Action Comics 1 - Cover Color Guide 2 2

[sfcityduck]

34 minutes ago, Bronty said:

hehe.      Still, cover artist of Action 1 is a big deal to get wrong!    And the more we look at 1, 7, etc, the less likely they seem to be Shuster!     O'Mealia trying to look like Shuster is really what we are looking at, it seems!   The linework is just a little too 'sensitive' to be Shuster.    He had a rougher way about his style and there was already good evidence to show O'Mealia was the cover artist on Superman 1.   Why not here as well. 

Did Shuster do any covers of any comics at all?    Was he interiors only perhaps for his whole career?     Its an interesting discussion

I could see Action 7 as being by O'Mealia, because it is redrawing of an Action 1 panel, and might have been done at the same time (maybe as an alternate option) as the cover for Action 1. 

But, since Guardineer takes over the cover duties with Action 8, I doubt 10 or 13 were by O'Mealia. 

[Bronty]

5 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

I could see Action 7 as being by O'Mealia, because it is redrawing of an Action 1 panel, and might have been done at the same time (maybe as an alternate option) as the cover for Action 1. 

But, since Guardineer takes over the cover duties with Action 8, I doubt 10 or 13 were by O'Mealia. 

Right, Guardineer with 8.    Didn't mean to suggest O'Mealia was 10 or 13, just that they probably aren't shuster.    Guardineer perhaps?   As he did #15 according to the heritage auction and as IMO the style fits.

 

I'd suggest

1,7 - O'Mealia

10,13,15 - Guardineer

17 - Still guardineer - tank is very flat just like sub on #15, plus we know guardineer did #18 (signed) so he was still the regular cover artist

19 up ?

Edited September 22, 2017 by Bronty

[woowoo]

53 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Right, Guardineer with 8.    Didn't mean to suggest O'Mealia was 10 or 13, just that they probably aren't shuster.    Guardineer perhaps?   As he did #15 according to the heritage auction and as IMO the style fits.

 

I'd suggest

1,7 - O'Mealia

10,13,15 - Guardineer

17 - Still guardineer - tank is very flat just like sub on #15, plus we know guardineer did #18 (signed) so he was still the regular cover artist

19 up ?

cgc and the other guys both say Shuster cover and art on #1

[sfcityduck]

17 minutes ago, woowoo said:

cgc and the other guys both say Shuster cover and art on #1

They aren't batting a thousand generally, and I think they are wrong here.

Edited September 22, 2017 by sfcityduck

[woowoo]

15 minutes ago, sfcityduck said:

They aren't batting a thousand generally, and I think they are wrong here.

I would think both put a lot of time and study into this and your only a

[adamstrange]

What is our evidence that the cover wasn't done by Shuster?

[Bronty]

35 minutes ago, woowoo said:

I would think both put a lot of time and study into this 

 

Actually that’s the whole point , chances are no one has spent a minute thinking about because the long standing assumption has always been Shuster.    (Much like phantom lady 17 being assumed Baker incorrectly for decades with no one questioning it).  

Much like Superman 1 being labelled as Shuster for decades incorrectly.   In light of that long standing error why would we assume any of those old attributions about the early superman covers are correct?   

If O’Mealia drew the Superman 1 cover, wouldn’t the most logical explanation be that he drew the other earliest Superman covers as well?   

If O’Mealia drew action 2-6 at a minimum, wouldn’t it make sense that he drew 1 as well?

If they had O’Mealia redraw a Shuster panel for the Superman 1 cover, is it a stretch to think he redrew a Shuster panel for the Action 1 cover?   

If Guardineer drew a solid run of Action covers with both hero and non-hero covers, would it be a stretch to think O’Mealia did a solid run with both hero and non-hero before him?

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by Bronty

[sfcityduck]

17 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

What is our evidence that the cover wasn't done by Shuster?

Evidence came out in the lawsuit that the cover was created by DC based on Shuster's suggestion that they just adapt a panel from the story. 

The art style, to my eyes, is much more refined than Shuster's style of that time.

A comparison of the interior panel to the cover suggests that different artists with different styles, making some different aesthetic decisions drew the pieces.  Faces are drawn differently, the car is drawn differently, the rocks are different, etc. 

