It's a very cute picture--a young boy in a makeshift Superman outfit, thrusting his left hand in the air as if flying, with a "rescued" bunny under his arm. It's the kind of striking image--found in a book by photographer Nick Waplington chronicling two English families--that would make a great album cover.

That's exactly what the New York band Fountains of Wayne thought. And the English band Flamingoes thought so too. And now there are two new albums with the same photo on the cover, and neither act is very happy about it.

"The deal made it exclusive to us, but the Flamingoes also had an exclusive deal," says Bobbi Gale, spokeswoman for the Atlantic Records-distributed Tag label, which released the Fountains of Wayne album.

The English group had it first, releasing the album on an indie U.K. label two years ago. It was only coincidence that it got picked up for U.S. release by Pennsylvania-based Big Pop Records at the same time the Fountains of Wayne album was coming out. Peeved, both Atlantic and Big Pop executives contacted Waplington with threats of legal action, though they seem to have dissipated.

"I have nothing anyway," says Waplington, who claims that he told Atlantic about the other album, though he had no idea it was to be released in the U.S. "They can come and take my 12-year-old Nissan if they want it. . . . There was no malicious intent on my part. . . . For me, if two bands come to this picture independently and want to use it, this just shows that from my point of view they have good taste."

Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1996. *********************************************************************************