Lousy Beatles Covers

It's funny to think, as protective as the Beatles are with the presentation of their catalog, that there was a time the record label would abuse their image as much as any cut-rate, has-been artist. This is one of the first albums EMI released after gaining control of the Beatles' music:

Think Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road... and eventually, this.

Ringo supposedly had this to say: "It made us look cheap and we never were cheap. All that Coca-Cola and cars with big fins was the Fifties!" It's a pretty lousy illustration... but not as bad as what was to come:

Can you believe this? It's got to be one of the lamest album covers of all time. Click on it to zoom in and take a look at Ringo. How many arms does he have?


The Beatles have a much tighter grip on the stuff that comes out with their names on it now. And for the most part, it's pretty high quality (the cover to "1" is iconic in its own right at this point). So hopefully, we can consider the cartoon painting era of Beatles album covers over.


Still don't quite get what happened with this one, though:

Frazetta

Here's a cool illustration I came across a few days ago on the Illustration Art blog:

It's by Frank Frazetta, who is primarily a science fiction illustrator but must have done this for a book or magazine or something along the way. For me, it's a shining example of what makes illustration stand alone as remarkable, underappreciated art form. The forms are rendered so well, showing real weight, movement and power. Positive and negative shapes are clearly defined to create a complete composition. And despite the broad, heavy brushwork, the details are all there (click on the image for a closeup- in particular, look at all the muscles and bone structure in the horse's face).

If you were to see this same scene in a modern art museum today, it would be made in primary colors and intentionally made to look like a six-year-old did it. Personally, I am much more impressed with expert craft than any abstract statement about the artist's life. A picture like this speaks to me and really turns something on in my mind.

This is my attempt to copy Frazetta... I figure if I copy guys like this it can only help me improve in terms of composition and contrast.

Above is my drawing laid on top of Frazetta's, to see how accurate I was. The horse is ok, but I admittedly spent a lot more time on it. The guy is more off- his leg is too long and not high enough, the arm not thrown back enough. Looking at my version on its own, though, I do still think it works.

Here, I digitally went over it in Photoshop just for kicks. (I actually think it may be an improvement on the straight pencil version.)

Above: From MAD Magazine #90, 1964. More on Frank here!