My Girlfriend is so cool..

[HeroDreamer]

She just asked me if I think the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #1 is out there somewhere. I of course could only speculate that if it's still around...it either belongs to the Ditko family or what I think is more likely...a private collector who will never let it see the light of day. I thought I would humor her by posting this. And I guess I'm wondering...WHO actually owns the covers to key books? Amazing Fantasy 15, FF 1..etc. Thoughts?

[Mac Man]

I'm sure this guy owns a few comic covers...

[irchooker]

It's a question that has been asked out loud many, many times. The answer is usually hushed whispers between a handful of people; because so many Marvel books were 'stolen' * from the offices the conversation usually turns into a witch hunt and/or legal arguement over the timeliness of filing police reports or the changing definition of ownership as pertains to original art and art returns.

 

With absolutely no evidence, I think the cover (and complete story) to Amazing Spider-man #1 is in a vault, in ****** ****'s basement, sitting along side issues 2, 3, 4 and 5.

 

* Note: part of the winding arguement is that because artists didn't fight for art returns until the 70's, it was always assumed by everyone including artists, the companies owned the art. Therefore is was up to the companies to file police reports for their stolen material. They never did and the statute has expired. One other aspect of the arguement is that comic art is a by product of the desired, finished product: comic books. A by product which was thrown away, much like excess marble chips in a cutting shop. If someone picked up some marble chips and took them home is that 'Theft', with a capital T, or merely theft of garbage and easily overlooked?

[Kevin Boyd]

Additionally, the companies also destroyed originals. For example, at National/DC they used to chop the originals into three then burn them. Marv Wolfman and Len Wein were interns at DC in their younger days and they were tasked with destroying a lot of the old inventory artwork, most of which was from the 1940's. They saved some pieces, but destroyed many others.

 

There are also the stories/legends of Steve Ditko using his old Spider-Man pages as cutting boards when someone went to visit him at his studio.

 

For many of the older artists, the originals were considered production art. They did their job then passed it along to the next guy in the penciller /inker /letterer /colourist chain. What mattered was the finished, published comic book. The company was buying their artwork, so they didn't think the originals had any intrinsic value... it has only developed into a collectible field of it's own over the last few decades.

[spider9698]

Thank you for deleting my name from your post.

 

 

 

 

[Spider-Variant]

Come on, you guys know I don't have a basement!

[Mister Trent]

Most of the early SA Marvel covers have never surfaced and may well have been routinely destroyed.

 

Nearly all the interior pages were retained (with a view to reprint possibilities), but covers were specific to the day/month/year they saw print.

 

Very, very few early 1960s covers are known to exist.

[HeroDreamer]

I'm sure this guy owns a few comic covers...

 

saw that yesterday...that's nuts!

[HeroDreamer]

Thanks for the responses too guys. Very interesting points...a lot of which I had just assumed anyways. It's such a shame that a lot of artists never knew what their work was going to become in the future. The idea of all those treasures being lost forever is really just sad.

[TMNT]

Very, very few early 1960s covers are known to exist.

 

And I'm sure they would command quite the premium...

[slackjawcomics]

Marv Wolfman and Len Wein were interns at DC in their younger days and they were tasked with destroying a lot of the old inventory artwork, most of which was from the 1940's. They saved some pieces, but destroyed many others.

 

If they would of kept it, retirement would of come so early for them.