This 1924 Film Fun cover is the earliest Bolles' reference to Valentine's day I've found. The helpless little men theme may come across as peculiar but during the mid-20's it was all the rage among illustrators who specialized in 'pretty-girl' art. In a future post I'll include every example that Bolles painted. This cover pose was reworked by Enoch five years later for a Spicy Stories cover, and he also did another variant used for an ad that ran in the same issue. The rendering of the later cover is so close I fear Enoch simply reworked the Film Fun painting, rather than start with a blank canvas. Let's hope someone proves my theory wrong and comes up with both paintings. Now that would be some Valentine's Day present!
I saw this panel from a 1993 Punisher comic drawn by the famed Marvel comics artist John Buschema and thought it had to be more than just coincidence. Take a look at the flipped cover from a 1934 Film Fun (I posted a long series on this painting several years back and and how I came to find the original). What do you think? Was "Big John" a Bolles fan?
Not to worry, our man Bolles has this one (un)covered. Nuff said!
