The image above is of the original Stevan Dohanos illustration for the Dec 1943 Saturday Evening Post cover. It shows some discoloring and age possibly from the days it spent in a closet of the old high school (in storage I guess!). I was very thankful for the folks in the court house where it now is hanging to allow me to photograph it.
(Image #1) is a close up of Tom's name as it appears in the illustration if you look closely through out the name plates you can see Stevan's pencil layouts for the final lettering. Also where the names are in the shade it's interesting how he handled that...he simply came back into those areas with a darker shade and re-lettered them (image # 2). I looked the illustration over pretty good and a couple of things that caught my attention...the window on the right hand side of the Town Hall (image# 3) is opened...it's winter time in Westport in 1943 and a window is opened? It must have been pretty hot inside for that to be the case or perhaps...the picture Stevan used for his reference was taken in the summer time which makes sense as I suppose most of the illustrations for the Post were done up months in advance. But still...even if that was the case...it would have been a lot less work painting the window closed so...I just gotta think that there is some reason that he did that and wouldn't it be a kick to learn what it was if it were to be the case?
I thought this was interesting also...if you look at (image #4) you'll be able to compare the original Honor Roll with Stevan's illustration. First off I took count of the number of names that appear on the original and came up with 510 compared to the 231 (on the front panel). So I am curious how Stevan decided whose names would appear on the illustration. Stevan has them in alphabetical order (that makes sense) but certainly the real Honor Roll Sign would not change the order as new service men and women joined I wouldn't think as this would have been an awfully difficult task to say the least . The original sign was built to accommodate at least the 510 names I believe because they are also in alphabetical order. So what was Stevan's reasoning?
Certainly to letter all of the names as small as they would have had to of been for the illustration would have been a nightmare. And after all it is an illustration..he had to take some liberties for sure. He could have just as easily made indications that these were all names and not had any of them legible..this would have done the job I imagine. But..he chose to make all the names he used readable.
Or how about this possibility: What if...Stevan was the one who came up with the idea for the Honor Roll in Westport in the first place. He could have easily design the sign and perhaps it was early on into the war and therefore there would have been as few as 200 or 300 hundred already in the service. If this was the case it would sure enough answer some questions!
I have included here some pictures of the Town Hall ( image #6) Is how it appeared in earlier times and (image #7) as it is today...it houses a bank.
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