Last week we told you about Daan Jippes efforts to recreate, in Carl Barks' style, some of the classic Junior Woodchucks stories that were drawn by various Western Publishing staffers in the 1960s and 1970s, and of Gemstone's plans to publish those stories.

This week, Scoop has learned that Gemstone also intends to print a small number of original Barks-plotted stories that have come to light. Longtime Barks scholar Geoffrey Blum has taken on the task of scripting three story ideas that Barks never turned into full-blown tales. Blum was contracted to do the work by Danish Disney licensee, Egmont Publishing.

The first, “Dime and Dime Again,” is a two-part adventure that will be serialized over Uncle Scrooge 321 (shipping in August 2003) and 322 (shipping in September). European artists Carlos Mota and Cleber Salles draw the story.

Massimo Fecchi has drawn the second story, “Powerplay on Killmotor Hill,” and Daan Jippes will draw the third, “Race for the Golden Apples.” The former is taken from a synopsis for a Scrooge cartoon that Barks wrote in 1955; the latter from Barks' recollections of a lost script. Both will be published by Gemstone as they become available.