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DOUBLES: Doppelgangers, Mirrored Motifs, Before/After, & Total Plagiarism

Started by Doohickamabob,

196 posts in this topic

adamstrange

adamstrange

Posted
Posted
VINTAGE PAPERBACK COVER ART THAT WAS RE-USED ON GOLDEN-AGE COMIC BOOKS

 

This thread hasn't gotten much activity for the last 2 years or so... I wanted to keep posting doppelganger comic covers but got side-tracked into everything else.

 

However, as I've been reading and collecting over the last year or so, I've been keeping several folders on my computer to drop images into. One thing I've been noticing is that many Avon and Realistic comics have covers taken from paperback books. Usually the books are Avon or Novel Library publications. I don't know much about the history of paperback publishers, but it seems the art department for the comics liked to tap into all the great art that was used for the paperbacks.

 

With that in mind, I decided to figure out all the comics that have such covers, and what books they came from. Two resources have proven indispensable. One is The Bookscans Database . This is an amazing resource if you want to find scans of nearly any vintage paperback. It's exhaustive! The only "problem" is that the scans are painstakingly laid out on web pages, rather than placed in an actual searchable database. But otherwise it's a fantastic site for anybody who loves vintage paperbacks and vintage-paperback art.

 

The other indispensable resource is something most people here already know about, The Grand Comic Books Database . When I wanted to look at every Avon comic to find out which ones might have covers taken from a paperback source, all I had to do was go to the GCBD, click on Avon publishers, and it showed me every title ever published by Avon. From there I could link to a gallery for that title and look over the cover art.

 

Comparing comic-book cover art to paperback cover art, just trying to find any cases where one matched the other, turned out to be a challenging treasure hunt. It took me a while but I think I tracked down 95% of the cases where a comic's cover came from a paperback cover. If I missed anything, and you know about it, please write here and tell me!

 

The most difficult proved to be the western-themed comics/books, because I have little interest in that genre and the cover art tends to look samey to me. I might have missed a few crossovers among the many Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickok titles. I also might have missed a few from The Saint.

 

Why did I bother doing this, you ask? Well....it was fun! I love vintage comic and paperback art. I kept noticing that certain Avon and other paperback covers were giving me a feeling of deja vu, and I also couldn't understand why many Avon comic covers were so inconsistent in style. So I put 2 and 2 together and figured I might as well share the results of my obsessive-compulsive research. I also owe some debt to the Search functionality of this site, including a post I dragged up from a few years ago by the user here named Scrooge, in which he listed several of the crossovers (some I'd already found, but several I had not).

 

In the next few messages, I will post images that put the comics and the paperbacks side-by-side. But first, here is the most classic and valuable paperback (or digest) turned comic book of all time:

 

all-reform-550.jpg

 

Thanks for doing the research and the careful preparation of the examples! (thumbs u

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BB-Gun

BB-Gun

Posted
Posted
IN THE DAYS BEFORE TEXT-MESSAGING: Back in the 1940s, if you wanted to get a message across, nothing worked quite as effectively as putting your note on a knife, plunging it into some tied-up dude's chest, and shoving the guy through the recipient's door. Beats a singing telegram!

 

doubles-deathnote.jpg

:roflmao:

2531288494_4b482ddd03.jpg

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mopee167

mopee167

Posted
Posted
I have read here about the Bob Kane monkey swipe from Wonder Comics 2 but have never seen it. Wondering if anyone can post? :wishluck:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but weren't both apes swiped from the King Kong movie poster?!?

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Sqeggs

Sqeggs

Posted
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I have read here about the Bob Kane monkey swipe from Wonder Comics 2 but have never seen it. Wondering if anyone can post? :wishluck:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but weren't both apes swiped from the King Kong movie poster?!?

 

Entirely possible. Mr. Google indicates there are at least a couple of KK posters with him in a similar pose.

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rjpb

rjpb

Posted
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I believe this is a swipe of DETECTIVE #9.

 

<a href=https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8524/8609180001_6103eb923c_z.jpg' alt='8609180001_6103eb923c_z.jpg'>IMG FEDERAL MEN #2

 

mm

 

I'd never looked closely at this, and given the nature of the book always figured it was re-used artwork, but see now it is clearly swiped. Kind of an odd choice for a swipe, as even in 1945 it gave the book a bit of a retro look.

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

Posted
Posted

Cross posted from the funny animal thread...

 

Here's an interesting swipe...Fago swiping from Fago...

1945

fawcettfunnyanimals22.jpg

 

1955

atomicmouse15.jpg

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gadzukes

gadzukes

Posted
Posted

I've always liked this thread so I thought it was time to bump it. Has anyone found anything new?

 

I just saw this while looking up some Suzie comics. Notice she's in the exact same location on the covers. Same exact pose (except her left arm has been moved), Just some clever alterations in hair and tattered dress.

 

Suzie 56 & 51 It's almost like a before and after scene.

 

http://www.comics.org/issue/237503/cover/4/

 

http://www.comics.org/issue/237498/cover/4/

 

 

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Doohickamabob

Doohickamabob

Posted
  • Author
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I've always liked this thread so I thought it was time to bump it. Has anyone found anything new?

 

I just saw this while looking up some Suzie comics. Notice she's in the exact same location on the covers. Same exact pose (except her left arm has been moved), Just some clever alterations in hair and tattered dress.

 

Suzie 56 & 51 It's almost like a before and after scene.

 

http://www.comics.org/issue/237503/cover/4/

http://www.comics.org/issue/237498/cover/4/

 

Nice addition, and my two favorite Suzie covers. Here are my copies (sorry about the lame photo):

163996.jpg.01e66f357055a85ba25ed02846d5babd.jpg

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