kelly and Carl Barks, as well. His retelling of the Junior Woodchuck fables does true honor to the memory of Barks.

Jippes' ongoing project was begun some years ago and some of his early work was reproduced toward the end of the Gladstone run of comics. Now Gemstone has taken up the mantle and will print the remaining work Jippes has done to date, and will continue to do so into the future, until the project is complete.

"New Zoo Brews Ado" (originally from HDLJW 20) will appear in the premiere issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, number 634. "Hound of the Moaning Hills" (HDLJW 12) will be in WDC&S 635, with more to come.

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Above and below left: Jippes’ redrawing of the splash panel from “Hound of the Moaning Hills,” compared with Kay Wright’s original version.				Above and below left: Jippes’ version of the “New Zoo Brews Ado” splash panel is quite faithful to layout and feel of Barks’ original pencil rough.