Are they out to see yet?
Are they out to see yet?
I'd take anything over that awful Jim Lee cover where Supea looks like a manlet.
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
Don't know.
Last I checked, they weren't on Previewsworld yet.
And I've seen lists of who's suppose to be doing which different variant cover (Steve Rude (1930s), Michael Cho (1940s), Dave Gibbons (1950s), etc.), but I don't know if actual images of the variants have been released yet.
I understand that his ego got him the gig, but it seems to me no one deserved the honor of that cover more than Dan Jurgens. Like his work or otherwise, he's earned the right after all his work on the character in the last 30 years to do the standard cover for such a momentous milestone. I know he's doing the 90s variant, but it's not the same.
He's definitely deserving but I wouldn't say the most deserving. To me, the most deserving interpretation for Action #1000 would be a replication of a Swan piece, since he is no longer around to do anything new. He's not my personal favorite artist, but he is the definitive Superman artist. I'd put Boring right behind him.
Last edited by Sacred Knight; 02-08-2018 at 08:15 PM.
"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El
Awesome, thanks.
I think of all the available covers, I'll try to limit myself to Rude, Allred, Steranko, and Jurgens/Nowlan.
I don't see how the Steve Rude cover is "1930s" but it's Steve frickin' Rude so that's the one I'll be picking up.
Rude and Allred are my favorites. Still hoping for a last minute special Alex Ross one they've been keeping as a surprise.
Marvel Pull - Fantastic Four, The Immortal Hulk
DC Pull - The Green Lantern, Goddess Mode
Indie Pull - The Wrong Earth, High Heaven
Wow, still no sign of Alex Ross.
Rude's relief pencil work is outstanding as his drawing is the epitome of Superman in action!
Action-1000-1930s-var-Rude.jpg
This drawing has overtures of that Biblical story of Samson as he destroys the temple!
Last edited by jimmy; 02-21-2018 at 05:26 AM.
Yeah. It's a nice piece, but it really doesn't capture the period of Action Comics at all - c.f. M Cho, Gibbons & Allred all going full-out for their periods (epically so, in Allred's case!). It's a generic Superman cover.
For context, this is the last 1939 cover-dated issue of AC: https://www.comics.org/issue/570/cover/4/ - the chest symbol is still a triangle with a yellow outline, not a pentagon and the cover art is basically confined to the bottom half of the page (although some mild spillover happens there and in earlier issues - so it doesn't homage either the contemporary character design, nor the physical cover layout unless they just cut half the cover off!
The first cover that kind of approximates this sort of layout is either Action #55, dated Dec 1942 or Action #61, dated June 1943, depending on how you look at it. And the logo would only stop taking up the entire top half of the page with #99, dated Aug 1946 (which is actually after Cho's cover - the best parallel to his cover is Action #59, and if they use a period-accurate logo, as hinted by the corner box, that explosion's covering up some of "Action" and pretty much the whole of "Comics"!)
Completely agree. However, I'm not impressed with Jurgen's '90's variant. I pre-ordered it sight unseen, so I guess I'll live, but I was expecting something more... remarkable?
Anyone seen Joshua Middleton's '80's cover yet? That one seems to be missing from all the articles I've come across.
If it follows the trend set forth in Snyder's Superman Unchained, we can make some educated guesses about the trade dress.
The 90s and 60s covers will be 100% period authentic. The 2000s cover will be post-Infinite Crisis style most likely but may use either the swoosh or the bullet depending on whether legal is paying attention. The 70s and 80s versions use the made up retro style for DC's Retroactive special one shots which were reused for Unchained.
The 60s trade dress is the one used from Action #333 (1966) through #352 (1967).
Everything 60s and before will likely have a cover price of "799 cents" whereas 70s forward will read as "$7.99".
The 30s cover dress is likely based on a mix of Superman #1 and Superman #2. Based on the art, it will likely be a non-period floating Action Comics logo. They seem to be going for more of a dime store novel look with these.
Cho's 40s cover is planned to use the trade dress that started from Action Comics #16 in 1939 and was used until Action Comics #98 in 1946. This trade dress is a modified version of the Action #1 trade dress that features Superman bursting out of chains in the corner. (This is the same basic trade dress that started with Action #5 in 1938 but with Superman replacing the "64 Pages of Thrills" blurb.) If they go truly period, it will have a period Superman logo behind Superman's head. This should be stylistically the closest to Action #1 if you're looking for a companion piece for the original or reprints like the Loot Crate one from last year. Cho worked this trade dress into his design.
The comics code style seal will only appear on the 60s one and will likely be replaced with an "Approved by the Authority of DC Entertainment" seal. (The code seal is owned by the CBLDF and generally reserved for fundraiser books.)
I think all of this is safe to infer because DC has a library of computer templates for trade dresses that they've been known to draw upon. And once they develop a digital version of a period trade dress, they've tended to reuse it on other books.