BOYS' LIFE / BANK STREET CLASSICS (1996)
BOYS' LIFE, the publication of the Boy Scouts of America, was first published in March 1911. Their first "Comics" section debuted in July 1940, with reprints of then-popular newspaper strips, including "Bringing Up Father", "Felix", "Tippy and Cap Stubbs", "Krazy Kat" and "Popeye". Although other features appeared from time to time, including the long-running "Scouts In Action" (which made its debut in January 1947) and many comics-style advertisements, it was only with the September 1952 issue that a COLOR comics section made its debut, the work of the Johnstone & Cushing advertising agency. Among the long-running color features were "Space Conquerors!", which ran for 20 years, and "Stories From The Bible", which has been running, apart from a couple of interruptions, for 62 years!
Completely separate from the regular comics section, Bank Street Classics made its debut in February 1990 with "Gulliver's Travels". Appearing sporadically between then and November 2001, the series managed to present 25 adaptations of "classic" stories, each narrowed down, incredibly, to a mere 16 PAGES apiece!! The first 19 of these had art by Ernie Colon, while the rest were by Dan Spiegle or Mike Vosburg.
Ernie Colon tended to use a fairly "cartoony" style for most of the early adaptations, although at some point the coloring began to be more ornate. However, beginning with "20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA", the style abruptly switched to FULLY-PAINTED COLOR, resulting in one of the most visually-spectacular, eye-popping versions of this story ever seen in comics!
One thing I find rather interesting about this version. Although it is an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, the characters of Professor Arronax and Ned Land are clearly based on the actors from the 1954 Disney film-- Paul Lukas and Kirk Douglas (the latter with a moustache added!). Although, Captain Nemo appears to have been based more on Gregory Peck than James Mason. (Thanks to Frank Thorne for pointing this out to me.) Ironically, they look more like the actors from the '54 film than either the Jesse Marsh or Frank Thorne adaptations of that film do.
BOYS' LIFE (November 1996)
Adaptation by Seymour Reit / Art by ERNIE COLON
Copyright (C) 1996 by Bank Street College Of Education
Created in collaboration with Boys' Life magazine
Raw scans from the Boys' Life / Wayback Machine website
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
For more:
Visit the Bank Street College Of Education website
Read the Bank Street College Of Education page at Wikipedia
Read the Ernie Colon page at Wikipedia!
Visit the Ernie Colon Unlimited blog!
Visit the Ernie Colon Facebook page!
See the 20,000 LEAGUES overview!
Read the Jesse Marsh 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Frank Thorne 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Wally Wood 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Jack Kirby 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Dan Spiegle CAPTAIN NEMO series!
Read the Jim Fair CAPTAIN NEMO series!
Read the Bill Baker 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Gary Gianni 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Ernie Colon 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
See the JOURNEY overview!
See the MYSTERIOUS ISLAND overview!
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