With DC Comics recently releasing the second volume of DC Comics Presents in its black & white Showcase line, we now move into a number of great issues with art by Jim Starlin. My favourite of the bunch is No. 36, which completed the original run of Starman, late of Adventure Comics. Another cover I’ve done logo and colour reconstruction for.
The published cover from Aug ’81.
A raw scan from the Showcase volume.
Art cleaned up and the existing branding stripped away.
The missing bits of art redrawn.
The reconstructed lineart.
For logo reconstruction, I start by laying out a complete set of construction lines. This shows me how the logo was hand drawn originally. Was it geometric in its accuracy, or was it more about freehand creativity?
From there, the updated letterforms are drawn, taking advantage of the precision computerised tools offer us.
Comparing the scan to the rebuilt logo.
The classic Superman logo by Ira Schnapp, DC’s long-time inhouse letterer. His was an update of the original by Joe Shuster. Scan courtesy of Todd Klein.
Late in the process, after I’ve deleted the construction lines. This is 3D-style lettering, so each surface has been given a separate shape.
Comparing my final to Schnapp’s, I corrected the kerning (character spacing for you non-type types), made the one-point perspective accurate, smoothed out the long arc that defines the logo’s curve, and lightened the line weights because we have better printing today. Modern versions inspired by Schnapp’s have also done this, but I don’t believe anyone has updated the original before.
Gaspar Saladino’s original Starman logo, done for First Issue Special #12 in 1976. Scan courtesy of Todd Klein.
For my version, I straightened out the stars and smoothed out the arcs.
All the reconstructed branding placed on the cleaned-up lineart.
Reconstruction of the original colour.
I never understood why they changed Starman’s costume from red and yellow to the all blue for this appearance. Maybe it was to have decent contrast against the orange and yellow of the cover background. Maybe Starlin thought it was too much like Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, the sci-fi work he was much better known for. For this new version by me, I thought I’d try out an all-red costume.
Here he is with his original costume.
I’ve hoped for years that DC would collect the series in trade paperback form. The closest we’ve gotten are the Ditko stories in The Ditko Omnibus Volume Two. Here’s a cover to remind them I’d still like a nice all-in-one package.
And the original-costume variation.
The Recoloured Story
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Back in 2002, trade paperbacks were starting to become an important part of the comic industry. I drew this one up. Lord Oswin (top left) sucks, but the rest still works for me. I coloured it up, did the same for one of the story pages, and sent it off to DC. I hoped to package the book. A few weeks later I got a nice letter from Robert Greenberger, then the senior editor of collected editions. He thanked me for sending it, but said that anyone who wanted to read that version of Starman most likely had the original issues. There was no, “By the way, since you sent this in…”, so that was all there was to it.
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Your work it’s amazing ! congratulations
Thanks very much.
Wonderful!
It’s ridiculous that nobody has collected the entire story in one place (the Ditko and Starlin parts together). I really enjoyed the run in ADVENTURE and was disappointed it ended on a cliffhanger. At least Starlin finished it– but why NOT Ditko? And yes, why change the costume?
Starlin’s work had been getting sloppy for awhile, before Joe Rubinstein came along. I was surprised Starlin inked this himself. Incredible stuff.
Your logo work reminds me of when I re-created the “Moonie” logo for Nick Cuti on computer some years ago. We were working on a project together, which got stalled when one of the other people involved dropped out. Frustrated, 3 years later, I presented him with the COMPLETED book– I’d done layouts, pencils, inks, colors lettering & word balloons, and 3D backgrounds. He was so inspired he did a cover painting to go with it… but a year later, suddenly decided that it had “gotten away from him”, and he preferred it would “never” be published. This is a problem with doing work on spec– people DON’T appreciate what you do. I haven’t talked with him since. (Not wanting all that work to go to waste, I just posted the ENTIRE BOOK on my blog so people could read the whole thing for free.)
Thanks for your comments, Henry.
I agree Starlin did a great job. I scanned this out of the DCCP Showcase volume. I can only imagine what the original art was like. Working in close while colouring, it was easy enough to see some of the textures clotting up. A little more delicate than the repro techniques and newsprint allowed for back then.
We’ve all learned the spec lesson. This story was coloured first and foremost because I wanted to. And second, it shows what I could do with a full story.
– Scott
Thank you so much for this. The lettering was so muddled on some of the original pages, I couldn’t read Gavyn’s eulogy to his sister, no could I make out the Lord’s name. And the colors are very well done.