Holiday gift ideas needed. What are the best Silver age archives/artist editions? 1 1

[SOTIcollector]

My family is asking me what I want for Christmas, and frankly, I'm stumped.  Yes, it's such a first world problem.  I thought perhaps this community could help me out.

In the 70's and 80's I read a lot of silver and bronze Marvels.   

Here are some of my favorites. Do any of these storylines exists in a super-deluxe version or artist edition, with high quality art reproduction and maybe some behind-the-scenes type content?

- Kree-Skrull war

- The imposter Captain America story from Cap 154-157.

- The original Starlin Thanos/Captain Marvel saga.

- The original Starlin Warlock saga.

- FF 48-50

- The original Deathlok storyline in Astonishing Tales

- The Dark Phoenix saga

- Days of Future Past

But please don't limit your responses to those I listed.  What are some really cool, high quality new presentations of classic Marvel storylines that I (or anybody reading this thread) may like as a primo holiday gift?

Must haves:  What I have in mind 1) Must offer complete storylines that can be read, not just a collection of pages (sorry, Romita Spider-man Artifact Edition) and 2) Must offer something beyond simply reprinting the stories.  Bonus content, background, scanned from the original art, something that goes beyond what's available in a standard TPB or Marvel Tales reprint.

Thanks in advance!

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by SOTIcollector

[pemart1966]

Silver Age archives?  I assume you mean DC archives - Hawkman; Atom; Green Lantern; and Flash are are all great.

[SOTIcollector]

On 12/7/2021 at 12:13 AM, pemart1966 said:

Silver Age archives?  I assume you mean DC archives - Hawkman; Atom; Green Lantern; and Flash are are all great.

Thanks for the input.  I'm sure there's somebody who'd want those.

[RickSp]

On 12/3/2021 at 12:42 AM, SOTIcollector said:

My family is asking me what I want for Christmas, and frankly, I'm stumped.  Yes, it's such a first world problem.  I thought perhaps this community could help me out.

In the 70's and 80's I read a lot of silver and bronze Marvels.   

Here are some of my favorites. Do any of these storylines exists in a super-deluxe version or artist edition, with high quality art reproduction and maybe some behind-the-scenes type content?

- Kree-Skrull war

- The imposter Captain America story from Cap 154-157.

- The original Starlin Thanos/Captain Marvel saga.

- The original Starlin Warlock saga.

- FF 48-50

- The original Deathlok storyline in Astonishing Tales

- The Dark Phoenix saga

- Days of Future Past

But please don't limit your responses to those I listed.  What are some really cool, high quality new presentations of classic Marvel storylines that I (or anybody reading this thread) may like as a primo holiday gift?

Must haves:  What I have in mind 1) Must offer complete storylines that can be read, not just a collection of pages (sorry, Romita Spider-man Artifact Edition) and 2) Must offer something beyond simply reprinting the stories.  Bonus content, background, scanned from the original art, something that goes beyond what's available in a standard TPB or Marvel Tales reprint.

Thanks in advance!

 

I’ve found some really nice (but expensive) looking Spider-Man prints online.
Have a search for ‘Folio Society marvel’ and you can see some beautiful looking collected editions.

I also noticed a print by ‘Taschen’ on its way in the new year, a fantastic looking print of the early silver age Spideys.

It sounds like they may make more so some of those stories you highlight could come along.

[JTLarsen]

Tough to get book recommendations when reading comprehension problems are so prevalent…

[ThothAmon]

You should check out the Marvel Masterworks hardcover editions. Really nice and lots for sale on eBay. 
 

[SOTIcollector]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:45 PM, RickSp said:

I’ve found some really nice (but expensive) looking Spider-Man prints online.
Have a search for ‘Folio Society marvel’ and you can see some beautiful looking collected editions.

I also noticed a print by ‘Taschen’ on its way in the new year, a fantastic looking print of the early silver age Spideys.

It sounds like they may make more so some of those stories you highlight could come along.

I hadn't seen these Folio Society books before.  Really cool looking.  That Marvel Silver Age one is really tempting.  Thanks!

 

[davidtere]

I was faced with a similar dilemma and opted for the  MARVEL COMICS LIBRARY SPIDER-MAN Volume 1 by Taschen. The description was impossible for me to resist. Limited to 5,000 so it won't be around forever, and under $200 (I ordered mine through Bud Plant). It's due out around the end of January. 

