Can anyone help with the origin of these Spidey art pieces up for sale? 1 1

[fmaz]

Take a look at this page for sale up on ebay:

Can anyone identify it's source? It says "BBDO USM"... but as far I as recall there was that one issue of a BBDO / Campbell's Ulitmate Spider-Man / Ultimate X-Men book..  but this seems to say it's from issue #4 page #1 of something.  But I can't figure out what that is.

It's being listed as a Scott Hanna, so I'm thinking it might be Hanna inks over a Bagley copy maybe... but it's really hard to tell what it is.

Same seller also has the cover to that USM / UXM book up for sale:  but shouldn't that be on typical cover stock if it were the actual cover?   I thought I'd bring this to the experts to see what you all could suss out on these two items.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2017 by fmaz

[jaybuck43]

57 minutes ago, fmaz said:

Take a look at this page for sale up on ebay:

Can anyone identify it's source? It says "BBDO USM"... but as far I as recall there was that one issue of a BBDO / Campbell's Ulitmate Spider-Man / Ultimate X-Men book..  but this seems to say it's from issue #4 page #1 of something.  But I can't figure out what that is.

It's being listed as a Scott Hanna, so I'm thinking it might be Hanna inks over a Bagley copy maybe... but it's really hard to tell what it is.

Same seller also has the cover to that USM / UXM book up for sale:  but shouldn't that be on typical cover stock if it were the actual cover?   I thought I'd bring this to the experts to see what you all could suss out on these two items.

 

 

The second cover is Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate X-men done as a giveaway by Campbell's Soup.  https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=24608864  

[fmaz]

 

19 minutes ago, jaybuck43 said:

The second cover is Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate X-men done as a giveaway by Campbell's Soup.  https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=24608864  

Yup, I know that it's the cover image.. sorry I wasn't clear with my question on that one.  What struck me as odd about the second one is - aren't cover pieces normally on specific "cover stock" that look different than regular art pages?  Plus that page has no marking at all on it.  It looks more like a print than an OA page.  That's why THAT one raised flags with me.

The only pages I own are bronze age stuff.  So I'm completely ignorant on the modern age procedures... I just wanted to see if these things look normal or if there were things about them that caused people to question them.

[jaybuck43]

40 minutes ago, fmaz said:

 

Yup, I know that it's the cover image.. sorry I wasn't clear with my question on that one.  What struck me as odd about the second one is - aren't cover pieces normally on specific "cover stock" that look different than regular art pages?  Plus that page has no marking at all on it.  It looks more like a print than an OA page.  That's why THAT one raised flags with me.

The only pages I own are bronze age stuff.  So I'm completely ignorant on the modern age procedures... I just wanted to see if these things look normal or if there were things about them that caused people to question them.

It is right.  Covers are done on the same Bristol board as pages.  This book wasn't done on Marvel Bristol (i'm guessing since it was a custom book)  See here, the splash from the book also on similar boards.

http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1179770

[mister_not_so_nice]

Artists are also known to draw on whatever bristol they have available.  I've seen DC characters on Marvel boards and vice/versa. 

[fmaz]

Anyone have any clue on the first one? It has the same "BBDO" code up top as the Campbell's Soup one... but as far as I can find, that was a one-off issue.. NOT a series that there would be an issue #4 of.  So I'm stumped.  Plus, doesn't it read more like a cover than a splash page?  Either that or a commission?  But I think the issue / page numbering on it would indicate it WAS published somewhere.

[CartoonFanboy]

If you look at Scott Hanna's art on Spencer Beck's site you'll see that there are 4 issues listed for the BBDO Diversity give aways. Issue 4 was supposed to feature the Avengers, so this was probably meant to be the cover despite the weird numbering. 

Given all that however, I'm not so sure they ever published past issue 1. I've never personally run across issues 2-4.

Here's a link to Hanna's art page http://theartistschoice.com/hannamrvap.htm#BBDO

Regarding the cover stock, I wouldn't read too much into that. The BBDO #1 cover looks pretty legit (you can see a scan of it on the page I linked to by clicking on the broken image for the cover to issue 1 if you want) and given that this was a give away comic that was printed at a smaller size than a normal comic, it's understandable that they just used a regular piece of comic art board.

Edited February 17, 2017 by CartoonFanboy

[CartoonFanboy]

A bit more information. I pulled out my copy of BBDO #1 and found that the same art is used for BOTH the cover and the first page. This explains the numbering confusion with the covers being marked as page 1 (the first page is basically a synopsis of the characters origins). This being the case I'm sure the plan was to do the same thing for issues 2-4.

I also dug up the art in question on the web archive at Spencer Beck's site. It was in the Mark Bagley section.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111112013435/http://theartistschoice.com/bagleyan.htm#BBDOULTSPIDEY

I think the only outstanding question now is if the art was published. I'm still of the opinion that the project got scraped after the first issue was published, thus the remaining issues were never printed despite being written and illustrated. That's just my guess tough.

