Tag: R.L. Allen

Coloring Books

Masters of the Universe Poster Coloring Book (1982)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

In the first set of 1982 minicomics (really mini story books) that came packed with the first wave of MOTU figures, there were a few promotional pages at the end of the stories. One page featured a couple of products from Western Publishing (the publisher of Golden Books) – a MOTU Pop-Up Game and a MOTU Poster Coloring Book. I previously featured the pop-up game on the blog, so I thought it made sense to post about the coloring book as well. Many thanks to Øyvind Meisfjord for reaching out and sharing images of his copy, as I don’t own one myself.

Minicomic advertisement

As some background, Mattel filed a copyright related to this book, with the following information:

Type of Work: Visual Material
Registration Date: 1983-01-04
Title: Masters of the Universe : 10 posters to paint or color : [no.] 2110.
Notes: Cataloged from appl. only.
Date of Creation: 1982
Date of Publication: 1982-12-06
Variant title: Masters of the Universe : 10 posters to paint or color

Unfortunately we don’t get any information on the artist for the book, and it’s not listed on the page. But the cover has been attributed to R.L. Allen, who did a number of coloring book and puzzle images for Golden. He may have done the internal artwork as well – the faces seem to fit the style of the cover.

Many of the internal drawings are definitely very closely based on some some of Errol McCarthy’s licensing artwork as well as some panels from Alfredo Alcala’s work. I’ll call some of that out in the captions below:

It appears that Errol McCarthy’s Castle Grayskull art is used in this image.
In this images we see Skeletor is mainly based on his cross sell artwork, but he has five toes instead of three
This image is closely based on Errol McCarthy’s artwork, but Skeletor features shin guards and four-toed feet, which is closer to the original Mark Taylor concept. .
This image is an almost exact copy of Alfredo Alcala’s page 6 illustration in He-Man and the Power Sword

These images again are closely based on Errol McCarthy’s work as well as the cross sell artwork
This image is based on page 22 of He-Man and the Power Sword, illustrated by Alfredo Alcala
This image is based on the fight between He-Man and sea creature in The Vengeance of Skeletor, illustrated by Alfredo Alcala
An almost exact recreation of the cover of Battle in the Clouds, illustrated by Alfredo Alcala
This is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from King of Castle Grayskull illustrated by Alfredo Alcala

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