The Origin of the Lion Rock WWII artworks

[Agent4125]

I thought it might be helpful to have some "checklist",
that contains - for each figure - information on the original artwork, such as the artist name and the
earliest issue of a comic/magazine that the artwork was used for (series, number, title, year/month of publication).

So I created the following document: Mego_WW2_Artworks.pdf
(since I cannot attach pdf documents to a post, I uploaded it to tinyupload; hope that works … )

Since a lot of information is taken from the two artbooks, I also included the page number,
if the artwork can be found in one of them (AIW = "Aarrgghh!! It's War", AOW = "The Art of War").
Special thanks to Steve Holland for providing some additional information!

I couldn't determine the artist for the "torpedo boat" art (Valiant Picture Library #21).
And we still don't know anything about the origins of the artworks for the
US Frogman, US Marine, US Paratrooper and Russian Officer.

Please note that the small picture of the cover art, that is included in the list,
isn't always the cover of the earliest comic issue. In some cases it's a later issue.

[kresge1]

bump.............................................. ...........................

[Agent4125]

Ok, you want a GIANT update? Here it is - sort of...

Let's take another look at the "British Paratrooper" artwork. This is "GIANT War Picture Library" #1 , from 1964:



As far as I know, this was the first time they used this artwork. And in this case more parts of the painting are visible.

Here is a comparison of the cover art with the Mego box art (French release box):



The comics from this series have an unusual size: 34,3 x 13,5 cm / 13,7 x 5,4 inch

Contrary to what we thought earlier, the artwork wasn't modified for the Mego box.
But for later comic books Fleetway did change some part, for whatever reason:



Left to right: Giant War P.L. #1 / Battle P.L. #680 ("Dept of Honour") / War P.L. #25 (2nd Series?) ("Paratroop")

[Agent4125]

And just when I thought I knew everything about that Paratrooper artwork ,
I got the Italian box and - what a surprise: The Italian distributor Polistil did print the complete artwork on their box.

Here is a comparison of the French and Italian box:

[Agent4125]

Ok, I should have added a post instead of editing the previous one, so that the thread moves up...

[Agent4125]

The "Polistil-Artworks"

Maybe I'm taking this too far. But I want to find out as much as possible about this line

The catalog from Italian distributor Polistil contained some additional artworks
that were only used in that catalog, for the two soldiers that never got a figure - The "Alpino" and "Bersagliere".
The catalog I am talking about had been shown in the Museum, look here:

http://www.megomuseum.com/lionrock/lionrockcatalog.html

The page for the "Alpino" contains two artworks - a painting of one soldier in the upper half/ foreground
and a painting showing a group of soldiers climbing a mountain in the lower half/ background.

That painting of the group of soldiers had been created by Italian artist Achille Beltrame
for a cover of "La Domenica del Corriere", a weekly supplement for newspaper "Corriere della Sera".
That particular issue is from October 1912. Great Scott! That was more than 100 years ago

Here is a comparison: On the left the Polistil catalog page. On the right the cover of "La Domenica del Corriere"

[Agent4125]

The catalog page for the "Bersagliere" also contained two artworks. It looked like this:



That image in the foreground / upper half of that single soldier has also been taken from a cover
of "La Domenica del Corriere". It's an artwork from a June 1961 issue and the artist was Walter Molino.
Here is that cover:



Not the complete art was used, only the soldier on the left.
I also found a postcard from the "Museo Storico dei Bersaglieri" from 1967, that seems to be based on that cover art.
Here is a comparison of the three versions:



Left: (Part of the) Cover of "La Domenica del Corriere" (1961)
Middle: Postcard from "Museo Storico dei Bersaglieri" (1967)
Right: Artwork from the Polistil catalog (1977)

[kresge1]

Awesome detective work my friend

[Godzilla]

Excellent work!

[kresge1]

Jens
Anything new my friend?

[Agent4125]

Jens
Anything new my friend?

Not much, unfortunately.

Just a small update regarding the "U-Boat Commander" art:
That one had originally been used for the cover of a novel in the "Sexton Blake"-series.
It was issue 400, "The Sea Tigers", published in 1958 .



The original artwork is shown here: http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryp...p?piece=954625

[Agent4125]

Updated list of all artworks: Mego_WW2_Artworks_v2.pdf

(this time I use Dropbox, because Tinyupload deletes the file after 100 days...)

[kresge1]

bump
just because

[Agent4125]

Yes, it's time for an update

(I hope the pics in this post will work. I'm still using Photobucket... EDIT: Fixed broken links)

The Italian comics

I had a discussion by e-mail with David Roach, the author of the two books that I mentioned.
David didn't know about the Lion Rock figures and the use of Fleetway artworks on the boxes.
But he mentioned that some of the comics were also released in Italy and that might be an interesting piece of information.

Here are two examples of the Italian comics:

One of the series was called "Collana Eroica". Here's issue #304 (with the "British Commando" art):



Another series was "Super Eroica". Here's issue #291 (with the "Japanese Pilot" art):



What's interesting is the copyright info in these books:



It mentions the British publisher Fleetway, the Italian publisher "Casa Editrice Dardo" and a (licensing) agent "Eurostudio".
According to my research, "Eurostudio" was founded by Piero Dami, one of two brothers,
who also had an art studio in the 1960s and were working for Fleetway.
Casa Editrice Dardo and Eurostudio were both located in Milan, Italy.

It's interesting that Polistil, the distributor of the Lion Rock figures in Italy, also had their offices in Milan.
I wonder if there was a connection? Maybe Polistil (or Mego?) also got their license from "Eurostudio"?

[Agent4125]

And I think I found something else... but don't know what it means.

The "Russian" Officer

I recently did some more Google image-searches, trying to find the artwork for the Russian Officer.
The box artwork looked like this (Italian "Polistil" box):



There are a few things that I think are worth noticing:

On the right side of the artwork there's a lot of empty space.
Were there elements on the original painting that were removed here?
Or was this some illustration for a magazine article and that empty space was where the text would be placed?

Then there's the shape of the officers cap: It doesn't look like a typical russian officer cap to me
(although I am no expert on uniforms; but the ones I seen on pictures look different)

And there's a suspicious splotch of paint on the front of the cap:



Could this be another case where the original artwork was modified?

I then converted the image of the officer to black and white -
so that Google image search wouldn't get confused by the colors - and did another search.

Google came up with several photographs of soldiers from the war.
And one of the photos looks as if it might have been the template for the officer:



Left: Officer from the Mego/Lion Rock box; Right: A German Officer on some photograph from WWII

What do you think?