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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
MARVEL had been publishing their weekly periodicals in Britain for a while, when, perhaps responding to some readers' requests, they asked the rest of us if we'd like to see more original covers. To my mind, 'original' covers meant the original covers which had first appeared on the U.S. mags, not newly-originated ones for the U.K. comics, which seemed to be what Marvel had in mind. I responded, saying "Yes, more original covers please!" - as, no doubt, did quite a few other Marvelites, because, before too long, the weeklies sported brand-new (and, a few exceptions apart, mostly inferior) cover art all across the board.
I eventually twigged to what had happened regarding the differing interpretations of what was meant by 'original', but, going by the poor reception of many of the 'new' covers featured on this blog, I had the right idea and Marvel had the wrong one. (I exclude JIM STARLIN's covers on early issues of MWOM because I actually like them.) Perhaps, had Marvel stuck with more 'classic' covers from the original U.S. issues, their titles may have enjoyed a greater success.
So what say you readers? Did you care much for the specially-produced, newly-drawn cover art on the Marvel weeklies of your youth, or, like me, did you prefer to see the classic covers that had first graced the initial printings of these early titanic tales? Make your valued views known in the comments section - the fate of the free world hangs in the balance! (Well, if I'm gonna lie, I like to make it a big one.)
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| This cover illo was also pressed into service as a splash page in the very nest issue. Not quite in the same league as the SURFER cover above, eh? |
I must admit that I didn't notice at the time but looking at the Marvel UK covers now I see how appalling a lot of them were - it was so much better when the original U.S. covers were used. However my very first Marvel comic was POTA No.5 and that has a rather good cover even though it's a UK exclusive so they weren't all bad. But the fact that many stories had to be split over two weeks meant that there was no choice but to create new "UK only" covers - a way around this would have been, for example, alternating Spidey covers with the back-up strips like they did with The Avengers featuring Shang-Chi or Dr. Strange.
ReplyDeleteYup, that was a way to do it - although sometimes covers were used to create new splash pages for those strips divided in two, but with three stories per ish, they still had a choice of which covers to alternate. After all, the cover is the most important thing to grab the casual reader.
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