Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,218 
|
Post by Confessor on Aug 15, 2016 9:33:14 GMT -5
I don't believe any of the Amazing Spider-Man stories that were reprinted in Marvel Tales were missing any pages and it was only for a year or so in 1984 or something that the editorial office saw fit to start replacing 60's pop culture references with '80s ones in some of the dialogue. Fan outcry in the letters pages about that was so great that they soon stopped it. You have the issues and can check yourself but I know I've seen it mentioned in fanzines about missing pages. I went to GCD to confirm myself and saw that Marvel Tales #60 thru 90 (I stopped checking afterwards) only reprinted 18 pages of Spidey stories that were originally 20 pages long. Marvel comics in the 1970s had less pages and more ads than the earlier books and that caused the editing. No different than syndicated rerun shows trimming a few minutes from the original episode for more ads When Marvel raised prices and added page count, it eliminated the necessity of editing. Ah, OK...I stand corrected. It seems from looking at the GCD that this practice of losing two pages per story in the Marvel Tales reprints went on for a five year period from 1975 until 1980, after that they began reprinting the full stories again. So, apart from that five year period, the the other 27 years of Marvel Tales reprinted the complete stories. What's interesting is that while doing a Google search about this just now, I came across a thread in a Marvel Masterworks fan forum that said that the editorial staff often got creative with these edited versions. Rather than just chop out two whole pages -- which would obviously effect the flow of the story -- they would loose the odd panel here and there throughout the book, as well as rearranging panels or cropping panels differently, in order to get the page count down. This also explains why, among the 40 or so issues of Marvel Tales from this time period that I own, I have never noticed that bits of the story were missing or felt like a particular tale didn't flow properly. I'm gonna see if I can get some scans of the original issues and compare the two. I'm quite interested to see exactly what sort of stuff was excised and how Marvel rearranged the stories to make them fit the lower page count during this period. Nothing like the originals since the letter pages, ads, Bullpen Bulletins and the real covers give you the total experience as it was meant to be. That's including the topical references and un-corrected mistakes. I completely agree with this, but since I neither have the funds nor the inclination to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the original Silver Age issues of Amazing Spider-Man, the Marvel Tales reprints give me the opportunity to experience those stories as single issues, printed on newsprint, with the original colouring (at least until the mid-80s) and better quality printing at a fraction of the price. That's still preferable to having that run -- and Silver Age ASM is one of my favourite runs ever -- in a trade paperback collection, with glossy paper and modern colouring. I have the first 90 issues of Fantastic Four in Omnibus format and, while those are lovely collections, I would never think of replacing my copies of Marvel Tales with the ASM Omnibuses. Also, on the subject of letters pages, Marvel Tales actually had its own letters page where folk would talk about the reprints. While they are not as interesting as the original letters pages, they are still kind of fascinating in and of themselves. |
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Aug 15, 2016 9:36:56 GMT -5
Those new covers were probably an attempt to fool kids into buying a book that they already had. A couple of months after I started I reading the Fantastic Four comic, I saw this issue of MCIC on the stands. The contemporary look of the cover art led me to believe it featured a new FF story and I snapped it up. When I actually sat down to read the issue I recall I was surprised to find it consisted of older stories. That was fine by me, as it started me on being interested in the older stories and seeking out back issues. Later on as I collected back issues and became more familiar with older Marvel comics, I saw that this MCIC #12 was the first in its series that didn't use the "postcard" cover format, i.e., feature insets of the original covers of the reprints (for FF, Iron Man, Hulk, Dr. Strange). The cover art here was a result of combining images from the FF #17 reprint (the story featured in this issue) plus more recent images from the FF comic.  |
|
|
|
Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 15, 2016 9:48:47 GMT -5
I hear you Confessor. In the 20th century your only choices were the originals or however Marvel served up their reprint editions. Fortunately I had the originals since I was older (maybe not so fortunate in the long run) and bought them from the newsstands or when they were more reasonably priced as back issues. Now there are many methods of obtaining long runs including CD-Rom (didn't a company put out the first 20 years or so of Spidey in this format? I know they did with The X-Men) and digital torrents. Personally I'd go with Omnibus' or trades and put up with re-coloring or b &W and what not as long as the story was complete and unrevised, warts and all
