Early golden age western - AL WILLIAMSON FRANK FRAZETTA John Wayne Adventure Comics #8, Toby Press, MAY 1, 1951 - Native American Indian EXQUISITE Brushwork by the MASTER! - LAST PAGE OF STORY!

I have always loved anything connected to literary legend, Ray Bradbury. The guy is like Ray Harryhausen or Forrest J. Ackerman, Bradbury has contributed more to the world of sci-fi and horror than we will ever know. Plenty of artists have adapted Bradbury's stories throughout the years, but nobody does it better than Mr. "sci-fi" himself, Al Williamson. Williamson went on to become the premiere artist of sci-fi and even drew the star wars strip for a couple of years. Dave Stevens worked under Williamson for a while on a few projects. Al Williamson has always been on my top five "want list", but I could never find the right piece at the right price. This is where my number one artist of all time comes into play, Frank Frazetta. Ever since my 2005 trip to the Frazetta Museum (RIP) in East Stroudsburg, PA, I have been haunted by those beautiful pen & ink pages that graced the walls. Even though I scored a nude doodle from '53, it was always in the back of my mind, "How can I ever afford a honest to goodness Frazetta page?" Well let's just say this is another fine example of "it never hurts to ask". This page has it all and then some. Let me tell you, this page is HUGE! There wasn't a standard page size back in those days so artists usually used larger layouts as this one measures at 15 by 20. All the glorious subtleties and even Williamson's unerased pencils can be found throughout the page. Legend has it, Williamson was scared to go near ink at this early point in his career so there may be more Frazetta here than meets the eye. I'm guessing all the faces were drawn by Frazetta as it is his style. The background shots with the mountains and tribe members show this wasn't a period when Frazetta was cutting corners, everything is inked in his lush, beautiful rendering. I've actually been told by an extremely close source to Frazetta that pages like these may contain more than 80% of Frank's work.

I cannot express how happy I am with this trade and I can finally say, "I have reached my number one goal." I have to keep reminding myself this page is over "60" years old!!! Released on MAY 1, 1951 by Toby Press. This scan doesn't do this page any justice, the detail is fantastic.

You can begin to see Frazetta's style take shape in the top panel side profiles as well as the beautiful fine line work of Bananza (middle and last panel). Those gorgeous, feathery brush strokes have Frank written all over them;) John Wayne Adventure Comics # 8 was the last issue in the series that Williamson and Frazetta worked on together and you can really see a huge difference style wise compared to some of the earlier installments. They really seemed to spend more time on the first and last page of each of these stories. The cool thing about this page - it’s during the same time Frazetta was doing his WHITE INDIAN comic and that second panel Indian is a dead ringer for Dan Brand down to his trademark necklace.

This is by far - the most precious piece in my collection...well, this and CREATURE COMFORT by BUDD. A lot of "new" artists come and go, but trust me, in 500 years people will still be discussing FRAZETTA! There will never be another Frank Frazetta, period!

According to an interview with Frank Frazetta published in "The Art of Al Williamson" (1983), Frazetta states "...I think the first stuff we did together was the JOHN WAYNE stuff." How cool is that?

LIFE IS SHORT, GRAB THAT FRAZETTA!

Excerpt from Rarebit.org:
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"Not only did he continue working for Standard’s humor and adventure titles, D.S. Publishing offered him a seven page story in OUTLAW # 9. This was the first of many western stories Frazetta would eventually do.

The publishing company Magazine Entertainment contacted Frank to help on their A-1 line of books. The popularity of TRAIL COLT, Frazetta’s first work for A-1, quickly led to the production of another A-1 western title, THE DURANGO KID. This book introduced Dan Brand “The White Indian” and Tipi his Indian sidekick. It continued well into 1952 with sixteen issues. This particular run of stories best illustrates the growing development of Frazetta’s early drawing style. By early 1950 Frank was doing stuff for such companies as D.C.’s ADVENTURE COMICS, Toby Press’ JOHN WAYNE ADVENTURE (with Al Williamson), and E.C.’s sci-fi title WEIRD FANTASY (also with Williamson).

By 1951 the anthropomorphic work had completely disappeared from his schedule. Still, his production output in 1951 easily matched that of 1950 because he continued to supply art for some of the industry’s leading publications.