In the 1970s, both Marvel and DC reprinted a lot of their Silver Age and older comics to help newer readers catch up. Often they reprinted the original covers as well, but they more likely commissioned new covers by modern artists. I'm going to start posting some examples over the next few days and let you decide which you like better.
Here's one of the key Silver Age stories featuring Spider-Man from issue 33, and it's reprint with a new cover in Marvel Tales 26.
And here's Amazing Spider-Man Annual 4 and it's reprint from Giant-Size Spider-Man 6.
I'll post more later.
Hoy
Replies
Of the first two, I pick the original (ASM 33).
Of the second two, I consider the reprint (Giant-Size Spider-Man 6) to be the better of the two.
Here are a couple more.Avengers 10 by Jack Kirby, and its reprint in Marvel Triple Action 5 (looks like Sal Buscema to me).
Hoy
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Thanks for posting these, Hoy! I was aware of the practice, but I didn't often compare them, unless I was really familiar with the original. Clearly ASM #33 is the better choice, but it had less to deal with on the cover.
I can see good attributes for both of the Spidey-Torch team-ups. The second one has more action in the figures, but I like the black background and the hints of a villain team-up. The starbust on the original looks pretty squeezed in, which always surprised me, given how good they usually were at that.
To me Avengers #10 is so much better, even if the poses aren't quite as dynamic, that's it's not even close. And again, the reprint didn't have as much room to work with, although this time because of the cover format Marvel was using and that big honking title.
On the last ones, it's much the same cover with a few alterations, which I think they did pretty often, including using the same art sometimes. The second one definitey improves on Hank and Jan's positioning and makes the ax more menacing.
Ideally, you'd think many of the later ones would be improvements, as they could take the original idea and make it better. But sometimes there's not much to be improved on, and the restrictions in the format don't make it possible. Still, in the end, I'd give these a score of 2.5 to 1.5, and that's a better score than I would've expected coming from a Silver Age guy like me.
-- MSA
For the cover of Captain America #101 the Skull's head was redrawn, presumably to accomodate the Comics Code. What appears to be the original head can be seen on Marvel Super Action #2 (1977).
The original cover also has less background. Possibly some of the background was removed for the original cover to accomodate the title and box image (on the later cover the "Captain America" part of the logo comes lower than the bottom of the original's logo, but the title and box are otherwise less intrusive on the image). On the other hand, some of the flying debris has apparently been removed for the redo. The placement of the Sleeper figure is also different, as you can see by comparing the position of its mouth to the thug's head. I think it's been lowered to accomodate the "Captain America" part of the logo. The flying rocks in front of the thug have been shifted slightly, and the top of the Sleeper's casket altered (apparently, because it no longer needed to accomodate the last A in Cap's name.)
Thanks, Luke. Here are the covers. I had never noticed the difference in the Skulls, or that the reprint actually featured the original drawing!
Hoy
Luke Blanchard said:
The Giant-Size Spider-Man looks like he's staring at the Little Size Spider-Man in the corner!
The practice of new covers fluctuated throughout the 70s. I recall long stretches of Marvel's Greatest Comics and Marvel Tales that used the same Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man covers.
As for the Red Skull, we can't have a Nazi murderer and terrorist look too gruesome, can we?
That original Skull drawing is beyond gruesome, it's bizarre. That Skull head is just a mask; how he opens the mouth like that, much less unhinges his jaw to do it, might have left readers wondering if this was some alien instead.
Based on the positioning, it looks more like the head was redrawn to allow room for the big oval title at the bottom. It does seem that in these remade covers that the titles are downplayed or moved away to make more room for the illustration. I don't know if that's coincidence with these so far or a general rule.
It's still pretty interesting that the *original* art was used on the remake!
I find it surprising that, given the unwieldy long titles on those reprint comics, they played up that name over the name of the character. Putting those words in one line at the top and playing up the character's name in a logo would have seemed to have given those covers more impact Especially since that "Triple Action" name really had no relevance right from the beginning.
-- Craig
I have the Captain America story in a digest-sized Australian reprint that reprints the second version of the cover. When I looked up the cover online, to see it at a larger size, I looked up the original assuming they were the same. I was amazed at how much weaker it looked than I'd expected.
I like the second version of the cover much more. The background adds a lot, as well as the nastier face. Given the other changes it's possible it was an addition, but the wall behind Cap seems to be sitting in limbo on the original issue, so I think it's more likely it was part of the original drawing.
On the other hand, arguably that's not possible, because as the figures are placed on the original cover, there's no room for wall area above the doorway seen in the redone cover. It's unlikely that the Sleeper figure was originally lower, as on the redone cover, as its position on the later cover seems to be determined by the lower part of the logo. I think I may have the explanation. On Captain America #100 the logo area is filled in black, separating it from the image area. On the unused version of the cover in the alternative covers gallery at Mark Evanier's website the logo area is separated from the image area by a line running from the bottom of the price/number boxes. Kirby might've drawn the cover for #101 assuming that that form of the logo would be used. In that case, it could be that in the original drawing the back wall was supposed to be there, but Kirby didn't draw in the top part of the wall due to the logo area line. In the course of the preparation of the cover the line was removed, and the result was that the part of the wall shown now seemed to be standing in limbo.
Here's a change of pace from all those violent Marvel comics: two examples of Bob Oksner's genius.
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