Buck Rogers was enormously successful on the comics page and made his way into the comic books via Famous Funnies which reprinted the comic strip yarns. Toward the end of the Famous Funnies run, Buck Roger became the cover feature and it's a grand thing too. Frank Frazetta was tapped to create the covers for many of these comics and they are simply magnificent. Here is the complete run of Frazetta covers.
The image above is the first of these I ever remember seeing. It was reproduced in black and white in A History of Comic Strips, a tome I would check out the library on a regular basis. It's spectacular to see the art in glorious color.
Apparently there was at least one Buck Rogers cover produced by Frazetta which was not run by Famous Funnies as it neared its cancellation.
Instead Frazetta converted the art into a exotic and wildly active cover for an issue of EC's Weird Science-Fantasy.
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While i have all of the original covers, i hadn't seen most of the reprints you included. I enjoy going through and looking at the different ways the colourists approached each work, and how the original and update versions contrast.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Color is powerful, but we all know Frazetta is at his best in glorious black and white.
DeleteThat cover Frazetta repurposed for EC was once deemed the greatest comic book cover ever.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to disagree necessarily.
DeleteYes got that issue of Weird Science-Fantasy, sadly cover is ripped, great cover though! 213 my favourite though!
ReplyDeleteTattered treasures are among the most valued sometimes.
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