Wonder Woman No. 294 Unpublished Cover by Jan Duursema

Jan Duursema would be known for Arion, Lord of Atlantis during her early years in comics. Starting as a backup in DC’s Warlord it graduated into its own series.

She also worked on other titles and did this unpublished cover for Wonder Woman.

Apart from not leaving much room for the trade dress of the day that likely made it unapproved, I look at the differences between her version and the published cover. Duursema’s shows Diana as strong, courageous and aggressive. The published version shows her much more apprehensive and that’s reinforced by her bending down to be out of the way of the logo.

There’s also the mansplaining “Take some advice from the Batman, Amazon…” that hasn’t aged well. Thankfully, we’ve moved forward with portrayals of women in comics.

Colour by me.

As published. Art by Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia.

Original art scan from Heritage Auctions.

Art made production ready.

Colour version.

Re-created trade dress added.