"Is This Mort Kunstler Character Supposed To Be A Sniper?" Topic

This fella here. What rifle is that slung over his shoulder?

Thanks,

Dan

Welcome back my good friend!…

Feliz de verte otra vez por aquí!!….

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks! :)

Dan

De nada… hermano!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

M1 Garand and a BAR in is right hand. Historical accuracy doesn't seem to be a strong point for Kunstler.

Don't call Mort a "character"-- A lot of people like him!

Welcome back CC!! I missed you!

Welcome back, CC!
But your figure. Judging by the fact that he's carrying enough weapons and ammo for a squad, his clothes are clean and he's smiling and half-shaven, I think that's a painting of what Bill Mauldin called a "garritrooper"--"too close to the front to shave, but too far back to get shot at."

Welcome back, CC. The place hasn't been the same without you.

Greetings, CC.

I agree with Jdginaz. BAR and slung M1. Beautiful painting. Full of character. I wish that I owned the original.

Are those the colors of the Hungarian flag on his arm?

What makes you think that the picture is supposed to be from the SCW? It could well be an anti-Soviet partisan from WWII. The armband seems to be out of place.

Just a thought.

MCLaddie,

I couldn't tell exactly what period either. I thought he had gotten the colors wrong and one was meant to be purple. Or that he had kept it ambiguous on purpose.

But now that Shadow asked about the Hungarian colors, I looked deeper and found the same picture elsewhere and it looks to be of a "Hungarian freedom fighter, 1956".

Dan
PS. Thanks guys! :)

He needs to get his finger off the BAR trigger before he shoots someone's eye out. :)

Good to have you back Dan. I remember playing "Hungarian Freedom Fighters" rather than "Cowboys and Indians" back in the day. I seemed to have been drawn to Lost Causes in my childhood like the Alamo, Dien Ben Phu, Troy and above.

Interesting that our Hungarian freedom fighter is carrying American weapons. In every photo of a HFF that i've seen they are carrying Soviet Bloc weapons. The PPsh appears to have been very popular.

He needs to get his finger off the BAR trigger before he shoots someone's eye out. :)

This is the 1930's, where asbestos in cigarettes, lead in gasoline, arsenic in baby's milk is mandatory, so back off from the finger on the trigger, Mac !

Glad to see you back CC, the one song that is running through my head is Eminem's song "Without Me";

Guess who's back, back again, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, Nan Nan na na……

War Monkey: Eminem doesn't sing, he talks. I doubt that he could actually sing a note.

The picture has nothing to do with the Spanish Civil War – it's actually a cover picture from Adventure magazine for an article about the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 (the filename is a big giveaway). It appeared soon after the rising in the April 1957 edition.

To say it's conpletely fanciful is an understatement. Even the Hungarian tricolor on the armband is a mess – it should be dark red, white, dark green.

Moderate

Lol. That's why on one of my subsequent posts I said the following:

"But now that Shadow asked about the Hungarian colors, I looked deeper and found the same picture elsewhere and it looks to be of a ‘Hungarian freedom fighter, 1956'."

Dan
PS. Vexillology and weapons might not have been Kunstler's forte, but his exceptional skill at depicting human form and expressions (particularly for a Pulp audience) surpasses those of most "experts".
link

Dan

There's no doubt that he was one of the finest pulp magazine artists. I love his stuff.

How do we know it was a Mort Kunstler work?

The first picture shows Kunstler's signature in the lower right corner.

Dan
link

Rallynow: Once you're familiar with his style, there's no mistaking any work by him. He's as easily identified as Frazetta, Kirby, Wood and Davis.

So true. I saw this somewhere else, and it had cut off the corner signature for whatever reason, and I immediately knew it was Kunstler just by the style and richness of the detail in the painting (like the folds in the clothing).

Dan

His style changes a bit when he isn't doing Pulp. The people on his ACW stuff are usually less "dynamic", so you can focus on the painting as a whole, I think.

Dan
PS. This painting, of course, wouldn't need to be "dynamic". It was clearly meant to be more somber.

He did a lot of covers for the men's "sweats", depicting stories like "Love Slaves of the Viet Cong Death Camps" and the like.

Lol. Yep. I guess he had bills to pay. Even starving artists got to eat once in a while. :)

Dan

No way that's a kunstler