Thursday, March 15, 2012

F-Troop Faces

F-Troop 6 panels of Sgt. O'Rourke

Issues 6 and 7 of Dell's TV tie-in F-Troop look at first as if they use the statted art process seen in I Dream of Jeannie. On second look, although the facial poses of each male lead are repeated over and over (in these illustrations from #6 it's Forrest Tucker as Sergeant O'Rourke), each is redrawn--traced?--anew in the inking. That the figures take the same pose and position in each panel suggests that penciller Bill Fraccio was told to facilitate this process.

All these panels appeared farther apart throughout the comic, although these two were on the same page:

more F-Troop 6 panels of Sgt. O'Rourke

This art is in the same style as the Dell monster superheroes and the Warren stories drawn by "Tony Williamsune," so I'm sure Bill Fraccio pencilled F-Troop. In fact, I don't know if I've seen Tony Tallarico's own pencils at all in Sixties comic books.

F-Troop
written: D. J. Arneson;  pencilled: Bill Fraccio;  inked, lettered: Tony Tallarico

Aug/66#1 Don't Cross Your Bridges
The Buffalo Hunter
Nov/66#2 Frantic Fireworks
What Goes Up...
Feb/67#3 Off the Track
The Devilish Divining Rod
The Camel Corps
Apr/67#4 The Wind Wagon
The Nightmare Night March
May/67#5 Hekawi Rent-a-Horse
Happy Birthday Hekawis
The Captives
June/67#6 The Attack
The Salt and Peppered Mine
Survival Course
Aug/67#7 The Clown Prince's Visit
Camouflage Dodge
Special Delivery
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3 comments:

  1. Mark EvanierMarch 15, 2012 at 12:39 PM

    The reuse of faces on a comic like this might be a matter of laziness on the artist but I've seen it happen for another reason. Sometimes, someone at the company that owns the property is really fussy about the likenesses. Sometimes, it's even the person being caricatured. I know cases where the artist is made to redraw and redraw until someone is satisfied...and at some point, it becomes easier to just trace or stat the likenesses they did approve and use them over.

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  2. Martin OHearnMarch 15, 2012 at 6:51 PM

    Although I just read an interview with D. J. Arneson in which he recalled that the license holders never bothered Dell when he was editor, I'm sure this is exactly the reason. I haven't seen Fraccio and Tallarico doing this elsewhere.

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  3. Martin OHearnMarch 16, 2012 at 10:10 AM

    After looking through the Dell TV tie-ins, I see that Fraccio and Tallarico did use this method on Danger Man and Car 54, but not on No Time for Sergeants or their issues of Beverly Hillbillies. I still think Mark's explanation stands--some license holders demanded the likeness details and some didn't.

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