The Prince Of Dell!

Bob Fujitani
I'm unaware if the Prince Valiant stories produced for Dell Comics during the 1950's in the wake of the movie adaptation of Hal Foster's classic comic strip have ever been collect, but seeing some of Bob Fujitani's artwork on this project, they certainly should be. He and Paul S. Newman concocted stories adapting and extending the story of the film. The striking image of Val above by Fujitani served as the back cover of Four Color Comics #719 in the middle of the run. Below is a gallery of the striking and memorable covers produced from 1954 to 1958 for this seven issue series.

Four Color #567 June 1954 - Photo of Robert Wagner

Four Color #650 September 1955 - Unknown

Four Color #699 April 1956 - Franco Picchioni

Four Color #719 August 1956 - Sam Savitt

Four Color #788 April 1957 - Mo Gollub

Four Color #849 December 1957 - Unknown

Four Color #900 May 1958 - George Wilson
Here is a link to the story "The Island of Thunder"  from the last Dell issue by Newman and Fujitani. Enjoy!

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Best Of The West!

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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