The long LONG awaited arrival at long last of Marvel’s Miracleman reprint series has led to many conversations: on pricing, on censorship, on credits. But Steve Bissette, points out something very important about the reprints: the original creators who wish to do so are getting some money out of it:
Read (though no real new material, save interview scraps with Mick Anglo) the Marvel MARVELMAN #1, just in. Kudos to all concerned for seeing this through at last—and the fact that, in short order, my beloved pal John Totleben and his family (yo, Michelle! At last!) will finally, FINALLY see the revenue stream that should have been theirs for DECADES makes this a happy week indeed for me. Once John’s collaborative chapter in MM is reprinted (though I can’t imagine the repro will do justice to John’s linework, just as the SWAMP THING reprint volumes haven’t), head will turn, I assure you.
And then Bissette makes the point that if things could be sorted out on the royalty front for Miracleman, they could probably be sorted out for anything…but people chose not to, for whatever reasons.
Despite the controversy over The Original Writer, as Alan Moore is credited, and royalties and rights, that this reprint is being done the right way makes this a book to purchase with some of the usual reservations set aside.
The times they are a-changin.
Totlebens work on this is some of my favorite comic book work of all time. The man brought it with this stuff. He and Moore made a great team at this point in time and on this work.
Great point, just one reason this is on my sub.
John Totleben is one of the six or seven best superhero comic book artists to ever pick up a pen and it is a crying shame he’s thought of primarily as the inker on those great old Swamp Thing books. I have been totally in love with his all-too-small body of work for decades and seeing Miracleman #1 finally, *finally* hit the newsstands is a little like what happens when your favorite band finally catches a break and gets a radio hit.
Respectfully, I disagree with Steve’s gloomy predictions for the repro job. That seemed to have been the single largest area of concern in the reprint and Garry Leach’s linework is pretty fine, too (especially considering the Leach stories were mag-sized in their original incarnation), and it looked utterly terrific.
The more original art they can track down the better it will look. If the pages are restored from the printed versions it can never look better than the original Eclipse print run. I’ve seen one or two of the Totleben’s originals, and they really are glorious.
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