The above image, depicting the beast-god of Skull Island as he begins to "pluck [Ann Darrow's] clothes away as a chimpanzee might clumsily undress a doll," is one of several paintings used to illustrate Underwood Books' 2005 publication of King Kong, a novelization of Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper's story by Delos W. Lovelace. The Stevens piece originally appeared as the cover of the first issue of the 1991 Fantagraphics-published King Kong miniseries by Don Simpson.
The 2005 Underwood book features three more illustrations, including a Frank Frazetta painting of Kong fighting a giant snake, a Jon Foster image of a rampaging Kong in New York City (which also serves as the book's cover) and a Ken Steacy image of Kong fighting the bi-planes atop the Empire State Building which, like the Stevens image, previously appeared on a cover of that Fanta Kong series.
I plan on returning to the novelization again in the near future, as I'd like to discuss it at greater length when I have the time, but until then I'll just as a few more difficult-to-answer questions than the one in the title of this post—has Simpson's Kong comic ever been collected into a trade and, if not, why not? Because a few days ago I didn't even know it existed, and now I really want to read it.
I can't find any evidence that it was collected. Pity. I'd like to read it too.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I know it isn't the same guy, but now I'm imagining a version of King Kong produced by the late Don Simpson of Top Gun/Beverly Hills Cop/Bad Boys fame.