Famous Funnies #216
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFamous Funnies #216 (March 1955, Eastern Color) carries the final entry in Frank Frazetta's celebrated eight-cover run on the Buck Rogers feature, closing out what many sci-fi art historians regard as one of the most creatively significant cover sequences of the Golden Age. The issue also falls near the end of the very series that established the American comic book as a commercial medium — a title historians have called the first true ongoing monthly comic book sold on newsstands. Frazetta's run on issues #209–#216 proved so visually influential that Star Wars creator George Lucas later credited the Buck Rogers covers as an inspiration for his films. Issue #216 therefore represents a double ending: the last great cover of Frazetta's early comics career and one of the final chapters of the foundational comic book series in American publishing history.
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Eastern Color Printing had been publishing Famous Funnies continuously since July 1934, making it the first ongoing monthly newsstand comic book in America. By the early 1950s, the series had shrunk from its original 60-plus pages and was featuring reformatted Buck Rogers newspaper strip reprints alongside other adventure features. Editor Harold Moore oversaw the title's final years. Frank Frazetta, then a young Brooklyn-born artist who had spent nearly a decade honing his craft in pen and ink across various publishers, was commissioned to produce cover paintings for the Buck Rogers issues beginning with #209 (December 1953); he deliberately varied his subjects and rendering techniques across all eight covers. The rejected ninth cover Frazetta painted — turned down by Eastern Color for being too violent — was subsequently purchased by EC Comics and appeared on Weird Science-Fantasy #29 in 1955, the same year Famous Funnies folded its comics division.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published March 1955 by Eastern Color Printing Company; cover price 10 cents.
- Features Frank Frazetta's eighth and final Buck Rogers cover for the series — the last in his run spanning issues #209 through #216 (1953–1955).
- Interior story and art credits include Rick Yager on the Buck Rogers strip (reprinted from the John F. Dille Co. Buck Rogers Sunday pages, c. 1952), Coulton Waugh on Dickie Dare, and text features by Matt Christopher.
- Characters in the Buck Rogers story include Anthony 'Buck' Rogers and his companion Sgt. Earthquake P. Jones, per Grand Comics Database records.
- Frazetta's cover depicts an earth-shattering explosion sending Buck Rogers and another spaceman reeling — described by cover analysts as the most graphically dynamic image of his entire Famous Funnies run.
- Famous Funnies as a series ran 218 issues from July 1934 to July 1955, and is considered by historians to be the first true American comic book published as an ongoing monthly newsstand periodical.
- In 1975, publisher Russ Cochran released a Frank Frazetta Famous Funnies Portfolio reproducing all eight cover illustrations on heavy stock, re-colored by Frazetta himself from the original drawings.
- George Lucas stated that Frazetta's Famous Funnies Buck Rogers covers — specifically citing #213 (Chewbacca inspiration) and #214 (Death Star inspiration) — were among the visual influences for Star Wars.
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