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DC Super Giant #21 LOVE cover recreations by original artist Charles Armentano!
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132 posts in this topic

7 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

Nice Greggy. Can’t recall ever seeing that one before. It’s much earlier than the Super DC Giant. This one jumped out at me for a similar look. 
 

image.jpg

What’s also cool about this issue is it’s one of the few (6 that I know of) romance books with Ditko art (maybe both story & art?).

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20 minutes ago, Dr. Love said:

So some of the trippy work done at Charlton in that time came from a group of artists down in Buenos Aires.  Like the one below from Demetrio (Demetrio Sanchez Gomez).

Giordano, as editor, hooked them up:

"In order to get the money to pay for the freelance work, I farmed out a whole mess of stuff-after the guys on staff got theirs-to a studio in South America which I discovered the name and address of in Pat's files. These guys were great illustrators in South America (the Union Studio in Argentina) and all I had to do was send them plain English scripts-they would do the translations into their language-and they would send back finished work but at a tremendously lower rate. So I worked out a deal with my boss so that the money I saved there went to Steve Ditko and all the other freelancers I dealt with in New York so they were getting decent, not great, but decent rates compared to what everybody else was getting."

SecretRomance30f.thumb.jpg.8b1476f308a21c06098b940d78d82af8.jpg

 

lf?set=path%5B4%2F9%2F5%2F8%2F4958726%5D%2Csizedata%5B850x600%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D9b01be4647c0dbd6da82702c3f9f36b9.jpgCharlton Comics | The Classic Comics Forum

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On 6/20/2021 at 4:33 PM, kav said:

The original cover sold on Heritage in 2014 for $5700

and again last year for $7200

"Rendered in ink and colored marker. This piece has an image area of 10" x 15". A DC inventory stamp in the upper right margin indicates this work was put into their art backstock on 9-30-70, before being selected for this issue. There is some foxing on the title stat, many pinholes at the top, rust on the back of the piece from some old paper clips, and a slight bend in the top section through the DC bullet. Toned, and in Very Good condition."

Original Comic Art:Covers, Charlie Armentano Super DC Giant S-21 "Love 1971" Cover Original Art (DC, 1971)....

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The most noticeable difference I see from that art and what was printed is the swirls to the left of the big red face. Then maybe the gold area around the nose of the race car. They also moved his signature. 
He likely didn’t know much about the mechanics of production art at that stage in his career, so someone had to rework it for print. What I would imagine is placing a sheet of wet media acetate over this and using tech pens and brushing ink to get working line art.

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14 minutes ago, iggy said:

The most noticeable difference I see from that art and what was printed is the swirls to the left of the big red face. Then maybe the gold area around the nose of the race car. They also moved his signature. 
He likely didn’t know much about the mechanics of production art at that stage in his career, so someone had to rework it for print. What I would imagine is placing a sheet of wet media acetate over this and using tech pens and brushing ink to get working line art.

I suspect the production art or acetate was damaged and they did a quick fill in job.  The OA is definitely the piece used just with those small changes in the final image.  The entire piece was not redrawn, this would take a counterfeiter's skill and about a month to accomplish if at all.  The large majority of the piece is exactly as printed-impossible if  redrawn.  There was likely a third step in the process where this change also could have occured as it was an atypical colored image not the standard black and white cover image.

Edited by kav
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No, I went to college for production art. I’m comparing that art to a close look at the comic in hand... it had to be reworked completely. 
The art had to be traced to separate out the colors. You’d start with the solid blacks, then go from there. Old school color separation is hard to explain and can be approached multiple ways. The gal on the left- her hair is continuous tone in print. If they would have just shot that art you’d see marker gradations. All of the color fields are continuous tone. The tricky maneuver is creating her eye shadow gradation area. The lips of the red face lady is another tricky area.  

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9 minutes ago, iggy said:

No, I went to college for production art. I’m comparing that art to a close look at the comic in hand... it had to be reworked completely. 
The art had to be traced to separate out the colors. You’d start with the solid blacks, then go from there. Old school color separation is hard to explain and can be approached multiple ways. The gal on the left- her hair is continuous tone in print. If they would have just shot that art you’d see marker gradations. All of the color fields are continuous tone. The tricky maneuver is creating her eye shadow gradation area. The lips of the red face lady is another tricky area.  

Comics were colored using rubylith and acetate and the CMYK method.  this did not affect the linework.  This piece was modified slightly in a few areas-the reason is unknown but I suspect damage to production art or acetate used to burn plate.  No one had time back then to meticulously redraw every line which is actually impossible to do exactly, which would have had to be done for the bulk of this cover.

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