Jayman

It was a no brainer once I saw the finished painting. Other than the obvious prelim/finished look to these covers, the main difference that I see is that the finished (unused version) seems to be an animated hand clutching at the door. The used prelim art always left me thinking it was a severed hand lying on the floor.

Take

Alternative version...

More info from his page. Very interesting, I did not know about this. This was the final version of the painting that appeared on Eerie # 36 by Enrich but the preliminary painting was used on the cover instead. I wrote James Warren a letter and asked him about this and received a reply on February 24, 2014. This is a portion of his reply: Dear Mike- After studying both renditions and trying to remember what happened here some 43 years ago, this is my thinking: 1) My guess ( and it is an educated guess ) is that when I was first shown the original painting ( The one you own ) , I rejected it because I didn't think the deformed hand was realistic enough. ( It was more like a claw from an animal or zombie, or whatever.) I wanted more of a human hand at the time. 2) I then asked Enrich to give me another version. 3) Enrich then submitted a comprehensive color rough of a new hand. 4) I liked the comprehensive color rough, and accepted it as the final art that would appear on the cover. - OR- 5) I was forced to accept it, and use it, BECAUSE OF A DEADLINE that had to be made. It's possible that we had already gone ahead with the inside painting of the issue, and this inside contained the story (" The Hand of Kane Kinkaid"),which meant that we had to use a ' Hand" painting for this particular issue;- And there was NO TIME to wait for ENRICH to do another big painting. This was entirely possible but as I said, it was 43 years ago, and my mind is not clear on this. If I had it to do all over again, I WOULD HAVE INDEED USED THE " CLAW " ORIGINAL VERSION THAT YOU HAVE - INSTEAD OF THE COLOR ROUGH. THE ORIGINAL IS FAR SUPERIOR TO THE COLOR ROUGH ARTISTICALLY, AND FROM THE POINT OF VIEW AS A " BETTER COVER".

I never would have thought this was an Enrich cover. @OtherEric, thanks for stepping in for this round. Let’s all hope our Elf is ok!

I’m sure it will be!

That’s the 36 btw.

Two I found recently going through my boxes. I must have neglected to scan them and completely forgot I had them!

I think the seller cropped out the 8.0 parts and left us with a 6.0 copy!

Congrats and welcome to the club! 😁 It truly is a beast of a book. It held my top spot in my collection till I got another hard cover book. Your copy looks to be in excellent condition too!

Yeah, that’s pretty thick just under 7/8 of an inch. I don’t believe the mag holders can accommodate that size. Not sure even the newer pulp cases get that thick but I could be wrong. Best of luck!

I don’t know the answer myself, but perhaps post the thickness in inches or at least a pic of the spine to get a more accurate answer.

Fascinating stuff @Professor K! My only CA book.

Magical things happen! The showing of some top examples of books and the sharing of some of the history behind them was such a treat. Just one phenomenal book after another! Seeing first hand the page quality on certain copies takes the appreciation to the next level.

At least! And that is just what Adamstrange decided to share with us. It was nice to finally meet the legendary Vaultkeeper too! All the books and OA to look at was such a treat. Still processing all I got to see!

It was a great visit! There just wasn’t enough time to go through all the jaw dropping items. The pizza was good too!

(20th year anniversary post!)

Or the second print of issue 1… First print