In my discussions with Len Leone, I had asked him why the cover was used twice. If anyone would know, it would be the Bantam Art Director, right? Well, this happened a long time ago, and Len WAS busy putting out around 75 titles per month. He didn't remember, and said a classic "Well, someone screwed up there!"
There was some bone of contention (and still is....until now), about who had done the Doc Savage figure for the Philip Jose Farmer book "Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life". This book was released in June 1975. Some sources said the art was by Roger Kastel, and some said Pfeiffer. When I looked at the art, I thought some of it looked Pfeiffer-ish, but not quite. After all, Fred WAS the sitting artist on the Doc Savage series at the time Apocalyptic came out.
If it WAS a Pfeiffer, then I reasoned it might explain why the art for South Pole was used again on Stone Man (which followed the publication of Apocalyptic). Maybe, they used up the Pfeiffer art on Apocalyptic that was slated for Stone Man and there wasn't another one ready. Pretty cool theory, right?
Well, I recently worked on getting contact info for Mr. Kastel. As soon as I asked him if he did the artwork, my theory was shot down. Mr. Kastel did do the artowrk, as you can see by the signed 8 x 10 he sent to me.
Mr. Kastel does not have the art. It was at Bantam when someone put alot of artwork in a hallway and employees and others were allowed to cart off what they wanted. What a bizarre strategy!
A very interesting comment was made by Mr. Kastel. When the Doc Savage movie came out, the movie people saw that Apocalyptic cover, and asked Roger if he would do the movie poster! So Apocalyptic art begat the movie poster.
That is quite a scoop!
Courtney
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