What comic cover is considered the "first" Homage cover. 2 2

[gadzukes]

What comic cover is considered the first "Homage" cover?

I'm not talking a blatant steal, I'm talking an actual homage by an artist in referencing a prior artist's work to honor it and not to steal from it.

I know there's lots of Homage covers in the Bronze age and I'm sure there's at least a few from the Silver age (Avengers 57 comes to mind where the cover image is an homage to the first drawing of the Golden age Vision in MMC 13).

Are there any examples of homage covers in the Golden age?

[Ken Aldred]

On 1/17/2023 at 2:32 PM, gadzukes said:

(Avengers 57 comes to mind where the cover image is an homage to the first drawing of the Golden age Vision in MMC 13).

Never knew that. Even after 50 years you can still learn something.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Crimebuster]

Flash Comics #92 comes to mind, as it has always seemed to me to be an homage of Detective Comics #38. Debatable though - Crack Comics #30 has a cover that seems like even more of an homage to Detective #38 as the hero is introducing his new sidekick. But they both may have just been using a common convention of the time rather than homaging a specific work. 

There was a CBR article about this a while ago and while they offered up a lot of possibilities depending on what you think the artist was doing - swiping or homaging or recycling - one suggestion that makes some sense to me was Superman #147, where Curt Swan was homaging his own cover from Adventure Comics #247. That's a case where I think he's clearly not just re-using an idea, but purposefully referencing the original cover. 

 

[The lips]

Cool idea for thread. Definitely can’t answer the question but look forward to the replies. 
likewise never knew about the Vision cover. 

[Dr. Balls]

This is the oldest one *I* know of:

Prize Comics 1944:

Voodoo #2 1952 (referenced on the label as a homage or something like that):

Edited January 17, 2023 by Dr. Balls

[bronze_rules]

https://comicbookinvest.com/2019/06/13/homage/

[KCOComics]

The oldest I'm aware of is, Detective comics 8 and Atomic comics 1 

 

Neither of these are mine. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/17/2023 at 3:32 PM, Calmics said:

Aren't most of these examples swipes and not homages?

My Voodoo #2 says 'cover homage' - I'm sure someone has the definition that discerns the two. Is Chamber of Chills #19 an homage to the old pulp magazine? Is it a swipe? Or was it simply inspired?

[Ken Aldred]

On 1/18/2023 at 1:47 AM, Dr. Balls said:

My Voodoo #2 says 'cover homage' - I'm sure someone has the definition that discerns the two. Is Chamber of Chills #19 an homage to the old pulp magazine? Is it a swipe? Or was it simply inspired?

Never seen that one.  I’d say inspired.

Same idea applied very differently. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/17/2023 at 7:34 PM, Ken Aldred said:

Never seen that one.  I’d say inspired.

Same idea applied very differently. 

I'd tend to agree. I love that Dime Mystery book, but the value of that is almost as much as a CoC 19  - I'll probably never see that one.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Dr. Balls

[gadzukes]

On 1/17/2023 at 8:31 PM, KCOComics said:

The oldest I'm aware of is, Detective comics 8 and Atomic comics 1 

 

Neither of these are mine. 

The label says cover swipe, but I think this could be an Homage cover.

[justadude]

I have a scholarly essay soon to be published about homage, swipes, and parody covers. Oldest homage I could find was Action Comics #8 (Jan 1939) homage to N.C. Wyeth's painting for James Fennimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans (1919). But I'm sure there are older!

As far as homage, swipe, and parody, there is very little evidence for hard definitions. This can be best seen in the Jim Rugg controversy for Red Room. Some saw it as "parody" and disrespectful, others saw it as "homage" and didn't mind.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by jazawlacki

[Juno Beach]

Unless the new cover says "Thanks to 'artist'" or something I consider it a swipe. For me a homage has to mention the reference. 

[KCOComics]

On 1/17/2023 at 10:45 PM, jazawlacki said:

I have a scholarly essay soon to be published about homage, swipes, and parody covers. Oldest homage I could find was Action Comics #8 (Jan 1939) homage to N.C. Wyeth's painting for James Fennimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans (1919). But I'm sure there are older!

As far as homage, swipe, and parody, there is very little evidence for hard definitions. This can be best seen in the Jim Rugg controversy for Red Room. Some saw it as "parody" and disrespectful, others saw it as "homage" and didn't mind.

 

Thank you for posting this. I never knew AC8 was an homage to Last of the Mohicans

[rexinnih]

Cool thread and info. Chalk me up as another that didn't realize Avengers 57 was an homage. 

[justadude]

On 1/17/2023 at 11:47 PM, KCOComics said:

Thank you for posting this. I never knew AC8 was an homage to Last of the Mohicans

You bet! Swiping/homage is a pretty interesting tradition in comics.

On 1/17/2023 at 11:17 PM, Juno Beach said:

Unless the new cover says "Thanks to 'artist'" or something I consider it a swipe. For me a homage has to mention the reference. 

It's interesting. Sometimes you'll see "After" or "Parody of" etc. Also interesting to learn how "swiping" wasn't frowned upon at all in the Golden and Silver ages. Artists did it all the time to crank out everything by their deadlines. Jules Feiffer talks about this in the 60s. I think things changed with McFarlane and how he homaged Spider-Man #1 in Spider-Man #13. Then the floodgates kind of opened up to cash in on the popularity of the design. It's not a subject that's written about a whole lot so lots to learn.

