The Best of DC Digest No. 40 Cover by Gray Morrow

Beginning just as the 1970s ended, DC Comics’ digest-sized comics followed on the success of the format at Archie Comics and Gold Key Comics, and lasted until the mid 1980s. They most often offered reprints based around one hero or a theme in each issue.

The Best of DC No. 40, dated September 1983, reprinted Superman stories which featured his home planet, Krypton. The cover was newly-commissioned art by Gray Morrow, with a Superman drawing by José Luis García-López and Dick Giordano added to the background.

Digests offered a lot of value for a low price and helped bring DC’s back catalogue to a new generation of readers.

Here’s the cover cleaned up and recoloured.

As published.

Scan from Heritage Auctions.

After art reconstruction and clean up.

Scan from the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide. Superman art by José Luis García-López and Dick Giordano. Scan courtesy of Xum Yukinori.

Superman laid into the background.

Screenshots from the reconstruction of the World of Krypton logo. Logo originally designed by Todd Klein in 1979.

Rebuilt trade dress – logos, lettering and type – combined with the lineart.

New colour version.

Done up as a full-sized comic of the era.

A possible cover for a current collection.