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,218
|
Post by Confessor on Aug 15, 2016 10:49:23 GMT -5
I mentioned earlier that I was gonna have a look and see which Marvel Tales covers improved upon the original Amazing Spider-Man ones. Of course, most of the time the original covers were superior, but here are four reprint covers that I personally think have the edge over the originals... Marvel Tales #35 by Gil Kane/Vince Colletta (click for the original)  Marvel Tales #54 by John Romita (click for the original - same image, but better colouring and a cool background too!)  Marvel Tales #192 by John Romita and Brett Breeding (click for the original - obviously this reprint cover gives the big shock ending of this story away and so it could only work for a reprint, but I still think it's a more aesthetically pleasing cover image.)  Marvel Tales #217 by Mike Zeck (click for the original)  |
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Aug 15, 2016 11:56:33 GMT -5
I hear you Confessor. In the 20th century your only choices were the originals or however Marvel served up their reprint editions. Fortunately I had the originals since I was older (maybe not so fortunate in the long run) and bought them from the newsstands or when they were more reasonably priced as back issues. Now there are many methods of obtaining long runs including CD-Rom (didn't a company put out the first 20 years or so of Spidey in this format? I know they did with The X-Men) and digital torrents. Personally I'd go with Omnibus' or trades and put up with re-coloring or b &W and what not as long as the story was complete and unrevised, warts and all The Spider-Man set had 40 years of comics. They did sets for the FF, X-Men, Avengers, and others as well. I got those 4, but I wish I'd have had a chance to buy the Captain America set as well. It goes for crazy money on the secondary market now. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2016 12:15:53 GMT -5
Pip, please tell me who is the Cover Artist that did these gorgeous covers and I really admire his/her artwork here and it's so wonderfully drawn and the colors really blended in and detailed just short of brilliance and I just fell in love with them. He or She is now one of my top 5 Cover Artists of all time. |
|
|
|
Post by the4thpip on Aug 15, 2016 12:28:50 GMT -5
Pip, please tell me who is the Cover Artist that did these gorgeous covers and I really admire his/her artwork here and it's so wonderfully drawn and the colors really blended in and detailed just short of brilliance and I just fell in love with them. He or She is now one of my top 5 Cover Artists of all time. As I mentioned earlier, French artist Jean Frisano (1927-1987). It's interesting that the French introduced painted covers to Marvel superheroes a good decade or so before Marvel in the US did so with the magazines. Of course, Goldkey had them both beat. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2016 12:31:39 GMT -5
Thanks Pip, and I will be looking for his work and he is incredible. Jean Frisano - I'm going to my store this Friday and ask my dear friend if he can help me getting some of his works.
|
|
|
|
Post by the4thpip on Aug 15, 2016 12:58:01 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Farrar on Aug 15, 2016 13:08:26 GMT -5
Here are a few more I like without the originals...  @mechagodzilla , here's a bit more info on the artist--I agree, he was great! www.mandrakewiki.org/index.php?title=Jean_FrisanoPip,thanks for the Frisano covers--his work is quite stunning. Looks like for the Marvel covers he'd base the cover painting on a panel or panels from the Marvel books (and did a masterful job). There's the cover with the famous Phoenix image, and as a Silver Age FF fan I recognized the images of Black Bolt, medusa and Karnak from Fantastic Four Annual #5.   |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2016 13:36:57 GMT -5
Pip ... the Ice-Man and the Human Torch is stunning beyond belief ... thanks again for sharing more of his work!  |
|
|
|
Post by the4thpip on Aug 15, 2016 14:03:18 GMT -5
When the French publisher of DC comics tried to do something similar, they hired an unknown artist who couldn't even get the Fash's mask right, so they fired him after two issues and went back to original covers:   |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2016 14:45:33 GMT -5
As I mentioned earlier, French artist Jean Frisano (1927-1987). It's interesting that the French introduced painted covers to Marvel superheroes a good decade or so before Marvel in the US did so with the magazines. Of course, Goldkey had them both beat. When I saw them, they reminded me a bit of the Romita painted style covers for Marvel's Fireside books like Son of Origins...  The Super-Hero Women...  and Bring On the Bad Guys...  which were released in the 1970s. -M |
|
|
|
Post by the4thpip on Aug 15, 2016 15:44:56 GMT -5
This is so random: Vengeur had been, up until this issue, a horror anthology. Suddenly, here's Spider-Man, battling... Kang-Pin?   |
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Aug 15, 2016 18:16:55 GMT -5
...
|
|
