IDW Marvels Covers Artists Edition

[Captain Canuck]

I know this was posted in the Comics General Forum, but wasn't sure how often some of you visit that section.

 

I have never purchased an IDW Artists Edition book before and I know the Marvel Covers is a little different than their other books. I was wondering based upon the description and peoples previous experience with Artists Editions if it is a worthwhile purchase or not? As well, in these types of books do they provide a description and or a bio on each page or is it all pictures? Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

"Marvel Comics is the home of some of the greatest and most iconic cover images in the history of comics. This unique Artist’s Edition will feature an amazing “Best of” selection of gorgeous covers by a veritable who’s who of the medium. Arthur Adams, Gene Colan, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller, John Romita, Jim Starlin, Jim Steranko and many more — there has never been a book like this before and you are not likely to see its ilk again anytime soon!

 

Brought to you by the same team responsible for the Eisner Award-winning Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer: Artist’s Edition and Wally Wood’s EC Stories: Artist’s Edition.

 

AN ARTIST’S EDITION PRESENTS COMPLETE STORIES WITH EACH PAGE SCANNED FROM THE ACTUAL ORIGINAL ART.

 

While appearing to be in black and white, each page was scanned in color to mimic as closely as possible the experience of viewing the actual original art—for instance, corrections, blue pencils, paste-overs, all the little nuances that make original art unique. Each page is printed the same size as drawn, and the paper selected is as close as possible to the original art board."

 

 

 

[Terry Doyle]

They're a little late shipping over to here in the UK, but I've got the book on order.

 

You ought to get an introduction along with relevant information on the contents pages, but the covers ought to speak for themselves (and likely will do without biographical information tagged on).

 

If you enjoy looking at original artwork, this book will give you that kind of experience via close-proximity printed reproductions.

 

I love these books so, yes, I'd definitely say they're worthwhile buying.

[theflashunc]

Terry nailed it.

 

You'll get a Table of Contents, probably some post-credits on the artists involved at the end. May be some goodies towards the back like roughs or other details.

 

But generally they let the art speak for itself.

[J.Sid]

I'm one that is a little skeptical about it, and here's why:

 

The Watchmen Artifact edition was horrendous. Worst one they've put out by far. The pages were clearly was not scanned "in house" from the same scanner and design professionals but rather likely just taken from whatever cruddy scan the page owner had put up in their CAF gallery.

 

Every other page looked different. About a third of the pages looked good. As far as the rest? Some looked like bleached out BW photocopies, some looked like they'd been soaked in radioactive urine. Some scans were blue, some scans were pink (not a joke). My copy is on eBay right now. It's aggravating to look at after the expectations I had from IDW. (they'd set the bar high for themselves with pvs volumes)

 

 

I am guessing that the Marvel Covers edition will be done the same way. Surely owners from across the country are not all mailing their actual covers to IDW to scan properly, but rather will be just emailing whatever JPG they have sitting on their hard drive.

 

I expect the book's overall quality to be on par with the Watchmen volume (ug), and will be waiting to flip through a copy in person before I fork out any money.

 

Just my two cents. (Hope you prove me wrong, Scott!)

 

 

[chromium]

I'm one that is a little skeptical about it, and here's why:

 

The Watchmen Artifact edition was horrendous. Worst one they've put out by far. The pages were clearly was not scanned "in house" from the same scanner and design professionals but rather likely just taken from whatever cruddy scan the page owner had put up in their CAF gallery.

 

Every other page looked different. About a third of the pages looked good. As far as the rest? Some looked like bleached out BW photocopies, some looked like they'd been soaked in radioactive urine. Some scans were blue, some scans were pink (not a joke). My copy is on eBay right now. It's aggravating to look at after the expectations I had from IDW. (they'd set the bar high for themselves with pvs volumes)

 

 

I am guessing that the Marvel Covers edition will be done the same way. Surely owners from across the country are not all mailing their actual covers to IDW to scan properly, but rather will be just emailing whatever JPG they have sitting on their hard drive.

 

I expect the book's overall quality to be on par with the Watchmen volume (ug), and will be waiting to flip through a copy in person before I fork out any money.

 

Just my two cents. (Hope you prove me wrong, Scott!)

 

 

I was one of the people that was asked to submit a page of OA for the Watchmen Watchmen Artifact edition, Scott contacted me and asked for a specific scan (resolution, etc..)

I didn't make the scan myself and certainly didn't feel like sending my page in for a scan so I went to a local printer and had a nice high res scan made.

Too big to be sent by mail so I had to put it on a server so Scott could download it.

No idea what other people did.

 

I can't really comment on the quality of the book as I was promised a comp copy for the use of my page. So I never went out and bought it, expecting the comp copy in the mail,

 

Alas IDW never sent out the promised comp copies and my query I sent to Scott last month about went unanswered.

[Ferran Delgado]

I publish a mag in Spain about Marvel comics, and often I include many scans from original art that I ask to private collectors like David Mandel, Tim Townsend, Weston Allen, Joe Le, Eelco, Zaddich Longenbach or Will Gabri-El just to name a few, and generally, they send new high quality scans.

 

From the samples seen in the ad of the Marvel Covers volume from IDW, I think that the sources will be similar, adding stuff from Albert Moy, Mike Burkey and other art dealers and top collectors with means to produce nice scans, so I'm confident on this volume.

 

Another subject totally different is to borrow images from CAF and display them at large size with an evident not enough resolution or quality, which is what happened with the Watchmen artifact according Sid's description.

 

A volume with plenty of historical covers is really appealing to me, and I'm looking forward to it.

[Terry Doyle]

The AEs that I've bought (about eight up to now), have all been excellent, so no complaints from me.

