Yesterday, I received a very special poster from Asgard Press, featuring this classic cover from 1968 by Big John Buscema.
Silver Surfer #1, the very first solo issue featuring “The Sky-Rider of the Spaceways” (as the masthead would later say) . For a long time, this was one of my holy grails of comic book collecting. I remember a friend of mine who saw it at a flea market (at a cheap price), only to have his father pull him away from the scene. When I did finally buy it in the 1970s, long before trades or collections were available, I reveled in the origin of Norrin Radd and his transformation by Galactus.
If you’ve ever wanted a poster of Silver Surfer #1, you can now obtain it for less the $20 at Asgard Press Vintage Marvel store. Asgard’s Marvel posters are 20"x28" and printed on 100% recycled paper with soy-based inks. This is high quality paper—thick and sturdy, it won’t crinkle up at the first touch of your hands. In addition, the poster is reproduced in a way that mimics the visual of the 1968 comic. And by that I mean it’s not overly glossy. Asgard really preserves the vintage (which is what describes all of their products) look of the original cover. I’m gonna frame this one and get it up on the wall real soon.
You can also get an 11"x14" reproduction of Silver Surfer #4, another John Buscema classic showing the Surfer hurtling down toward the Mighty Thor. This print—with the same high quality as the aforementioned poster—is just one of 16 prints inside the 2010 Vintage Marvel Comics Calendar. Asgard Press has designed this calendar in a very clever way that will appeal to all Marvel collectors. You can display this calendar on the wall for 16 months, hang it on nail or tack. When the year is over, you can separate the cover image from the calendar through perforations on the top or bottom, and it’s in perfect condition. It’s still a Giant-Sized Marvel cover, ready for framing.
If you always believed (as Denzel Washington did in the movie Crimson Tide) that Jack Kirby is the one true Surfer artist, the Vintage calendar also has a month with Fantastic Four #50. Check out Asgard Press site or look for the calendar in your comic book store. Nuff said!
Photon Torpedoes: DC Comics, Games, Pop Culture Blog
I'm happy to say I own all the original 18 issues of the SS run! Yeah, it has some great covers! I, too, was a huge SS fan -- although, being a hard-core atheist, I wasn't too keen on the Jesus-Christ-like portrayal Stan Lee liked to over-indulge in.
Since I haven't seen these Asgard posters I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the line art has been recreated -- it might have been re-inked, for repro-technical reasons. That's no crime, if it's well done, but if you had a close-up scan of one of the posters online sometime, I could verify or refute my hypothesis.
I viewed the largest versions you had online, and judging by the inking lines on that #4 cover, I'm further strengthened in my theory those covers are re-inked -- the ink lines on that surfboard look rather shaky and unprofessional, alas. Don't you agree? Since you, Richard, have the original covers, you can easily compare and judge this yourself. Since these Asgard posters are, as they claim on their site, duly licenced them by Marvel, it's tragic that Marvel hasn't been able or willing to provide good-quality films or stats of the original artwork!
I forgot to mention that the Silver Surfer cover scans were taken from Marvel Masterworks, not the Asgard poster or calendar. The biggest difference to me between the poster and the masterwork image is the color. The Masterwork version has "slick" color (you could explain better) and the poster has the color that seems more like an old 60s comic book. I prefer the poster image quality to the masterwork scan.
One of the great problems with color reprints of old comics is that they're using the same color percentages in the separations, so, say, a skin tint is 25% magenta and 50% yellow. But those same percentages when printed on old-style comic book newsprint and modern-age, semi-gloss or glossy paper will result in the modern-age versions being immensely more saturated compared to the old versions -- more garish. So, in order to better mimic the "look" of the old, trashy, classic comics we fans know and love, modern reproductions should ideally use smaller color percentages in the separations. But this simple fact is, alas, is not understood by the production folks in charge of reprints at Marvel and DC, and almost never done.