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Action Comics #1 Cover OA...still exists?!?
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233 posts in this topic

1 minute ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Could have been add-on to fit the page. Like they added the blurb. 

I think you’re missing the point, though. The actual original Ditko cover survived, otherwise they couldn’t have reprinted it in the 80’s or used it as a variant cover. 

Whether the one I posted is it, or not, is beside the point. It exists. 

No. It "existed" and somebody made a copy of it. "When", "where", "why" are not answered by that sole fact. And there's nothing else, so far, proving any other fact.

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1 minute ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

 

I think you’re missing the point, though. The actual original Ditko cover survived, otherwise they couldn’t have reprinted it in the 80’s or used it as a variant cover. 

Whether the one I posted is it, or not, is beside the point. It exists. 

Maybe.    Or maybe an image of it exists.

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6 minutes ago, Bronty said:

No chance.    Show me another early SA marvel cover (hero or pre-hero) with the thick word bubble outline where they cropped the word bubble.   Just didn't happen.

This was an unused cover. Maybe that’s part of why Stan rejected it?

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9 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

This was an unused cover. Maybe that’s part of why Stan rejected it?

Don't be ridiculous.   C'mon now ;)  They had been using that thick word bubble technique for years before amazing fantasy 15.    No professional artist is going to make that mistake.   

They always left a bit of room.    This image here is cropped and there is still rooom..

I get wanting the art to exist.   And maybe it does.    But that Sean Howe picture is 100% not it.

4481-2008-4893-1-tales-to-astonish.jpg

Edited by Bronty
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21 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Don't be ridiculous.   C'mon now ;)  They had been using that thick word bubble technique for years before amazing fantasy 15.    No professional artist is going to make that mistake.   

They always left a bit of room.    This image here is cropped and there is still rooom..

I get wanting the art to exist.   And maybe it does.    But that Sean Howe picture is 100% not it.

4481-2008-4893-1-tales-to-astonish.jpg

See the source image

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Obviously, printed comic books, unlike OA, can be off center.   The logo is cut off on that one as well, telling me that the "space" is wrapped onto the back cover.

A properly centered copy (most copies aren't) has room.   Not a lot, but its there.

Its actually easier to see on this reprint.

RAD7F4802017122_155753.jpg

Edited by Bronty
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10 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Why would an image of an unused cover from that era still exist?

Maybe a stat exists right?   Would that be so crazy?   No crazier than the original existing.

 

So before, the lack of space to the left on the "OA" was to you a sign it might be rejected.

Then, you use the published cover (off-center) as some kind of indication that the word bubbles were cut off on the OA.   

Well if the word bubbles were cut off on the published OA, why TF wasn't it rejected then, according to your own logic?  hm

 

Like I said, maybe the rejected art exists, maybe it doesn't, but the pic shown is a fake, flat out.   

 

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1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Why would an image of an unused cover from that era still exist?

Because they kept a stat of it the way they kept stats of the unused FF Annual 1, FF 3, ASM 10, etc.  They reprinted the AF 15 (unused) stat in the 50 Years of Marvel book.  The OA isn't known to exist. 

I interviewed the guys who ran the printing presses in the 1960s.  That cover art isn't under Stan's bed.  It's either a) under someone else's bed or b) put into a landfill in 1964 to make more room on the shelves. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, glendgold said:

Because they kept a stat of it the way they kept stats of the unused FF Annual 1, FF 3, ASM 10, etc.  They reprinted the AF 15 (unused) stat in the 50 Years of Marvel book.  The OA isn't known to exist. 

I interviewed the guys who ran the printing presses in the 1960s.  That cover art isn't under Stan's bed.  It's either a) under someone else's bed or b) put into a landfill in 1964 to make more room on the shelves. 

 

 

"under someone else's bed" is what I think.

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53 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

"under someone else's bed" is what I think.

Well, there was the saying about, 'Reds under the beds'.

I'll check for those pesky Reds later on when I head off to the land of Morpheus.  I doubt that I'll find any unused Ditko covers.

Edited by The Voord
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3 hours ago, vodou said:

Ah. So no evidence needed, just a matter of faith for you. Kinda like Jesus or or something. Cool.

Ummm...I listed my evidence. The interior OA exists, etc. 

Your evidence is that it hasn’t surfaced yet. The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. 

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13 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Ummm...I listed my evidence. The interior OA exists, etc. 

Your evidence is that it hasn’t surfaced yet. The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. 

LOL. Wine has water in it, thus Jesus can turn water into wine :)

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1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Ummm...I listed my evidence. The interior OA exists, etc. 

Your evidence is that it hasn’t surfaced yet. The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. 

The interiors were retained for reprint purposes.  Covers were produced solely for the month of the year they appeared to front the comic-books, so were difficult for reprint purposes unless heavily restructured for the later time-period (far easier just to get an artist to re-draw a fresh one as the covers were, after all, a packaging element of the story product).

There's an inventory of Marvel OA dating back to (I think) the early 1980s out there that's appeared on these forums numerous times .  You don't see the covers being listed alongside the interior pages following the audit of what Marvel actually held in their warehouse (at a time before the art was dispersed)..  From what I recall, there was a spattering of covers from the latter half of the 1960s (and upwards) mentioned but none of the early ones (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that claim).

Although it's possible that more of the earlier covers exist than is currently known, I think it's unlikely.  Certainly not in big numbers.  Big money being spent OA should be enough to tempt their release (if they existed).  How about the early 1960s non-key titles . . . Millie the Model and the Western titles for example.  They're hardly high-demand books, so why haven't we seen such things surface?

 

 

Edited by The Voord
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This fascinating post by Irene Vartanoff on her blog sheds some light on the subject. She thinks there may still be some photo negatives of the original cover art out there, at least. 

https://irenevartanoff.com/about-marvel-comics-original-artwork-in-the-1960s/

Irene also takes issue with Glen Gold’s claim that her Marvel art inventory list wasn’t accurate. 

https://irenevartanoff.com/marvel-comics-original-art-the-topic-that-keeps-on-giving/

 

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13 hours ago, glendgold said:

Because they kept a stat of it the way they kept stats of the unused FF Annual 1, FF 3, ASM 10, etc.  They reprinted the AF 15 (unused) stat in the 50 Years of Marvel book.  The OA isn't known to exist. 

I interviewed the guys who ran the printing presses in the 1960s.  That cover art isn't under Stan's bed.  It's either a) under someone else's bed or b) put into a landfill in 1964 to make more room on the shelves. 

 

 

Glen, you are one of the few people on this thread who has done any actual research, so I don't mean any disrespect, but how do the pressmen know that Stan didn't end up with the covers? Does that mean the covers were sitting around the printing plant, no one from Marvel ever came around for them, and so the "someone else" is the janitor or something?

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I hate to use logic, but why would they make a “stat” of the covers but not the interiors? Why keep the interiors for “reprints,” then make a stat of covers you don’t ever intend to reprint.

Irene Vartanoff says they were making photo negatives of the covers and archiving those (at least one person was). But where were the originals? If you can use the photo negatives or stats to make printing plates, why even send the original covers to the printer at all?

 

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1 hour ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I hate to use logic, but why would they make a “stat” of the covers but not the interiors? Why keep the interiors for “reprints,” then make a stat of covers you don’t ever intend to reprint.

 

I hate to state the obvious but what do you think colorists were working from?

Edited by The Voord
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Lots of Marie Severin color guides exist from the EC comic-books.  Basically stats of the art colored as a guide for the engraver (note that these are interior pages) These things were saved because publisher Bill Gaines archived all the original artwork and by-products.

Colour guides.jpg

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