Monday, June 10, 2013

Bible Stories, 1998

(Continued from 1997)

The story of "Moses" continues.  This marked the 8th time the BOYS' LIFE series would cover this material.

The trend of REUSED text and NEW art continues. If you click "Open Link In New Window" for each pair, you can flip between them and compare.

October 1977  /  January 1988  /  January 1998
November 1977  /  February 1988  /  February 1998
     (Oddly enough, the entire 2nd half of the text on this one was not included in
          the previous version.)
December 1977  /  March 1988  /  March 1998
January 1978  /  April 1988  /  April 1998
February 1978  /  May 1988  /  May 1998
March 1978  /  June 1988  /  June 1998
April 1978  /  July 1988  /  July 1998
May 1978  /  August 1988  /  August 1998
June 1978  /  September 1988  /  September 1998
July 1978  /  October 1988  /  October 1998
For this last one, the 1978 text was completely re-written in 1988 (even though the text on the episodes before and after it were reused).

Oddly enough, the episode of Moses drawing water from the rocks in  
August 1978 was replaced with an episode of his reunion with Jethro...
November 1988  /  November 1998
The "water from rocks" reappeared later in the sequence, in the following year. 

September 1978  /  December 1988  /  December 1998

With the February 1997 episode, they switched to using a COMPUTER font.  However, with the January 1998, they switched to a different COMPUTER font, this one very MECHANICAL-looking.  It reminds me of nothing less than when Warren Publishing's horror comics replaced hand-lettered balloons with mechanically-lettered balloons.  It's cold, harsh, it creates a "separation" between the text and the illustrations, and, in this case, feels totally out-of-place considering the subject matter.  WHO makes decisions like this?  It can't be an artist doing it.  I use computer fonts ALL the time, but at least I have some sensitivity when it comes to "design".

Incredibly, starting with the June 1998 installment, they began including a credit:  "Illustration by Frank Bolle".  He had only been doing the series for more than 19 YEARS by then!!!

Incidentally, in a further design snafu... it looked okay when they added the artist credit next to a box with art.  But when they put it right next to a block of text, it just causes confusion to the eyes.  Further, in several installments, the right edge of the "Bible Stories" logo design is cut off.  WHO does production work that BAD?

Story by (??)  /  Art by FRANK BOLLE
BOYS' LIFE  /  January 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  February 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  March 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  April 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  May 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  June 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  July 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  August 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  September 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  October 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  November 1998
BOYS' LIFE  /  December 1998
(Continued in 1999)

Copyright (C) BOY'S LIFE Magazine
Restorations by Henry Kujawa

Visit Frank Bolle's website!
See a collection of Frank Bolle's TIM HOLT covers at this very blog!

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