 

Last one I bought was the first Steranko volume, which collects all the early Nick Fury issues. Unfortunately, not all of the OA was available so, for completeness, a smattering of pages came from printed sources. Pretty good job was made on tweaking those (all the colours are bleached away with the detail sharpened) and they're not too jarring interspersed amongst the OA pages.

 

Forthcoming is a volume of early Romita twice-up ASM, sporting the (true 'classic') # 50 cover. That's another 'must-have' for me.

 

Hopefully, a Ditko ASM volume will follow in the not-too-distant future . . .

[Cyclops]

Terry, what does "twice-up" refer to? I saw it mentioned in the announcement for the Romita Artifact Edition but don't know what it means. Larger art, or something?

[theflashunc]

Terry, what does "twice-up" refer to? I saw it mentioned in the announcement for the Romita Artifact Edition but don't know what it means. Larger art, or something?

 

The art is larger than the 11x17 standard.

[delekkerste]

I just pre-ordered 2 copies of the Marvel Covers AE. I figure I might cut one copy up at one point to use a wall decor (same reason I bought 2 copies of the Gil Kane Spidey AE).

[Cyclops]

Terry, what does "twice-up" refer to? I saw it mentioned in the announcement for the Romita Artifact Edition but don't know what it means. Larger art, or something?

 

The art is larger than the 11x17 standard.

 

Cool. Thought it might be that. It's going to be 22x15 so makes sense.

[Cyclops]

I just pre-ordered 2 copies of the Marvel Covers AE. I figure I might cut one copy up at one point to use a wall decor (same reason I bought 2 copies of the Gil Kane Spidey AE).

 

I was seriously thinking about doing that with the Gil Kane. The only reason I haven't yet is because I want to see if any of the covers in that one are in the Marvel Covers AE.

 

You think they'll double dip?

[Terry Doyle]

I just pre-ordered 2 copies of the Marvel Covers AE. I figure I might cut one copy up at one point to use a wall decor (same reason I bought 2 copies of the Gil Kane Spidey AE).

 

I was seriously thinking about doing that with the Gil Kane. The only reason I haven't yet is because I want to see if any of the covers in that one are in the Marvel Covers AE.

 

You think they'll double dip?

 

I don't really see the sense in replicating material that's available in other volumes, but you never know.

 

Would love to see a volume of twice-up Marvel covers, but whether or not there's enough (available) material to fill-out a book is another thing . . .

[J.Sid]

 

Another subject totally different is to borrow images from CAF and display them at large size with an evident not enough resolution or quality, which is what happened with the Watchmen artifact according Sid's description.

 

 

With Watchmen it is much more the color quality and page tone issue than a resolution issue.

 

The fact that all the bad scans frequently appear side-by-side with a good scan only serves to highlight the difference in quality.

 

 

[Ferran Delgado]

 

Another subject totally different is to borrow images from CAF and display them at large size with an evident not enough resolution or quality, which is what happened with the Watchmen artifact according Sid's description.

 

 

With Watchmen it is much more the color quality and page tone issue than a resolution issue.

 

The fact that all the bad scans frequently appear side-by-side with a good scan only serves to highlight the difference in quality.

 

 

Sometimes the problem with the tone comes from the printer. The OA needs a fragile balance between all the inks, and if one of them is more intense than the rest, the tone is quickly evident. This happened with my copy of the Spider-Man Masterworks TPB that included the Amazing Fantasy #15 OA, which had an intense blue tone that removed the illusion that you were looking at the real pieces, and it was a huge disappointment.

 

I think that my copies of the Artist's Editions are printed quite well, and they keep high quality standards. I'm surprised that the Watchmen book has so many flaws. The second Spider-Man book by Romita had more pages shot from negatives that I used to see, but they were really nice images. In fact, they were so good that a responsible to produce the Masterworks and I were pissed off because we always had to work from poor reproductions sent by Marvel, and we were shocked to see that they had negatives with such quality, that allowed to see traces of pencils.

 

Let's hope that what happened with the Watchmen book was an unfortunately accident that don't ruin the good reputation of IDW. Many of us preorder such expensive books with the faith that it'll be worth the price in spite that it's an effort for many of us to spend such quantity of money. If doubts arise, probably many people will wait to take a look at the LCS, although many people in foreign countries doesn't have one near that run this kind of books, which would be a lost sale.

[J.Sid]

The problem with Watchmen wasn't that they all looked, for example, too blue (which could be explained as a printer error) It's that they all looked different. Some yellow, some blue, some pink, some grey, some pure white.

 

For the record, I've loved every other AE I have (I have maybe 8 or 10 of them). I am mostly b!t¢hing because they failed to attain the standards that their other fantastic books had set.

[J.Sid]

(and that they cost $100. If these were $7.95 fanzines, I wouldn't care)

[Captain Canuck]

From what I am gathering, the general consensus seems to be a lot people are waiting to see it before ordering their own copy and not all editions are created equal.

 

What is the difference between a regular artists edition and an artifact edition? As well, does IDW make all of their books in limited numbers, as I noticed some are no longer for sale on their website.

 

The new John Romita Artifact Edition seems intriguing and so does the Peanuts and Steranko.

[artistlost]

What is the difference between a regular artists edition and an artifact edition?

 

My understanding is a regular artist edition has the complete story/arc, as with the David Mazzucchelli Daredevil Born Again edition, where the artifact is not the complete story but just a collection of pages from a story/arc as was the case with the Gibbons Watchmen book.

 

mathew

[ashrael]

What is the difference between a regular artists edition and an artifact edition?

 

My understanding is a regular artist edition has the complete story/arc, as with the David Mazzucchelli Daredevil Born Again edition, where the artifact is not the complete story but just a collection of pages from a story/arc as was the case with the Gibbons Watchmen book.

 

mathew

 

Yeah. If I wanted an artifact edition I could just hit up CAF.