Publisher:
Marvel Comics Group
Cover Date:
May, 1968
Art Type:
Cover
Story:
“When Wakes the Sleeper!”
Character(s):
Captain America (Steve Rogers), Red Skull, The Sleeper
History:
Published
Size:
17.5 x 23.1 in. (44.4 x 58.7 cm)
Credits:
Penciler:
Jack Kirby
Inker:
Syd Shores
Letterer:
Artie Simek
Scans of this art courtesy of Tri-State Original Art
Notes:
Before the cover was published, Marvel decided the Red Skull's face was too grotesque and had it redrawn. See the miscellaneous tab for the published cover version.
Average Rating:
My Rating:
Wow! There's all sorts of
Wow! There's all sorts of details on the Red Skull's face on the original art that does not appear on the printed color version that you've posted along side with it.
Also, It's interesting (if not so good) how Shores always redrew Cap's face so that he looked like his 1940s self.
Whoops! I see in your notes
Whoops! I see in your notes on the sidebar, that you were on to the redo on the Red Skull's face. To bad, the original version is much cooler!
To much detail
One thing I noticed is how much detail Shores put into the art, especially The Sleeper and The Red Skull's face. From my experience, Kirby would wouldn't have penciled that detail. His brush strokes are as fine as Colletta's pen lines. But in the end the quality of the printing process couldn't reproduce it.
If you have the Essentials reprint it's even worst since it looks like it came from 2nd or 3rd generation stats.
Shores
I agree, Shores adds too much detail as it can be seen in this comparation with pencils of page 10:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GffQlBTa-y8/SRrWszTws0I/AAAAAAAAFgQ/3v6L9aPreX...
I like that Shores add more shadows to the original drawing because it gives more depth, although his strokes are too much loose for my taste. I think that this is the main difference with Colleta's inks, where I feel that his inking removes part of the strengh of kirby's drawings, and details adds nothing to the drawing.
shores
i really liked shores' inking on captain america... for me it had a golden age look that gave it some continuity with cap's 1940s stories
Red Skull's skull
One possible explanation for the Red Skull's head being changed may have been due to the Comics Code restrictions at that time.
A similar example of this was when the Cap/Red Skull story from Captain America Comics #7 was reprinted in Fantasy Masterpieces #6 all of the Red Skull heads were re-drawn. Both of these happened around 1967-68. Also, if you look at the drawing of the Red Skull from the splash page of that 1941 story you'll see that it bears a remarkable similarity to Syd's version on this cover. Which should not be a surprise since he is credited with inking both!
Post new comment