Barks' drew an art-only cover for "Walt Disney Comics and Stories" No. 110,
but it was rejected by his editor. The art is lost, but a very small print can
be seen of it as part of an advertisement distributed in the autumn of 1949,
soliciting Christmas gift subscriptions to the magazine. The ad shows a
schoolroom, with Donald as teacher behind the desk. One nephew holds up for
Donald's astonished inspection a copy of the comic book; and there, preserved on
the cover, is Barks' rejected drawing. The cover shows Daisy Duck, surprised in
the middle of sweeping her front walk, to see Huey, Dewey, and Louie curling a
dog's fur with her home wave set.
When Walt Kelly redrew this gag for the cover of issue No. 111, he substituted Donald for Daisy; so it seems likely that Barks' version was rejected because he did not show the magazine's major character. In Kelly's drawing all the figures are larger, and a fence emphasizes Donald's reaction to the prank. The substitution of Donald for Daisy dilutes the punch of Barks' gag, though, because Daisy whirls in shock at seeing the boys monkeying with her curling set, while Donald simply peers over the fence, indulgently amused at his nephews' tomfoolery. Surprisingly, five issues later, the cover for May, 1950 - drawn by Kelly - depicted only the nephews and not Donald!
When the ad appeared on the inside back cover of issue No. 113 and the outside back cover of issue No. 114, Western substituted the cover drawing from No. 113, perhaps to make the ad more timely or perhaps to delete it as a drawing that had never been properly published.
The advertisement with the unpublished issue No. 110 cover is reprinted in Barrier's "Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book" and in "The Carl Barks Library - Set VIII".
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