Genial Dinosaurs
Things of the Past
John, Volsted, Vargo & Herbert, & the Vagaries of Painting the Gillman
I’m re-reading John Russell Fearn (aka Volsted Gridban aka Vargo Statten)’s THE GENIAL DINOSAUR (1954), having finished a re-read of its predecessor A THING OF THE PAST (1952; covers above); this is old dinosaur science-fiction that was completely new to me a couple of years back. Together, they form a cohesive “Herbert the Dinosaur” narrative that’s pretty entertaining and I’m writing at some length about them for the forthcoming PALEO POP™ project later this summer.
I desperately pursued an original 1954 copy of THE GENIAL DINOSAUR on ebay last year, but lost out; I’m happy enough with the Gryphon Press reprint edition, but oh, that original cover art makes it still sought-after for my collection:
The original 1954 cover art (above) was painted by Ron Turner, the UK sf artist/cartoonist (not the Last Gasp founder/publisher Ron Turner), and it’s a jewel. The Gryphon Press reprint/recreation cover (below) is sweet, too, but it lacks the luster and impact of the original.
All this John Russell Fearn reading was fueled by my completely enjoying the Dreamhaven Books reprint of Fearn‘s excellent CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON novelization. Heaven. Bob Eggleton painted the cover and spread the news about the Dreamhaven reprint edition two years ago, which I jumped at and pre-ordered. I suspect it’s long out-of-print, but I’ve no idea what the availability of this new edition is now; the original 1954 UK paperback is among the rarest of all movie novelizations, so this lavish resurrection (especially with Bob‘s cover art) was most welcome.
Bob spread the word via Facebook and various online venues in August of 2011. The original Dreamhaven Books & Garcia Publishing edition’s arrival prompted the following Facebook post from me in January 2102:
“Overjoyed to report my copy of Dreamhaven Books‘ stellar limited-edition (I opted for the signed-by-Julie-Adams-and-Ricou-Browning edition) of the John Russell Fearn/”Vargo Statten” 1954 UK movie novelization of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON just arrived, sporting my pal Bob Eggleton‘s fantastic, evocative cover painting of the Gillman. Handsome, lavish package; exquisite book; my first entry for “best book of the year” status! Kudos, Dreamhaven, Bob, David (J. Schow, longtime editor/pub. of THE BLACK LAGOON BUGLE newsletter, to which I contributed a few drawings), Phil (Harbottle, whose concluding bio piece on Fearn is the icing on the cake)—LOVELY book, a real dream come true!”
This led to some discussion of what it’s like illustrating licensed properties. In the ensuing FB conversation, Richard Pearce asked, “Is that the same Eggleton painting as the one he did for Creature Fest, posted on his site? It’s gorgeous!”
Bob Eggleton replied, “Different one. This had to be “Universal Approved”. It meant after all my research, they had a ‘Style Guide’ which states the eye whites are PMS 1325 and they GLOW. They also wanted the lips reddish(which I now hear they aren’t really, just touched up for publicity stills). The problem was Universal uses the REVENGE [OF THE CREATURE] head as the model which, as we know is vastly different-ping pong ball eyes etc. We talked them out of the ‘glow’ but the color stayed which in retrospect was a good thing. This was not like say, an FM [Famous Monsters of Filmland] cover wherein it falls into the Fair Use terms and you can paint it however you think it fits what you see as a fan. Universal had these style guides that were effectively cartoonish. Universal had a mild coniption over the using of some of Browning and other fans personal photos that were ‘unapproved’ but again, they got talked through that finally but it held the book up over a month….it’s like all licensors. They’ll tell you how long the nose is on an actor and you KNOW how long the nose is. I learned Liam Neeson officially from Mucusfilm, does not have a big nose. But, we know he does.” (Bob Eggleton, January 5, 2013, FB post)
Bob and I ended up sharing memories of other licensed gigs. Bob wrote, “I was involved in an aborted version of the comic ALIEN 3 many years ago, about 20, and after a bunch of penciled pages with a rather nice likeness to Sigourney Weaver…Dark Horse found out they didn’t have the RIGHTS TO USE HER FACE. Ripley with just a generic woman’s face?…On ALIEN 3, Dark Horse had this idea they had the rights because on the previous series, Ripley appears on the last page and it’s VERY much Siggy Weaver, and apparently they found out—or Fox did—after they approved it and published it-they had no agreement with her. She wanted her own agreement for the next one which also meant $$$$, so it wound up being a non-descript Ripley. At least that is how I got it.”
I recalled, “When we (Rick Veitch and me) did 1941: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY for Heavy Metal back in 1979, we were told we could not use the likeness of Toshiro Mifune, under any circumstances, for his role in the Spielberg film. So we went with the 1940s xenophobic Warner Bros cartoon caricatures of Japanese soldiers—racist, to say the least!—and the only country in which our book did well was… Japan. Or so we were told! …we had to orchestrate what was essentially theft (HM approved) of stills of 1941 to do the job. It was nuts.”
Bob responded, “Ya know, I remember you telling me this or I read an interview (or both) of you ages ago and you had to sneak in, get stills, photocopy some,sneak back and put them back where they were supposed to be. Something like that? The way you told it of course, as you always do, was hilarious in retrospect. …Actors can be really funny about that stuff. Sigourney Weaver was at the time, apparently very defensive of her look in that film—she was bald/shaved for the role. Also, the film was due to land in Fall 1991, and because of script changes/problems the film was put on hold for a few months and then they came back with a story that had changed about 30%!! Weaver was on Johnny Carson as well, with her hair growing back in (he asked her if she was okay, and she explained the shaved head was for ALIEN 3) and she said she was back in the US because of “problems with the film so it’s being put on hold for awhile” and here was Dark Horse going insane to try and get the adaptation out, and I was on the phone to them telling them to cool off, because of what Weaver had said but of course they had to hear it from Fox ‘officially.’ Anyone notice how there are few/no movie comic adaptations anymore? It was all headed that way thanks to rights and bureaucracy. Dark Horse just kind of gave those up mostly opting to do their own ideas and stories with the properties. …The film and comic eventually landed in May ’92. I bowed out which caused some consternation but the problem was the endless script changes and, lack of visual info: we were not allowed to see what the ‘alien’ looked like!!! That was super-top secret. And almost no photos of the sets. All sketches from the Production Designer which were rough and made little sense….I remember reading where Walt Simonson who did the ALIEN adaptation for Heavy Metal in the day, was flown the the UK, shown the sets, he could sketch and memorize but absolutely no photos taken. And, he was handed like 20 publicity stills, studio approved with an your-eyes-only red band on them.”
Ah, times have changed. We’re all dinosaurs, it seems!
I remember 20+ years back, Dark Horse making a “big deal” about how they preferred doing new stories based on movies, rather than adaptations. Since the videotape market so so big by then, ther wasn’t really much POINT in trying to replicate on paper what was so much better on screen. but new, original stories… that was something else. Which is how we got ALIENS VS. PREDATOR (many years before any movie with that name ever occured), etc. Made sense to me!
It makes more sense to do a comics adaptation of a NOVEL. The JAMES BOND 007 newspaper strip spent its first 10 or so years doing those… and some of the later ones were major improvements over what Ian Fleming wrote. They stuck to his story, but “fleshed them out” in places he didn’t. As a result, the newspaper strip version of “You Only Live Twice” is BETTER than the novel, and far, far better than the movie (which came out a bit later, I think).