The Origin of the Lion Rock WWII artworks

[Agent4125]

You found a comic book with the Paratrooper artwork on the cover?
Awesome! It's one of my favorite boxarts!

What I noticed about this one is that the Polistil catalog shows more of the paintings left side:



And I think that the German Paratrooper artwork (which is less impressive) was created
from the British Paratrooper art. I mirrored, rotated and scaled the artwork a bit,
so that it's easier to compare the two. What do you think?

[kresge1]

Yes I found the paratrooper magazine cover. It was a Seller from the USA of all places too
I think your right , looks like the same cover with some modifications

[Earth 2 Chris]

Wow, great detective work! I wonder if they really had the rights to use these, or just "borrowed" them without asking?

Chris

[palitoy]

You guys are rocking this, this is my favourite thread here in ages. Keep it up!

[kresge1]

Thanks Brian
I will post some more covers once they arrive. I am sure Jens will do the same

[EMCE Hammer]

Late to the party here, this is really fantastic stuff guys.

[Agent4125]

I wish I knew what the deal between Mego/ Lion Rock and the comics publisher (Fleetway) or the artists was.
But unfortunately the two artbooks don't mention Mego or Lion Rock at all.

As far as I know, the British release of the figures (the Battle Brigade line) didn't use the comic artworks.
(Vinny, can you confirm this? I don't own any of the Battle Brigades.)
So I would assume, that they couldn't use the artworks on the British boxes?
But who knows, maybe it was simply a cost saving measure?

The artbooks contain some more interesting variants of the paintings. Here are two more:

French Soldiers?

It seems that they didn't have enough paintings with French soldiers.
So some existing artworks depicting soldiers of other nationality were modified:

German Infantry became French Infantry:


And British Commandos became French Foreign Legion:

[Carmelkettle]

Following up on the previous leads, those magazines are a treasure of artwork (and custom ideas). Really great posts, keep it up!

[Gorn Captain]

Great thread. It's like a ongoing series with a surprise in every episode.

[kresge1]

Wow, great detective work! I wonder if they really had the rights to use these, or just "borrowed" them without asking?

Chris

Hey Chris
I think they had the rights to them. Not only did they use the covers , but they had them altered as well. So I would think they might have commissioned the artists to make changes

[kresge1]

The only french box art that was original was the french resistance fighter.

[kresge1]

Also as Jens pointed out
They made modifications and used the British Tanker art work for the French tank commander as well

[kresge1]

I also found the Australian bush fighters comic book cover. They also re-used the art work later on in the series and gave it a more cartoonish look to it.

[kresge1]

The back of the battle brigade uses this type of art , but each box has the same artwork. I wonder if they commissioned them for this one, because it looks different than any other cover I have seen

[dumbldor]

This is absolutely amazing