Guest Post By Barry Pearl...

On The Shoulders Of Atlas...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

I've done five types of "submissions" to Marvel, and I bet the fifth group will surprise you.  (No peeking!)  First let me say that Marvel is a pleasure to deal with; they are very friendly, cooperative and helpful when I need something.  But that's been true of all the companies I've scanned for.  I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. Marvel wants the scans to be 600dpi saved as a TIF file.  I am told that DC scans at about 300-400dpi.

It's true that the early Masterworks, (1990-2005 or so) were not printed well at all, suffering from poor and redrawn images with bad colouring.  Boy, are they working hard to make sure that the newer volumes are done right.  They've redone a bunch of earlier books to bring them up to the standard of ones published now.

I don't want to get into the issue of whether they should follow, exactly, the original colour, as I've had enough of that argument.  Originally the books were published on cheap yellow newsprint with 12 colours derived from four main ones.  Now they are printed on white paper with a million colours so it's bound to look different.

 

 

1.)  Rarities: Marvel published a volume of "Rarities" featuring, well, rare items from the Marvel Universe.  They came to my house to see what I had, which included an MMMS membership card and also an actual No-Prize, which I won.

 

 

2.)  Marvel has asked me to provide scans of covers and comics that they don't have.  Marvel doesn't use the original artwork (where would they get it anyway?) and prefers to use the actual film used to take pictures of the artwork.  Marvel has been owned by several companies over the years and, apparently, not everything can be found.  Sometimes the film is no longer in usable shape.  I just scanned in Brother Voodoo (above) and you can see my scan on the cover of their new BV Masterworks volume.

 

3.)  Reprints: The more current covers for reprint issues. For example, Fantasy Masterpieces (above) published stories form the 1940s and 1950s but with new covers.

 

 

4.)  Marvel asked me to write an introduction (above) to the Tales of Suspense Masterworks, Volume 3.  As you may know, Marvel was originally called Timely then Atlas.  Since this was a volume that transitions from the last era to the Marvel age I entitled the intro The Shoulders of Atlas.  Marvel sent me their black and white scans of the stories so I could discuss them.

 

 

5.)  In-House ads and Letter Columns.  That's right, Marvel may have the film of the stories, but not the letters columns or In-house ads, both of which they add to the Omnibuses.  Here are a couple of requests.

 

Barry, I forgot to ask you, did Monsters on the Prowl #9, 11 or 13 have letters pages?  If so, would it be possible to get 600dpi scans of them?

 
Marvel was not sure if those comics even had letter columns.

 

Hi Barry, Captain America #228 has a full-page Doctor Strange house ad.  Any chance I could score a 600dpi scan of it from you?

Often I have to look and see if the issues contain what they ask for, but I'm always happy to help when I can, and I get a real sense of pride from seeing my name in print, knowing that I've helped preserve and promote Marvel history for future generations.