AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 31 cover re-imagining

[Terry Doyle]

 

For the past year-and-a-half I've been having Bruce McCorkindale re-create a selection of my favourite Marvel silver age covers. In the past, I've never really been a fan of re-creations, but Bruce is a professional inker who has a chameleon-like knack of adapting his inking style to replicate the works of other artists. No substitute for the real thing, of course, but they're inexpensive and in most cases I doubt that all but a small handful of these covers still exist (and if they did, the likely price range would be out of reach for us mere mortals).

 

Along the way, I requested to Bruce that he transpose a few story splash images with those of the published covers (in those instances where I thought the splash pages were stronger in content).

 

The published cover to ASM # 31 was an excellent design, but I always felt that Ditko's smaller depictions of Spidey were a little bit goofy in parts.

 

The splash page to ASM # 31 was, I've always thought, a prime candidate for cover material. In fact, when Marvel reprinted the story in Marvel Tales # 24, they used the splash as the book's cover (so I can't claim ownership of this idea).

 

To provide Bruce with a guide for re-imagining this splash-as-cover request, I sought out a copy of the splash page original artwork. My thanks go to Gene Park for pointing me in the right direction and to Glen Brunswick for digging-out a photo of the original art.

 

Although I'm attaching a scan of my commission to this post, the uploaded cover in my CAF (Cover Galleries # 4) also contains a series of additional photos that support the process Bruce used to arrive at the finished artwork. As such, it might be interesting to check this out on my CAF (link at the foot of my message). Thanks for looking.

 

 

[delekkerste]

Wow, that looks fantastic! This image would have worked great for the cover - better than the published image for sure.

[Terry Doyle]

Thanks, Gene, glad you approve!

[JadeGiant]

Very nice! Really enjoying these. Bruce does very good work! Can't wait to see what's next!

[Terry Doyle]

Probably my last commission for the foreseeable future. Bruce has now re-created 18 Ditko Spideys for me and 9 covers from other titles. The itch has now (mostly) been scratched.

 

If you're on FB, you can always send Bruce a friends request and his posts will keep you up-dated on his own work and the re-creation stuff he completes for other clients.

[otherworldsj33]

Great job by the artist. Nice.

[kav]

As a recreator myself the single hardest part of this piece is the word 'authority' in comics code box. very difficult to pull off.

[Terry Doyle]

I also had Bruce re-create the other two covers from the classic ASM #s 31 - 33 'Master Planner saga. Here's # 32:

 

[Terry Doyle]

And # 33:

 

[oakman29]

And # 33:

 

 

No need to reimagine that masterpiece.

[kav]

There is if you can't afford the original!