[fmaz]

18 minutes ago, CartoonFanboy said:

A bit more information. I pulled out my copy of BBDO #1 and found that the same art is used for BOTH the cover and the first page. This explains the numbering confusion with the covers being marked as page 1 (the first page is basically a synopsis of the characters origins). This being the case I'm sure the plan was to do the same thing for issues 2-4.

I also dug up the art in question on the web archive at Spencer Beck's site. It was in the Mark Bagley section.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111112013435/http://theartistschoice.com/bagleyan.htm#BBDOULTSPIDEY

I think the only outstanding question now is if the art was published. I'm still of the opinion that the project got scraped after the first issue was published, thus the remaining issues were never printed despite being written and illustrated. That's just my guess tough.

I think it's a good guess... because I've NEVER seen it either (and I'm often a collector of Spidey oddities) and all of the online databases that I use when looking up books don't indicate that the first book was anything other than just a one-shot.

So your theory makes some sense. I did find other art on CAF labeled BBDO #4 and it was some panel pages of what looked like Ultimate Spidey / Ultimates  Bagley art.  

What's weird though is, it's the internet... you'd think when you google this topic that someone would have taken a swing at something like this... three books worth of unpublished Bagley art? I can see ONE book not getting published but three completed books?

[fmaz]

There's also some BBDO #3 art on CAF  labeled Ultimate Spider-Man/Iron Man...  nothing I've seen to indicate what #2 was meant to be.

I do like this "cover" image, even just as a Bagley commission piece... but it's a lot cooler as a published cover.

[Twanj]

there's also this. http://romitaman.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=20450&ArtistId=970&Details=0&From=Room

 

what's BBDO?

[fmaz]

29 minutes ago, Twanj said:

there's also this. http://romitaman.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=20450&ArtistId=970&Details=0&From=Room

 

what's BBDO?

Good find!  So that looks like the mysterious page 1 / cover to #3.    BBDO is the name of a company is NYC that sponsors diversity initiatves... and they worked with Campbell's Soup to do at least one comic book.

Edited February 17, 2017 by fmaz

[jaybuck43]

2 hours ago, fmaz said:

Good find!  So that looks like the mysterious page 1 / cover to #3.    BBDO is the name of a company is NYC that sponsors diversity initiatves... and they worked with Campbell's Soup to do at least one comic book.

BBDO is a large advertising agency in NYC.   Over 15,000 employees, traces back to the 1890s. 

[JadeGiant]

Very interesting. Spencer had a very nice BBDO DPS with Hulk that was a Bagley piece (and Hanna IIRC) - it was on his site but then vanished before I could inquire during one of his annual sales. 

[fmaz]

10 hours ago, JadeGiant said:

Very interesting. Spencer had a very nice BBDO DPS with Hulk that was a Bagley piece (and Hanna IIRC) - it was on his site but then vanished before I could inquire during one of his annual sales. 

So that had to the be the same thing... art from one of the unpublished three issues. So odd that there would be THREE issues of unpublished art.  And cool art at that.  That Iron Man / Spidey page that someone earlier pointed out on the Romitaman site is very cool.

[JadeGiant]

12 hours ago, fmaz said:

So that had to the be the same thing... art from one of the unpublished three issues. So odd that there would be THREE issues of unpublished art.  And cool art at that.  That Iron Man / Spidey page that someone earlier pointed out on the Romitaman site is very cool.

The Hulk DPS was one of the best Hulks I have seen from Bagley. I don't think it was listed as being unpublished on Spencer's site but I could be wrong. 

[fmaz]

Just now, JadeGiant said:

The Hulk DPS was one of the best Hulks I have seen from Bagley. I don't think it was listed as being unpublished on Spencer's site but I could be wrong. 

That Spidey-Iron Man piece on Romitaman isn't listed as unpublished either.  I asked Mike Burkey about it and he said the info he was given when he aquired it was that it was published as a promotional comic...  but I honestly think ALL EVIDENCE points to the fact that book #2 (Hulk) #3 (Iron Man) and #4 (Avengers) never saw the light of day, despite having completed art.

By the way? I couldn't resist... A penciled AND inked Bagley piece that nice?... I worked out a deal with the seller and bought the Spidey/Avengers cover.  

[JadeGiant]

12 hours ago, fmaz said:

That Spidey-Iron Man piece on Romitaman isn't listed as unpublished either.  I asked Mike Burkey about it and he said the info he was given when he aquired it was that it was published as a promotional comic...  but I honestly think ALL EVIDENCE points to the fact that book #2 (Hulk) #3 (Iron Man) and #4 (Avengers) never saw the light of day, despite having completed art.

By the way? I couldn't resist... A penciled AND inked Bagley piece that nice?... I worked out a deal with the seller and bought the Spidey/Avengers cover.  

I am not a fan of a seller saying "I was told .... " but I have seen it used often. Congrats on the piece - I hope you got it at a fair unpublished-price