IDW has cornered the market with their Artist’s Edition books. Starting with the Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer book, then Walt Simonson’s Thor, they announced three more this past July in San Diego, including Wally Wood and Will Eisner. Artist Editions present huge oversized books collecting sequential pages in their most raw original art form, almost like having the original pages yourself.
Before Wood and Eisner have their day, IDW is presenting John Romita’s The Amazing Spider-Man Artist’s Edition containing 144 pages of John Romita’s art and Stan Lee’s words. The collection, like the ones before it, will sell for $100, and will likely be jaw dropping, and could very net editor Scott Dunbier more Eisner awards.
In case you don’t know your history, John Romita followed Steve Ditko on Amazing Spider-Man after Ditko finally walked, because he didn’t want to argue with Stan Lee any more. Romita had been working with Lee off and on since the 50’s and was one of the bullpen guys there to essentially backup Jack Kirby’s massive output. But Amazing Spider-Man was where he came into his own, establishing a style that, to many, would define Peter Parker for decades to come.
Speaking from a personal note, I’d just like to say, it’s really hard to work with books that have such long titles, as well as find a place to store them, as well as find a C-Note to grab them. That might be irrelevant.
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Oh. My. Lord. This is stunning. Why must I be broke and in college????
Beautiful.
Now how do I get my wife to buy it for me for Christmas while still thinking its her idea.
Any hints Mr. Flanagan?
Buy her something that costs 3x as much?*
(This is a bad foundation for financial planning.)
I love this series so much. The price is a little too high for me to buy every single one (which is what I’d like to do) so I’m trying to decide between ROmita, Wood, and Eisner. I think I’m leaning toward Wood. I’d be interested in hearing what “Artist Editions” other iFanboy listeners would like to see. I’d love to see a Ditko Artist Edition from his time on Captain Atom.
Dave Cockrum era X-Men.
The kid in me does a happy dance at the thought
Oh Yeah, that’d be a GREAT artist’s edition. The Paul Smith X-Men stuff would be great too.
Ahh the good ol’ days when every sentence ended in exclamation points! I wasn’t born in those times, but I could hear the text in my mother’s stomach because every one was so excited!
I was all set to stay within budget with my DCBS order this month. This book did not allow for that 🙁 & \(^_^)/
I’ve got the Simonson and Wood ones ordered and will be down for the Eisner one as well. This is the only one i’m on the fence about, really. I love Romita but don’t know if I love him this much.
Awesome. I wish Marvel would follow up the Lee-Ditko ASM ominbus with one collecting the first 30 or so issues of the Lee-JR run.
wow, that art is amazing. love seeing the pencil panels from those times.
Romita Sr. is THE spider-man artist as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps I’ll be able to pick this up second-hand someday.
I wish someone loved me enough to buy these for me.
I am so alone.
*goes and cries in the dark with his cat*
Too bad Jim Shooter won’t let himself enjoy this.
I have the rocketeer and the thor ones. i was hoping it would be an annual thing, three in a year is a bit much, but i’ll probably get this one and pass on the other 2. Of course i was going to pass on thor until i saw it in person. i hope dc will play ball like marvel has with these.
i know that a whole issue of gil kane green lantern was sold at auction a few years ago, but i dont know if enough consequetive pages exist to to a whole book, but id love it. here are certainly enough kirby pages out there. Amazing Fantasy 15 is in the library of congress, so there are ditko possibilities. The Gaines estate still has much of the EC original artwork, so all of those guys are possible.
much more likely to have bronze age stuff though, after they stopped pitching the artwork. a dealer at c2e2 had a nearly complete byrne ff story. I imagine theres enough accessible art to do a byrne ff or a perez titans . Probably jim lee x-men also. Id love some starlin warlock or captain marvel. maguire justice league. id love a dillon preacher volume too. miller daredevil?
for me it has to be pre digital lettering. i want to see the lettering on the page. i know they could lay it in as an overlay, but thats getting awqay from the whole “its like you are looking at the artboard” aspect.
as an aside, romita not only followed ditko on spider-man, but he also followed kirby on ff. that man has some balls!
This edition puzzles me. I know it’s Marvel Silver Age stories/art, and is undoubtedly produced with super-high standards. But it’s a John Romita “artist’s edition,” and supposedly the stories reproduced are from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #s 67-69, 71, and 74-75.
Issue #67 is penciled by John Romita, with inking by Jim Mooney, so no huge issue there. But #s 68-69, 71, and 74-75 all have but John Romita LAYOUTS, with finishes (pencils and inks) by JIM MOONEY! This is arguably more of a Jim Mooney “artist’s edition” than it is Romita’s!
I’d also take issue with the particular stories reprinted, which I don’t feel were that outstanding (in terms of writing AND art). There was certainly much better Romita material published in the Silver Age. And it would have been more appropriate to publish Spider-Man tales 100% drawn by Romita, and stories where Romita provided 100% of the penciling as opposed to merely layouts. For example, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #s 39-40, Romita’s first issues on the title, would have been appropriate and feature full Romita pencils (with Mike Esposito inks). And DAREDEVIL #s 16-17 would have been a plus, with Romita’s “try-out” of the guest-starring Spider-Man, and also boast full Romita pencils (with Frank Giacoia inks).
I realize a lot of Romita original art from the comics I mentioned above, along with many others, may not have been available for reprinting puposes. But to “default” to those particular issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN seems strange to me.