[jdandns]

On 1/18/2023 at 6:52 PM, jazawlacki said:

You bet! Swiping/homage is a pretty interesting tradition in comics.

It's interesting. Sometimes you'll see "After" or "Parody of" etc. Also interesting to learn how "swiping" wasn't frowned upon at all in the Golden and Silver ages. Artists did it all the time to crank out everything by their deadlines. Jules Feiffer talks about this in the 60s. I think things changed with McFarlane and how he homaged Spider-Man #1 in Spider-Man #13. Then the floodgates kind of opened up to cash in on the popularity of the design. It's not a subject that's written about a whole lot so lots to learn.

Speaking of McFarlane, his cover for Spider-Man 306 from October 1988 is a clear homage to Action #1.

But just using Spider-Man we can go 4 years earlier that that as Spider-Man 252 from May 1984 is an homage to Amazing Fantasy #15.

So just with Spidey, we can go back nearly 40 years already, but I suspect the eventual "winner" will be from significantly earlier. 

(Byrne's FF #1 homage on FF #264 is from March 1984, so two months earlier than Spidey 252. Speaking of FF, #126 from Sept 1972 is a origin retold tale, but I wouldn't consider that an homage cover to FF #1 as much as a redrawn version of that cover. I think this may have been the case with some Marvel Tales Spider-Man reprint covers from the 70's, and X-Men when it became a reprint title, as well.)

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by jdandns

[Point Five]

The Action #8 swipe is "among" the earliest direct swipes, but there are absolute tons of GA comic covers from the late 1930s that have layouts or characters lifted directly from the pulps. I'm not sure it would be possible to narrow it down to one as the first.

As jazawlacki notes above, it was done *constantly* to make deadlines and get work done that much faster. If an artist got paid by the page, that's a powerful incentive to cut corners, grind out more work per month and earn more. And comic books were thought of as the lowest of the low of art forms, as disposable as yesterday's newspaper. No one working back then could have dreamed that such a massive collecting fanbase would exist 8! decades later, and that we'd be going back and combing through the minutiae of their artwork.

 

[justadude]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:02 PM, jdandns said:

Speaking of McFarlane, his cover for Spider-Man 306 from October 1988 is a clear homage to Action #1.

Yep, he was well aware of the power. I think his focus on the form of the body is what makes him probably the most homaged artist in comics. Very easy to do Hulk 340, ASM 300, Spiderman 1, etc. because the forms are first and foremost with little to no background. That means any artist who can hack a basic body can do McFarlane (or they can try). To do Action Comics #1, for example, takes a bit more skill in composition and detail. It's part of the reason why Liefeld received (and still receives) criticism is because his forms just hang out in space. McFarlane does that quite a bit too though not as much.

On 1/18/2023 at 9:15 PM, Point Five said:

As jazawlacki notes above, it was done *constantly* to make deadlines and get work done that much faster. If an artist got paid by the page, that's a powerful incentive to cut corners, grind out more work per month and earn more. And comic books were thought of as the lowest of the low of art forms, as disposable as yesterday's newspaper. No one working back then could have dreamed that such a massive collecting fanbase would exist 8! decades later, and that we'd be going back and combing through the minutiae of their artwork.

Absolutely. I'm sure there are tons of examples of swipes/homages from pulp novel covers, paintings, etc. from that time period. Very very common practice and has been a part of art since the Greeks. A master would make a sculpture and his students would learn from it by trying to sculpt the same thing. Schools of painters, musicians, sculptors and more have operated this way throughout history and across cultures. (Mugham is a good example of the Turkish practice).

So, the strange thing is that we comic heads think it's cheap or easy when artists rip off of other artists. It could be Greg Land "practicing" in a way, could be "parodying" the popularity of another, or could be trying to legitimize the comic by borrowing from another, more popular/well known comic.

Or they could just be lazy.

[gadzukes]

On 1/18/2023 at 10:15 PM, Point Five said:

The Action #8 swipe is "among" the earliest direct swipes, but there are absolute tons of GA comic covers from the late 1930s that have layouts or characters lifted directly from the pulps. I'm not sure it would be possible to narrow it down to one as the first.

As jazawlacki notes above, it was done *constantly* to make deadlines and get work done that much faster. If an artist got paid by the page, that's a powerful incentive to cut corners, grind out more work per month and earn more. And comic books were thought of as the lowest of the low of art forms, as disposable as yesterday's newspaper. No one working back then could have dreamed that such a massive collecting fanbase would exist 8! decades later, and that we'd be going back and combing through the minutiae of their artwork.

 

I'm trying to differentiate between all the Swipes, which I don't see as "Homage", with a cover that's an intentional Homage.

Even Action 8..... seems like more of a "swipe to meet a deadline" than an homage.  Although... most "swiped" art gets changed a bit to try to disguise the swipe, and Guardineer's cover swipe is not changed... so maybe it is an homage.

I guess it's tough to know for sure in some cases.  

Edited January 19, 2023 by gadzukes