Ha ha ha! Love Mark's background story on this awesome cover. Wow, at fifteen I had seen a couple of comic books, was nowhere close to dreaming of making one.
The image is owned by the estate of Frank Frazetta. In life he usually sold cover art with one-time printing rights which reverted back to him. His family now owns the rights to this image. Back in 2003 Vanguard Productions obtained the rights to use this cover art for SPACE COWBOY, a comic book by J. David Spurlock. Again, Eastern never had the rights to this art (or the other Buck Rogers covers by Frazetta) after the first printing in 1954. The original art for these covers have all sold for several hundred thousand dollars each. Frazetta's WEIRD SCIENCE-FANTASY #29 cover art (the last one he did for Eastern which they rejected for being too violent, so he sold the 1st time printing rights to E.C., changing the helmet on Buck Rogers to a head of hair) was the largest and best of these covers. I've seen it on several occasions at the (now defunct) Frazetta museum. That piece sold for over $380,000 to Jim Halperin of Heritage Auctions, making it the most expensive original comics art ever sold (at the time; one other has since surpassed that figure).
It's a VERY good idea to not get into copyright trouble with this kind of money involved with that artwork's owners.
I was 15 years old in 1969, and knew nuttin’ about copyright law. Comic Courier #2 needed a cover (and God knows ANYTHING would have been better than the cover I drew for #1). I found a really cool Frank Frazetta illustration on page 164 of a copy of Pierre Couperie’s History of the Comic Strip. Wow! I had my cover!
I pasted up the art and put my CC logo on it. I drooled over the opportunity to advertise CC#2 with a cover by Frank Frazetta. Then I started wondering if I really had the right. I wrote a letter to the comic syndicate that had the actual rights to that art to ask if I could use the illustration for the cover of my fanzine.
And the weeks passed… and I printed CC2 and advertised it in the Rockets Blast Comic Collector.
Then a letter came from the syndicate… from the president of the syndicate… asking the circulation of my magazine and the publication date, and requesting a $50.00 fee for the use of Frazetta on my cover. I’d never SEEN $50.00 all in one place! I wrote back saying I was just a 15-year-old mimeographicist with a mag that might sell 19 copies (if I counted the ones I gave to family and friends) and could I PLEASE have the right to print the cover for FREE. He wrote back and said, “Yes,” and wished me luck. Great guy!
So, here it is, the actual cover of Comic Courier #2: a beautiful scene by black-line master Frank Frazetta. I believe it depicts two of Buck Rogers’ friends being creatively entertained by a fellow who would one day play a bit part in Star Wars. He was probably saying, “Take me to your leader.” Or maybe it was, “There ain’t room enough on this two-bit spaceship for the three of us!” Something like that.
I don’t think I even stapled together 19 copies. I don't have a copy of that edition today myself! The cover, yes.
Comments
Ha ha ha! Love Mark's background story on this awesome cover. Wow, at fifteen I had seen a couple of comic books, was nowhere close to dreaming of making one.
That drawing was done on duoshade paper by Frank Frazetta in 1954 for FAMOUS FUNNIES, published by Eastern Color Printing:
http://www.editions-deesse.com/imagesNSL/FamousFunnies214.jpg
The image is owned by the estate of Frank Frazetta. In life he usually sold cover art with one-time printing rights which reverted back to him. His family now owns the rights to this image. Back in 2003 Vanguard Productions obtained the rights to use this cover art for SPACE COWBOY, a comic book by J. David Spurlock. Again, Eastern never had the rights to this art (or the other Buck Rogers covers by Frazetta) after the first printing in 1954. The original art for these covers have all sold for several hundred thousand dollars each. Frazetta's WEIRD SCIENCE-FANTASY #29 cover art (the last one he did for Eastern which they rejected for being too violent, so he sold the 1st time printing rights to E.C., changing the helmet on Buck Rogers to a head of hair) was the largest and best of these covers. I've seen it on several occasions at the (now defunct) Frazetta museum. That piece sold for over $380,000 to Jim Halperin of Heritage Auctions, making it the most expensive original comics art ever sold (at the time; one other has since surpassed that figure).
It's a VERY good idea to not get into copyright trouble with this kind of money involved with that artwork's owners.
Best,
Alec