Misattributed cover art thread... 1 1

[jimbo_7071]

19 hours ago, Sarg said:

The most famous misattributed cover is Phantom Lady #17 which is NOT by Matt Baker. The misattribution is so entrenched now that it would take an act of Congress to change it. 

The actual artist is unknown, but Al Feldstein might have been involved with the pencils or inks. It sure looks like him, but he did not remember doing any Phantom Lady covers. 

It definitely isn't Baker; it could be Kamen. If I had seen that cover without knowing anything about its history, I think my first guess would have been Chuck Cuidera (but I think he was at Timely when that book was produced).

[thunsicker]

On 9/26/2019 at 4:29 PM, rjpb said:

There are a few Harvey hero covers I've seen attributed to Schomburg, but don't look like his work. I'm not sure if CGC contributes to this.

Yeah, Like Speed Comics #29 which is definitely not Schomburg, though CGC and GCD both attribute it to him.

[Tri-Color Brian]

On 9/27/2019 at 12:43 PM, Yorick said:

I don't think I would completely dismiss Baker on this one.

What part would you call Baker?  The grass?  Everything else is definitely Kamen...including the way the guy is standing. 

[Joshua33]

Ok. How about this one? I've thought that this one looked like Baker for awhile. Especially the leg anatomy and the eyes. Reminds me of Crime Reporter and other work. Any thoughts?

[Casablanca]

On 9/28/2019 at 7:40 PM, Sarg said:

The most famous misattributed cover is Phantom Lady #17 which is NOT by Matt Baker. The misattribution is so entrenched now that it would take an act of Congress to change it. 

The actual artist is unknown, but Al Feldstein might have been involved with the pencils or inks. It sure looks like him, but he did not remember doing any Phantom Lady covers. 

Yet someone just paid ~121k for PL 17 in the HA auction?...Someone betting it IS Baker?

[Joshua33]

16 minutes ago, Casablanca said:

Yet someone just paid ~121k for PL 17 in the HA auction?...Someone betting it IS Baker?

Gotta say Robert, if my opinion counts for anything, there is ZERO chance Matt Baker drew the entire cover for PL 17. Somebody show me any cover work with that hand anatomy, or the over swollen chesticles on that cover. I'll wait...

[Yorick]

There is more going on with PL17 than simply the cover artist.  That book is the poster child for the comics code.

[Sarg]

9 hours ago, Joshua33 said:

Ok. How about this one? I've thought that this one looked like Baker for awhile. Especially the leg anatomy and the eyes. Reminds me of Crime Reporter and other work. Any thoughts?

 

 

The difficulty with Baker is that he often had different inkers of varying ability, so a lot of Baker stuff looks like other artists. The legs on the above totally give it away as Baker pencils. But he may have just pencilled the woman, and other artists filled in the rest. The inks are pretty crude and slapdash. The right arm is ridiculously long -- somebody must have filled that in as an afterthought. Not a good effort. 

[Sarg]

The misattribution of PL17 happened in the freewheeling early days of fandom, when fans attributed ALL PL covers and interiors to Baker, even the Ajax/Farrell stuff. it was never corrected because people were too lazy and Baker was dead. 

[rjpb]

5 hours ago, Casablanca said:

Yet someone just paid ~121k for PL 17 in the HA auction?...Someone betting it IS Baker?

PL 17 was a major book long before collector's were paying a premium for Baker covers. 121K seems a lot for for a non-1st appearance book, but some top classic covers have been going for nose-bleed prices in high grade for a while. 

[rjpb]

7 minutes ago, Sarg said:

 

 

The difficulty with Baker is that he often had different inkers of varying ability, so a lot of Baker stuff looks like other artists. The legs on the above totally give it away as Baker pencils. But he may have just pencilled the woman, and other artists filled in the rest. The inks are pretty crude and slapdash. The right arm is ridiculously long -- somebody must have filled that in as an afterthought. Not a good effort. 

Looks like the arm was redrawn to clear the R in the Rulah logo.

[Tri-Color Brian]

On 9/30/2019 at 7:12 AM, Joshua33 said:

Ok. How about this one? I've thought that this one looked like Baker for awhile. Especially the leg anatomy and the eyes. Reminds me of Crime Reporter and other work. Any thoughts?

Baker pencils, Kamen inks...mystery solved...

[Sarg]

5 hours ago, Tri-ColorBrian said:

Baker pencils, Kamen inks...mystery solved...

Nah, Kamen was much better than that. 

[The Lions Den]

On 9/29/2019 at 2:47 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

My copy of this book has no cover artist listed:

 

This copy lists Schomburg as the cover artist:

This recently-slabbed copy lists Allen Anderson as the cover artist:

 

Yep, that's a bit confusing, eh?   

[jimbo_7071]

On 10/1/2019 at 8:16 PM, The Lions Den said:

Yep, that's a bit confusing, eh?   

Just a bit! I tend to think that the Allen Anderson attribution is most likely correct.

[The Lions Den]

1 hour ago, jimbo_7071 said:

Just a bit! I tend to think that the Allen Anderson attribution is most likely correct.

One of the reasons this happens is different graders have graded these books over the years, and they add or subtract comments at their discretion. From what I understand, CGC finally had to limit the amount of people that were entering art and key comments on the labels due to conflicting information like the examples you've shown...   

[Electricmastro]

This was thought to have been drawn by Terry Szenics, but it seems that it was actually Zoltan Szenics who drew it:

[Cat-Man_America]

The cover of MM#2 (by Charles Mazoujian) has occasionally been misattributed to Claire Moe... 

[Mr. Lady Luck]

All of the Lady Luck covers were drawn by Gil Fox (not Klaus Nordling).

[Cat-Man_America]

This unsigned Shield-Wizard cover is sometimes attributed to Irv Novick...

...but it's definitely Jack Kirby's style with several key indicators.