I have found that Taschen puts out a superior product.

I'm looking forward to it. I suspect that if they have success with this one, there will be a volume 2. 

[SOTIcollector]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:08 PM, davidtere said:

I was faced with a similar dilemma and opted for the  MARVEL COMICS LIBRARY SPIDER-MAN Volume 1 by Taschen. The description was impossible for me to resist. Limited to 5,000 so it won't be around forever, and under $200 (I ordered mine through Bud Plant). It's due out around the end of January. 

I have found that Taschen puts out a superior product.

I'm looking forward to it. I suspect that if they have success with this one, there will be a volume 2. 

Ooh.  I'm liking that one.  Of course, I've read all of those stories, but I'm looking for something more than your standard reprint.  This looks like it fits the bill.  

It's too late to put it on a Christmas list and hope for it as a gift, but I'm already thinking of a gift or two that I want to get for myself.  This and the Folio Society Silver Age book are both in the running now. 

Thanks!

 

[RickSp]

On 12/21/2021 at 7:08 PM, davidtere said:

I was faced with a similar dilemma and opted for the  MARVEL COMICS LIBRARY SPIDER-MAN Volume 1 by Taschen. The description was impossible for me to resist. Limited to 5,000 so it won't be around forever, and under $200 (I ordered mine through Bud Plant). It's due out around the end of January. 

I have found that Taschen puts out a superior product.

I'm looking forward to it. I suspect that if they have success with this one, there will be a volume 2. 

My Taschen Spider-Man volume 1 has arrived, and it’s glorious!

Lovely quality paper stock and a really cool box that it sits in.

[SOTIcollector]

On 2/4/2022 at 7:39 AM, RickSp said:

My Taschen Spider-Man volume 1 has arrived, and it’s glorious!

Lovely quality paper stock and a really cool box that it sits in.

Thanks to all who provided feedback.  The ultimate winner was the Taschen Spider-man book, purchased with some holiday gift money, which arrived this week. It is indeed a beautiful book.

The size is just right.  It's huge, but not as unwieldy as the Artist Editions.  Don't get me wrong... those artist editions are luscious!  They're just really difficult to hold and read.  I feel that this book is ideal size-wise for manageability while reading.

I love that the book includes entire interior and exterior front and back covers, plus all of the letters pages and house ads.  I had forgotten (if I ever knew it) that GB Love rated a mention on the letters page of ASM #1.

I love that Taschen attempted to preserve the original coloring, and correct the registration. 

Some of the things they got wrong jumped out on my initial reading.  The word "WHAT" in the panel below is illegible, but is clear in the original art (pictured below for reference).  Was the word actually illegible in the original book?

Similarly, "UMPTEENTH" seems to have problems in the printed version that weren't on the original art.  It looks as if somebody scribbled in corrections to the word.  Do you know if the original had those funky corrections?  Or is it just a natural result of heavy black inks on the printing plate?

 

 

For a book that doesn't have a huge amount of text, I was surprised to see a paragraph with two significant errors.  The "preceding pages" refers to pages that follow, or "succeding pages."  The same paragraph refers to a 14-page story that is actually an 11 page story.

 

 

Since Taschen went out of their way to re-register the color plates, I would have thought maybe they would have found fixes for some printing anomalies like the one below.  I've read a bit about how comics were printed at the time, but I'm admittedly no expert in this at all.  I'm probably complaining about something that can't be fixed, but...

When I see the panel below, I see variations in the light blue background.  The blue seems denser and darker above the window (is that a window?) than below it.  Given that there were very few color choices available at the time, it seems to me that the original colorist's intention was to have that entire light blue background printed the same color.  Let's say this was intended as 50% saturation, but came out with this variation because, well, the source material is a comic book that was printed rather crudely many decades ago.  Is there not a digital solution that will look at this field, identify that it's intended to be made up of dots that represent 50% color saturation, and repoduce those dots?  To me it seems pretty straightforward, at least in theory.  I have to assume that people who know what they are doing have found that it's nowhere as easy as I make it sound, and if this could have been fixed easily, it would have been.

 

 

This probably seems like a lot of complaining, but the positives FAR outweigh the negatives with this thing.  I really do love this book and I think that overall they did a great job with it.