Action Comics No. 500 Cover by Andru & Giordano

As the Seventies were drawing to a close, the long-running Action Comics and its star Superman were celebrating the comic’s 500th issue. Andru and Giordano were the regular cover team and they drew the iconic characters with their usual flair.

From there, DC Comics’ Production Department took covers from previous issues of Action and ran them in magenta ink in the background. They’d done this on some of their previous anniversary issues, including Batman No. 200.

While bold, I always found the image a little hard to read, and so a new colour treatment was in order.

As published.

Wraparound.

Scan from Heritage Auctions.

Cleaned-up art.

Reconstructed vector logos and trade dress elements added.

I didn’t have access to lineart for the background covers, so I worked with colour cover scans.

They were first converted to greyscale and lightened so they wouldn’t feel heavy in the background. Then the softer brown tint and a halftone effect evoked nostalgia.

Coloured and composited. The background complements the foreground colours while separating the visual planes.

Back cover.

Front cover.