Criminal Macabre / The Goon: When Freaks Collide #1, July 2011
If the 60s “comic chase movie poster” can be considered its own category, Jack Davis and Frank Frazetta owned it.
Eric Powell pays a loving tribute to these classic posters — and both artists — with his terrific painted wraparound cover for the one-shot crossover, Criminal Macabre / The Goon: When Freaks Collide. (2011). (Instead of actors, we get monsters and creatures. Seems like a win.)
Davis continued to illustrate film posters using his trademark caricature style until most movie marketing materials employed photography. Frazetta though was later hired instead for his painted fantasy flair. Today, of course, illustrated poster efforts have all but disappeared. Somewhere along the way, styles changed, and the ever-frugal Hollywood execs decided that $20 million for an actor made sense, but a few thousand bucks for marketing art is a bridge too far.
Sigh. We are all poorer because of it.
Happy Halloween —all month long!
