Here's a great example of some beautiful artwork getting appropriated, altered and re-utilized in a similar but different fashion. Sam Savitt painted a dynamic image of the Lone Ranger and Silver here, and while the Earth tones are not bad, the original still has an excitement from the more vivid colors the revision lacks.
Since the Redmask was a rip-off of the Ranger to start with, it seems natural enough that Bill Black and his crew would make use of Ranger artwork, but it seems a tad cheesy.
Here's a treat. This is apparently Savitt's brother Al posing for the original Lone Ranger cover art. Here is where I stumbled across that photo with a lot more on Savitt along with lots of his great cover artwork and more behind-the-scenes stuff.
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I love that Ranger cover...one point I'd like to mention is...Bill employs artists to do covers for his reprint comics...so using a pc program to recolor a classic cover IS cheesie. BUT if one of his guys re-drew a rendition/recreation it would be an honorable thing. But to appropriate the image and touch it up like this...I aint really too hot on the idea.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how AC even has the rights to this cover. I know that Black and company have long had the AE stuff and they've done some incredible things with it, but I'd imagine the Dell stuff like this is still under license or something. Is it not?
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hmm good question. BUT?...is Lone Ranger public domain? Is this art copyrighted specifically. Can someone alter a piece of art like this enough to use it legally without certaibn permissions?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that since Black is in the business of reprinting western comic works...reprinting the cover and changing around the colors should be no mean feat to get away with. It's kind of like using the Frazetta or Dick Ayers covers for the Haunted Horseman...we know he that is right?
But I'd guess he bought the rights to those Frazetta and Ayers covers outright when he got the overall rights to ME stuff way back when. I wouldn't imagine this Dell stuff was included, and in fact I'd guess that the rights might rest with Dark Horse now since they are doing lots of Dell/Gold Key reprints. The Ranger might be sliced out of that though and have a separate arrangement. I don't think the Ranger is public domain yet, at least not in all respects. Just curious about it.
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For more information on Sam Savitt and his Dell covers check out my article in issue #4 of ILLUSTRATION magazine. That's where the photo of Al Savitt comes from.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fjxedu.gov.cn:8010/ebook/电子图书/009/POIUYTREWQ110/H-语言、文字/8716611127257881.pdf