the Pfeiffer Pfiles Presents....the Art Work of Artist Fred Pfeiffer

Fred Pfeiffer was an American Artist
He worked as an Illustrator out of N.Y.N.Y. and
L.A. CA. in the late 60's thru the 70's and into the 80's

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Murder Mirage By Scotty Phillips


This is Scotty's magnificent oil painting rendition of Fred Pfeiffer's Doc Savage cover of Murder Mirage.

I commissioned this painting from Scotty and he certainly did not disappoint.

It proudly hangs in my living room.

Courtney

3 comments:

Rob Weilert said...

Beautiful painting Scotty! I never realized you were such a skilful artist. This is the first of your works I've seen. Would love to see others. And, I might add that it's a very nice touch to this blogspot on Fred to feature a piece of art that's been done as a tribute to him. It'd be great to see a whole gallery of art by other artists either imitating Fred's style or doing versions of Fred's cover designs in their own style.

Maybe a DOC SAVAGE COVER CONTEST in Fred's memory should be featured on The Pfeiffer Pfiles as a way of paying tribute to Fred's art and at the same time showcasing the talents of other aspiring illustrators. It would draw visitors to this site and increase interest in the Doc Savage character.

Do you know, I myself have never really known much about the seemingly large body of fiction that's been devoted to the character of Doc Savage. Can you or Courtney give me a general synopsis on the character?...the storyline? I've become intrigued with the character thanks to these great works of art that have been featured here.

cardstuntman said...

Thanks, Courtney and Rob. You are both very kind.
of the 13 Pfeiffer Doc Savage covers I have painted 8 so far.
Courtney has 5 of them. I have 2 and another Doc Savage fan has 1. I painted the 1st one to try and understand Fred a little better as I was a fan and ...sigh... seemed alone in the world. It didn't sway me form getting a piece of masonite and thinning my oils down to a wash and trying to paint Derrek Devil. I had mixed feelings about the outcome, but it was pretty close.
I see Courtney on a YouTube video at a Doc Con talking about Fred Pfeiffer. I thought "WOW, another Fred Fan". I wrote to him and the rest is history.
There is so much about the Doc Savage character out there on the net. Many websites dedicated to him. This website will give you some basic facts and there are several links at the bottom to very good sites with more.
http://www.pulps.westumulka.com/docsavage/
Both Courtney and I are Doc Savage Fans and Courtney has read all of the books a couple of times. I am over halfway through them all and I have to say they are fun.

Courtney Rogers said...

Rob-

We could go on and on about Doc Savage.

He is a pulp magazine character that was published from March 1933 to Winter 1949 in his own magazine. There were 181 novel-length adventures written about him.

He was raised from birth to help people out and he is a mental and muscular marvel. He predated Superman (and Supes ripped off alot of things from Doc)but Clark (Doc) Savage Jr. is still a human being, albeit an amazing one.

Doc's band of adventurers include 5 other men, all are tops in their line of work: Chemist, lawyer, engineer, electrician, geologist-archaeologist. But Doc is more knowledgeable than each of them and his greatest skill is a doctor, hence the nickname.

This band goes anywhere in the world to help people out and thus get into some incredible adventures.

Bantam Books started to republish the stories in 1964 and actually reprinted the entire series by 1990. Most of the paperback covers up to book #67 were done in spectacular fashion by James Bama. Fred took over for him on the series from #68-81. And his are spectacular in a different way.

Note that the Doc on the cover of the pulps had a completely different appearance than his "modern" look on the paperbacks.

I would recommend that you try to read one or two if you enjoy adventure and thrills.