Some R/C Fanart from Old Fanzines

[erimia]

Found on ancientphantom's tumblr. Both pictures are zine covers, both are from the 1990s and both are quite unusual portrayals of Raoul.



This is the cover for the issue 1 of POTO: The Phantom of the Opera Magazine, by the artist Sharon Young. Probably the first time I've seen a Raoul with a beard. He also looks a great deal older than Raouls usually are, and so does this Christine. Not sure if those are portraits of actors from the musical or not.



The back cover art by Sybille Schenk for the issue 7 of The Chandelier, the zine that was published mostly in German. Again, I don't know if those are meant to be actors from the musical but it's quite possible. It may be an early example of a long-haired Raoul, a trope that I thought had appeared only after the 2004 movie, but apparently not.

Comments

[igenlode]

Interesting -- I thought I was the first to do Raoul-with-a-beard! Though yes, the two in that top picture look much older than you'd expect; in fact, if it weren't for the Lyre of Apollo background I don't think anyone would identify them with Raoul and Christine at all. More like Arthur and Guinevere -- though I'm not sure I'd ever visualised either Christine or Guinevere with that confident, slightly smug smile ;-p


Unlikely to be a portrayal of specific cast members simply because of the beard; I find it hard to imagine anyone putting on a stage production featuring a bearded Vicomte, given any alternative. You might get away with it somewhere in Northern Europe perhaps? ;-D
Ever since Christine Brightman, stage Christines have usually been represented with long curly hair, as well...

Given the disparity of size and apparent age I actually wonder if that was intended to be a depiction of Christine's father -- but maybe it is just post-canon Raoul and Christine as a mature married couple, he with an adult beard, she with her hair decorously put up (though not very decorously, with a rose over one ear!) and the Phantom in the background as part of a composite image?

Now that you point it out it is very odd.


Ouch. The art in most of those old zone covers is *really bad*.
https://66.media.tumblr.com/9794d9fb1ed8d37a8b970d072ee8694a/tumblr_o4lpm0uBTk1r9esgro3_1280.jpg


In this one, Christine appears to be a mermaid, and Raoul the Phantom has a beaver tail!
https://66.media.tumblr.com/fcb3ea7583101a08b73f3e3eae9e6f3b/tumblr_o4lp98NkqP1r9esgro7_1280.jpg

The R/C ones are definitely some of the better pictures ;-D

Not only a long-haired Raoul but a Morticia-Addams-type Christine in the lower picture (for some reason I keep expecting to see a glimpse of the Phantom in the gap between them, because I'm visualising this as the kiss in Leroux after Erik releases Raoul from the Communards' dungeon, when the young couple embrace in front of him).