Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Drawing · Illustration Art · Lee Elias · Look Here · Original art vs. printed page

Look Here: CHAMBER OF CHILLS #11 cover and original art by Lee Elias

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The element that distinguishes Lee Elias’s work here from your run-of-the-mill, damsel-in-distress comic-book cover is the half-naked guy on the ground grasping helplessly at the leg of the evil doer. More typically in fantasy art, it’s the girl who is on the ground, hanging onto the leg of the man, who is cast in the role of heroic protector. Elias’s canny subversion of that tired cliché reveals an artist who has not simply gone through the motions on a routine cover assignment but has thought his way through to a creative solution that gives the obligatory horror and cheesecake a playful tweak on the nose.

Bill Draut · Comics · Here, Read · Lee Elias · Look Here

Look Here, Read: Cover art by Lee Elias, story art by Bill Draut

From First Love Illustrated #44 (September 1954), here’s “The Right to Love,” with uncredited story art that “this checklist” on the Kirby Museum site attributes to Bill Draut, whose style here is economical and attractive; the Caniff-influenced cover art, which looks to me to have the hero kissing a totally different woman that the one in the story, is by Lee Elias, who wisely signed his work, thereby ensuring that he would get credit for his contribution, in print, at the time the comic was published:

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Anyone know if Darwyn Cooke has ever acknowledged Bill Draut’s work as an influence?