 

 

[woowoo]

We know that the insides are Shuster right. Her is Shuster art and next to the cover the art is diff with the guy .

[sfcityduck]

One other key piece of evidence:  The check for the payment for Superman very clearly does not include payment for the Action 1 cover. It does include payment for the interior story, and for other material done around this time and before.

 

[Bronty]

Woo woo:   That’s the point.    Those two are only the same style if looked at superficially as we have all done all these years.    Just compare the faces bottom left.    Those are not by the same artist

[catman76]

I think it's pretty cool that we can see all of the original drawing in the proof. Not that anything cool or important is missing in the printed version, just some of the rocks and the guys elbow, but it's still cool to see the entire original drawing before it was printed and trimmed.

[Ameri]

20 hours ago, Bronty said:

Right, Guardineer with 8.    Didn't mean to suggest O'Mealia was 10 or 13, just that they probably aren't shuster.    Guardineer perhaps?   As he did #15 according to the heritage auction and as IMO the style fits.

 

I'd suggest

1,7 - O'Mealia

10,13,15 - Guardineer

17 - Still guardineer - tank is very flat just like sub on #15, plus we know guardineer did #18 (signed) so he was still the regular cover artist

19 up ?

This all sounds very intriguing, but how do you explain the Tecs? Like the Actions, Guardineer was the main cover artist of Detectives (after Flessel), and he did the 28,30,32. So are we to believe he did all the in between Batman covers too? Then you get a one shot Flessel cover with 34. Granted, Kane signed the covers on Detective 29 and 31 (oddly not the 35), so an argument can be made that they are Kane covers, but Shuster signed Action 22 and the Action 22 cover looks a lot like all the Superman covers that preceded it.  

Edited September 23, 2017 by Ameri

[sfcityduck]

2 hours ago, Ameri said:

This all sounds very intriguing, but how do you explain the Tecs? Like the Actions, Guardineer was the main cover artist of Detectives (after Flessel), and he did the 28,30,32. So are we to believe he did all the in between Batman covers too? Then you get a one shot Flessel cover with 34. Granted, Kane signed the covers on Detective 29 and 31 (oddly not the 35), so an argument can be made that they are Kane covers, but Shuster signed Action 22 and the Action 22 cover looks a lot like all the Superman covers that preceded it.  

Your analogy is not a good one.  There is no reason to believe that the selection of cover artists for Detective Comics had any relevance to the selection of cover artists for Action Comics.  There is no doubt that Bob Kane did the Detective covers.  There is considerable doubt that Shuster did Action 1.  

[Ameri]

But Shuster signed the Action 22 cover and the art is comparable to all the Shuster credited Superman covers that preceded it.

[bluechip]

On 9/22/2017 at 11:21 AM, sfcityduck said:

I could see Action 7 as being by O'Mealia, because it is redrawing of an Action 1 panel, and might have been done at the same time (maybe as an alternate option) as the cover for Action 1. 

But, since Guardineer takes over the cover duties with Action 8, I doubt 10 or 13 were by O'Mealia. 

13 is Guardineer and the image of superman is a reversed stat of the supe image on action 10

[sfcityduck]

Someone over at Metropolis knows how to write.  Here's the new description of the piece:

