The Renderings Of Gwangi!


The Valley of Gwangi is likely the best cowboys versus dinosaurs movie of all time. I admit that a slim category. One of the things about Gwangi that I've mentioned before is the fantastic poster art by Frank McCarthy. To look at this captivating image you imagine Gwangi as large as Godzilla or any self-respecting Kaiju, and the melee of cowboys and horses running among ancient giant bones and flailing in the desert air as Gwangi swings his enormous tale suggests a truly epic movie.



It made for a fantastic poster.


It made for a great cover for a comic book drawn with somewhat less magnificence by Jack Sparling. \


And I recently got to thinking about the image again when I stumbled across this coloring book tie-in for the movie. That painting was truly epic in scale!



Amazon.com: The Valley of the Gwangi: James O'Connolly, James ...

So it's always been a mystery to me why my DVD copy of the film (which I'm deliriously happy to have) ignores the McCarthy masterpiece and instead uses artwork apparently done for a European poster presentation. There's no comparison despite the argument that the foreign poster is more accurate to the film itself.

Rip Off

Comments

  1. Colin JonesMay 11, 2020 at 8:51 AM

    Yes, it's an enjoyable film and the Ray Harryhausen special effects are wonderful as always but the plot is just a remake of King Kong with dinosaurs and cowboys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rip JaggerMay 12, 2020 at 1:12 AM

      But just think how awesome any story is that has both dinosaurs AND cowboys in it. Amazing stuff!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Erotic Art Of Wallace Wood!

Image
Wally Wood was one of the great artists in the history of the comic book form, and one of the most troubled. He was a mercurial figure, starting out on the sci-fi and horror comics of his day in the 50's and elevating to the best of them at EC Comics before broadening out to humor and superheroes and more. He was always it seemed a maverick of sorts, spending a few months at Marvel revising Daredevil, stopping at Tower to develop the THUNDER Agents, beginning Doctor Doom's series, visiting DC to spruce up the Justice Society of America, and all the while working at the edges of the establishment in the Undergrounds with work that the Big Two would never publish, most of it with a distinctive slant on explicit sex. Much of Wally Wood's notorious sexy stuff was collected some years ago in a French collection titled "Con de Fee" and that title was lifted by Fantagraphics for their relatively modern collection of Wood's "dirty comics". ...
Read more

Weird Sex-Fantasy!

Image
One aspect of Wally Wood's career which I've not really spent too much time on is his bent for pornography. Back when comics were squeaky clean vehicles meant only to entertain the teeming and impressionable youth of America and little beyond it was perhaps sensible by and large to keep things like raw unbridled sex at arms length. But that didn't mean that artists didn't dabble in that greatest of all human endeavors, and one of the first I ever knew about who drew stuff like this was Wally Wood. You'd find him on the latest issue of DC's Justice Society of America rendering a sexy new character like Power Girl, rendered strikingly but still within the confines of the weakening but not yet extinct Comics Code Authority. At the same time you could look higher in the racks where the little kids couldn't reach or perhaps behind the counter and find more raucous and frank presentations of sex from a master like Wood. One example I remember seeing back in t...
Read more

A Tale Of Two Dojos - The Dojo Strikes Back!

Image
And just like that the old Rip Jagger's Dojo is back in business. The comments functions which so mysteriously vanished a week ago have returned. So I'll be scuttling back to the old place posthaste for normal regular updates. I know all this whipping around might be a bit confusing for folks, this place has served its role as a lifeboat well. I'm going to keep it open for a while to experiment perhaps with some ways it might be useful on a regular basis. Stay tuned.  Rip Off  
Read more