Monday, March 09, 2009

Steve Ditko Cover of the Week: Marvel Triple Action #47

You may not have seen this one before, as I know that I was certainly surprised when I stumbled upon it. Here was a Marvel reprint title on its last legs in 1980 and, rather than simply reprint the original John Buscema cover from Avengers #54, Marvel decided to commission a brand new cover. It was actually a fairly interesting experiment, as Ditko flipped the cover's perspective 180 degrees. The camera is now behind the Black Knight, rather than behind the heroes in bondage (I use that phrase just to get a few more hits from perverted Googlers). I like the concept a lot more than the execution. I find that most 'multiple character' Ditko covers from this era suffer from severe stiffness. Squeezing this many figures onto a page leads to very awkward poses and removes all of the fluidity that makes Ditko's artwork so appealing in the first place. Compare this cover to a simply constructed Stalker or Ghost Manor cover from from a few years earlier and you'll see what I mean. Still, it's fun to find these relative oddities out there.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve also mixed up the order of the MoE. They are in the same spots, when they should have been flipped on the vertical axis.

And I also have to wonder what are tho odds of my verification term being "evilly". That's just...weird. I suspect Ultron.

Scott M said...

You're right - I hadn't noticed that. I was more focused on how they were standing closer together than a chorus line. Love 'evilly' as well. I've never had anything cool like that.