"Bottled Battlers"

 So here we have another Barks script given life by others.  There's the usual rigamarole with the art: the story was originally drawn by Tony Strobl, but then Daan Jippes swooped in and redid it.  I'm always a bit skeptical about these redraws, and never more so here: there's no cut art to be restored, and Strobl puts in pretty solid work.  I don't have any real complaint about Jippes's art either, but I dunno: regardless of their relative levels of talent, Barks and Strobl came from the same cultural milieu, so to me, his art just seems to fit the story better than Jippes', even if the latter is a more technically proficient artist.

...okay, actually, since I might have a few non-regular readers, I'll explain for the total layperson: Carl Barks was the best Disney artist, and certainly the most prominent.  He retired in 1967, but after his retirement he was convinced to come back to write scripts for other artists to draw, of which he did several dozen.  The original artwork for most of these was pretty indifferent (although I have a soft spot for some of the artists in question, particularly Tony Strobl), which is why most or all of them were redrawn by the Dutch artist Daan Jippes in the '00s.  There; that probably covers that.

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"Pawns of the Loup Garou"

This isn't strictly speaking a Halloween story, but it feels appropriately seasonal, does it not?  I say yes, you say no, but you may change your mind.

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"A Day in a Duck's Life"

I may in the past have expressed indifference about Daan Jippes' Barks re-draws, but I recently read the new version of "A Day in a Duck's Life" (Barks' last DD story, I believe, from 1971) as recently published in Boom's WDC716, and, well...I read it side-by-side with the original, Kay Wright version (as reprinted in WDC632), and I can't deny it: the difference is pretty stunning. The story itself may be one of Barks' weakest efforts, but the new art helps it immensely, making it far more fun to read than it really has any right to be.
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"70th Heaven"

"70th Heaven" is the marquee story from WDC715, as you likely all know. It was originally published in the Netherlands in 1992 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Dutch DD comics. However, the dialogue in the US edition has been rejiggered to recognize the seventieth anniversary of Walt Disney's Comics [and Stories]. Well, technically, the seventy-first, but hey, you know…close enough. It was originally scheduled to appear in Gemstone's never-published WDC700, as "700th Heaven." I do like the fact that they were able to maintain the "seven" business.
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"An Easter Basketcase"

I like Daan Jippes; I really do. I haven't read him as comprehensively as I have some duckfoax, but I've certainly enjoyed a lot of his material, and his redrawings of Barks' Junior Woodchuck scripts are good, even if I'm still not totally sold on the need for their existence.
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