I was scanning the new covers over at the Grand Comic Book Database as I'm wont to do and I saw the cover of Bonga above. I don't anything about this comic, and there were no details at GCD on it. Just the cover.
It seems to be a King Kong knockoff clearly enough. But it's the girl in Bonga's giant mitt that got my attention. I've seen that girl before I thought. And I have.
She's a swipe from the late great Frank Frazetta's King Kong painting. There are two versions of this classic image, a 1979 one featuring a Kong who is much more bestial.
And a another earlier version featuring a much cuddlier (relatively speaking of course) Kong.
It's this latter painting that was used on the King Kong paperback which came out in the 70's about the time of the DeLaurentis remake.
But in both versions, the blonde is pretty much the same, and it's this blonde bombshell who shows up on the Bonga cover.
She also is the template for Frazetta's Kong spoof cover for Eerie magazine.
All fantastic images.
Now I have no idea what the contents of this Norwegian comic are. I suspect it's a reprint of Gold Key's King Kong adaptation.
But that's just speculation and is undercut by the fact the same company published a version of that Gold Key story the next year.
Rip Off
Reminds me of that quote from Wally Wood: ‘Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.’
ReplyDeleteNice detective work here.
my interest is also spiked about this comic...perhaps it's even a KONGA reprint?
ReplyDeletelet us know if you find anything more about this book.
With a character as reproduced as King Kong, I think it is inevitable that some artists rip from previous imagery. This does not excuse it, obviously...
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Steven G. Willis
XOWComics.com
The different versions of the Frazetta painting make me wonder. He used to work for days on a painting for a publisher then take it in for the okay. He's say he had a few details to work out, then take it home and copy the original. He'd give the copy to the publisher and keep the original. But it's not just this image which has been liberally borrowed from Frazetta. If you are familiar with his body of work you'll come across a lot of other artist's work who obviously used Frazetta's paintings as reference.
ReplyDelete