Quote

Comics were considered disposable, a trend, a temporary distraction, which is why so few copies of Golden Age comics survive today, despite print runs in the hundreds of thousands. The same thought applied to the art used in the production process, tossed aside as an afterthought, or disposed of by publishers terrified of their valuable content being swiped and reprinted by unscrupulous competitors. As a result, the original art for nearly all the classic early works in comic books is lost forever, shredded and tattered, buried in landfills or incinerated and gone to ash. Except for one truly remarkable document. Ed Eisenberg got his start as a young man doing color proofs for National Periodicals (now DC comics). To save money and time, publishers would print "silver proofs", cheap and slightly faded knockoff prints of finalized black-and-white art printed on paper that would easily absorb watercolors, allowing color artists to mock up basic looks for the covers and interiors of comics to see what palette would work best to attract buyers and improve readability. It was Ed who devised the color scheme for what became the single best-known and most important comic cover ever published, Action Comics #1, the first appearance of the mighty Superman. As always, several proofs were made, allowing editors to choose which look had maximum impact. As usual, the winning entrant was sent off to the engraver's for color plates to be struck, while the discarded ideas were tossed and gone forever. In the mid-60s, Eisenberg discovered this one surviving copy, about to be tossed out while workers cleared out the desk of ailing publisher Harry Donenfeld, and, recognizing it and feeling nostalgic, Ed saved it from the scrap heap and took it home, where it remained in its posession until its appearance in auction some 30 years later. As the original art from this issue is long lost, this is likely the only remaining piece left of the construction of an American pop culture monument, making it among the most historically significant items we've had the privilege of offering. Note the major variation in coloring: Eisenberg notes that the red car, while attractive and eye-catching, clashed with the red of Superman's cape, and as editors felt that Superman must be the central figure on the cover, the car's color was changed to a less distracting and more rustic dark green, bringing the final imagery in line with what we all know and love. The value and importance of this piece, both to comics and to Americana, cannot possibly be overstated. A unique and moving glimpse into history, and a building block of modern culture, both for Superman fanatics and anyone who cares about the great American art form of the 20th Century.

 

[Crowzilla]

4 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

As the original art from this issue is long lost, this is likely the only remaining piece left of the construction of an American pop culture monument

 Except of course the original art from the first page that were cut up for use as the first daily newspaper strip.

[Ameri]

On 9/23/2017 at 1:01 PM, sfcityduck said:

Your analogy is not a good one.  There is no reason to believe that the selection of cover artists for Detective Comics had any relevance to the selection of cover artists for Action Comics.  There is no doubt that Bob Kane did the Detective covers.  There is considerable doubt that Shuster did Action 1.  

My 2c....considering the fact that we are dealing with the exact same company that employed the exact same practice of alternating covers on their Action and Detective titles, it's not far-fetched to mention the Detective covers. If one chooses to believe that O'Mealia was the sole assigned cover artist of all the early Actions and thereby responsible for the Superman covers as well,  then we also have to say that Guardineer was the sole assigned cover artist of all the Detectives (from 23 and up) and thereby he must have drawn all the Batman covers too. Just because Bob Kane signed some covers does not mean that he did the art either. A signature doesn't have to mean artist, it could mean the person conceived the layout. No offense to Bob, but Sheldon Moldoff's name keeps popping up when early Batman covers are discussed.  But back to the Action 1 cover....Superman was conceived in 1933. The initial Superman story may have been drawn in 1933 when Shuster was not a mature artist. When Shuster got the go ahead for Action 1, he used the earlier art to hastily prepare the Action 1 story, but he was also asked to provide a cover which he did not have in hand and had to draw one in 1938. Therefore there can be a great difference between the interior art of Action 1 and the cover. Furthermore, the art improves dramatically with Action 2 obviously because the story in Action 2 was not prepared around 1933. It was a 1938 product.    

[woowoo]

11 minutes ago, Ameri said:

My 2c....considering the fact that we are dealing with the exact same company that employed the exact same practice of alternating covers on their Action and Detective titles, it's not far-fetched to mention the Detective covers. If one chooses to believe that O'Mealia was the sole assigned cover artist of all the early Actions and thereby responsible for the Superman covers as well,  then we also have to say that Guardineer was the sole assigned cover artist of all the Detectives (from 23 and up) and thereby he must have drawn all the Batman covers too. Just because Bob Kane signed some covers does not mean that he did the art either. A signature doesn't have to mean artist, it could mean the person conceived the layout. No offense to Bob, but Sheldon Moldoff's name keeps popping up when early Batman covers are discussed.  But back to the Action 1 cover....Superman was conceived in 1933. The initial Superman story may have been drawn in 1933 when Shuster was not a mature artist. When Shuster got the go ahead for Action 1, he used the earlier art to hastily prepare the Action 1 story, but he was also asked to provide a cover which he did not have in hand and had to draw one in 1938. Therefore there can be a great difference between the interior art of Action 1 and the cover. Furthermore, the art improves dramatically with Action 2 obviously because the story in Action 2 was not prepared around 1933. It was a 1938 product.