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Don Newton Bats/Tec gallery update
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9 posts in this topic

I talked to Walt about that Bats #366 cover a month ago, and he told me the story of using it as barter with his friend who had then sold it.  He didn't mention seeing it on Dave Mandel's wall... but I got a good laugh out of the fact that its location was sitting on a Felix YouTube video all this time. Knowing it is in Mandel's house closes the loop on it, but it also makes it 99.9% unobtainable. Was not knowing where it was all these years any better than knowing it's held in esteem by a top collector? Feels like if Schroedinger collected OA... 

Edited by Sideshow Bob
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FYI - The guy who created the dioramas is named Todd Reis (who has a gallery on CAF, not updated in a while). 

I have the Mike Nasser commission that he created for Reis (https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=189266 )

That commission and the one for Simonson were featured in an interview with Reis in David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview 78

I have to dig out the magazine to be sure but I remember the story a little differently, memory is a little fuzzy on this.  I think Simonson created an original piece for Reis and then Simonson created a similar piece for DC.  Anyway, I could see how that could peeve Reis and be consistent with the story that Mandel told in the talk with Felix.

 

 

Edited by Will_K
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Congratulations Bob !!!

I always loved the Newton / Alcala artistic combo.  Some people thought Alcala over powered Newton's pencils but I viewed it as no different than Sinnott inking Kirby on FF.

DC included the story of the 366 cover in the editorial letters page.  Simonson did the commission at a show, someone from DC saw it and decided to use it as an inventory cover.

A lot of folks were looking for this cover so Dave M was  one fortunate dude that Jim W contacted him.

Cheers!

N.

 

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23 minutes ago, NelsonAI said:

Congratulations Bob !!!

I always loved the Newton / Alcala artistic combo.  Some people thought Alcala over powered Newton's pencils but I viewed it as no different than Sinnott inking Kirby on FF.

DC included the story of the 366 cover in the editorial letters page.  Simonson did the commission at a show, someone from DC saw it and decided to use it as an inventory cover.

A lot of folks were looking for this cover so Dave M was  one fortunate dude that Jim W contacted him.

Cheers!

N.

 

Since I hadn't seen the original inks or knew the backstory, the published cover was my only reference until now. So my childhood pretense of how this cover got created was that Walt had been tasked with the cover duties. However, the rough storyline they gave him was Joker and Batman having their big fight on top of a temple, so he drew a Greek temple (the fight is on top of a Mayan pyramid in Guatemala). Jump back to today, and seeing the clear lines of the OA, it is very clearly a skyscraper with Greek god carvings and windows highlighted by police spotlights, and has zero connection to the story other than Batman and Joker duking it out. And one of my favorite Batman covers was an at-show commission, traded for cost of a new tractor. Hahaha. Never meet your heroes. LOL.

Edited by Sideshow Bob
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FWIW, I happened on my copy of David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview #78 (1990) which has the interview with Todd Reis who traded his 3-D dioramas for Batman commissions.

Unfortunately, it looks like art may have been photographed in color and printed in black and white.  About half of the art is line drawings which printed fine.  But several pieces are described as being color pieces and don't look that great in the article.  Among them, art by Bill Sienkiewicz (chalk pastels), John Byrne (oil paint !!), George Perez, Don Newton, Jerry Ordway, Giordano, Ken Steacy and Brent Anderson (chalk pastels).  Also, I've seen other pieces in recent HA auctions.  I have the Mike Nasser drawing that's shown in the article but I acquired that in the early or mid 1990's.  If there's any interest, I can post scans of art from the article.

The interview shows the original Walt Simonson commission and 1983 published piece for comparison. In the interview, Reis does not mention being upset over Simonson giving the image to DC (bolding and italics as per the article):

Todd: ... There's an interesting story: That was drawn by Walt for my collection, and before he mailed it to me, he showed it to Len Wein who was Batman editor at the time.  He had to have it for a cover, so he had Doug Moench write and Don Newton draw a story, based on the Batman and Joker fighting atop this tower.  It wasn't quite the same, I believe they used an Aztec or Inca tower in that particular story; but nevertheless, it was based upon this piece which then became the cover of BATMAN #366.

It could be that Reis was not upset at the time of the interview and became upset later.  But the interviewer and Reis make various comments/critiques of other commissions.  So I can't see that there was really an issue re: the Simonson commission.

Edited by Will_K
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I recently discovered that a bunch of the Batman comics I loved as a little kid were the work of Don Newton. He is incredibly underrated, perhaps due to his premature death cutting his career tragically short. His talent IMHO is comparable to the legendary Neil Adams. 

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