Thursday, November 16, 2023

RIP Roger Kastel 1931-2023

Best-known for his iconic posters for the movies Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back...
...artist Roger Kastel considered his third most-famous work to be a poster that pre-dated both of them, Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze!
In fact, the landing page of his own website (Click HERE) states...
Roger Kastel's Work Includes:
JAWS: Legendary painting featured on the cover of the paperback edition of the Peter Benchley novel as well as the poster for the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film.
Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back: Movie poster for the second episode in George Lucas' original Star Wars Trilogy.
Doc Savage: Movie poster and cover art for Issue #1 of the acclaimed 1975 Doc Savage comic book series.
Original painting
The art (usually cropped and silhouetted) was used both domestically and internationally on theatrical posters and various licensed products.
Trivia: In 1987, I participated in an auction of legendary sci-fi editor/historian Forrest J Ackerman's estate where I acquired, not the poster art, but the next best thing to it...

...the expanded art for the "Ron Ely" on-screen credit at the end of the film, which consists of a hi-res photo of the original painting along with acrylic art hand-painted on both sides and below to accommodate the wide-screen image!
The credit lettering was optically matted during post-production.
It sits proudly over the TV in the Atomic Kommie Comics Video Library...
...and everybody who has seen it is able to identify both the actor and film!
(No "what film is that from?" or "who is that?" from the people we hang out with!)

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Thanx for posting!