Queen: “News Of The World” Set
On October 28, 1977 Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Freddie Mercury, The band “Queen” released the infamous album “News Of The World. Marvel had Mike Del Mundo do a rock and roll variant cover for X-Men Gold #11 in November of 2017. Marvel had what they called album swipe variant collection and Queen was featured for two covers. Now for me to have a complete set I would need to collect three main items.
Now to start off we have to search for the original image. Now Frank Kelly Freas painted the album cover for Queen. But get this Roger Taylor had an issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The October 1953 edition, Which depicted a giant intelligent robot holding the dead body of a man. The caption read: "Please... fix it, Daddy?" to illustrate the story "The Gulf Between" by Tom Godwin.
Frank Kelly Freas
August 27, 1922 – January 2, 2005
Hugo Awards (11): Hugo Award for Best Artist 1955–56, 1958–59, 1970, 1972–76; fifty-year Retrospective Hugo, 2001 (for 1950 work)
Locus Awards (4), 1972–75, best artist
Frank R. Paul Award, 1977
Inkpot Award, 1979
Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (the Skylark), 1981
Rova Award, 1981
Lensman Award, 1982
Phoenix Award, 1982
Los Angeles Science Fiction Society Service Award, 1983
Neographics Award, 1985
Daedalus Life Achievement Award, 1987
Art Teacher Emeritus Award, 1988
Best Professional, Media, International Fantasy Expo, 1989
Chesley Awards (3): 1990 with Laura Freas, best 1989 cover illustration; 1994, artistic achievement; 2001, artistic achievement
Numerous Science Fiction Art Show Awards
National Association of Trade and Technical Schools National Hall of Fame, 1991
AnLab (Analog magazine) Reader Polls, Best Cover, 1992 and 2001
Fun Fact: The band call Freas to alter the painting for their album cover. They wanted to replace the single dead man, and replace him with the members of the band.With Mercury and May dead in the robot’s hand, Freddie bleeding from his chest and blood on the robot’s middle finger of its opposite hand, and with Taylor and Deacon falling to the ground, Taylor only visible on the back cover.
The inner cover of the vinyl album has the robot extending its hand to snatch up the petrified fleeing audience in the shattered auditorium where the corpses were removed. To find out Freas was a classical music fan and did not know Queen, and only listened to the band after doing the cover. He states "because I thought I might just hate them, and it would ruin my ideas", but eventually liked their music. Plus I didn’t know that the giant robot from the album cover name is “Frank".
Marvel paid tribute to News of the World on the cover of X-Men Gold #11. The cover was done by artist Mike Del Mindo, depicts a Sentinel holding Old Man Logan and Kitty Pryde as Colossus plummets to the ground.
This will be a wonderful collection to have in one’s home especially if you are a Queen fan. To have this special timeline threw history, will turn heads and will lead to plentiful conversation about comics, art, and music.
