Is This the Legacy We Want?

December 13th, 2006

Filed under: Comics

cover, Marvel Legacy: The 1980's HandbookTake a close look through Marvel Legacy: The 1980s Handbook. Read the front cover introduction. Flip through the pages. Check out the credits. Notice what’s there. Then notice what’s missing.

There are no artist credits. More accurately, the cover artists, “art reconstruction” and “select colorist” are credited, but nobody else. Certainly not the original artists whose work graces every page of the book.

This is wrong.

First and most simply, the artists deserve credit. It’s their work and they deserve to have it identified as such. (And I hope they were adequately remunerated as well, but that’s another issue).

Second, this book was designed to captured a feeling of “80s Era Marvel” — the introduction says as much. A big part of the classic Marvel comics of this period was the art. You can’t celebrate the era without celebrating the people who brought it to life.

Finally, what good is this as any sort of a reference if it’s missing such key information?

We’re not talking forgotten artists either, but well-known artists including Byrne, Simonson, Adams, Miller, McFarlane, and Mignola, just to name a few.

I’d love to see Marvel step up and identify the artists involved (at least online), but I don’t have that much faith in them anymore to do the right thing.

Personally, I was looking though the book when I came across the “Crossroads” entry. My familiarity with the Hulk starts about mid-way through Peter David’s run on the character, so I was unfamiliar with this part of his story. I looked at the art and thought, “That sure looks like Bret Blevin’s work.” Blevins has long been one of my favorite and I’m always happy to find new comics (new to me, that is) that he drew. I looked through the book for confirmation that it was his art. Nothing. There was more of his art in the “New Mutants” entry, but again, no credits. These are comics I would be willing to track down and purchase if I could confirm they were drawn by him. Thanks for all the help, Marvel.

10 Responses to “ Is This the Legacy We Want? ”

  1. James Meeley
    December 13th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

    Hey, Dr. Scott! JUst thought you should know that Blevins DID do an issue of the Hulk during the “Crossroads” saga. It was Incredible Hulk #310. He did a fill-in issue, which takes place between the depature of Sal Buscema (on issue #309) and the start of Mike Mignola (on issue #311). It’s actually part one of a two-pater, which Mignola did part two of. Funny thing about Mignola’s run is that only three issues in (on issue #313) he swapped art duties with John Byrne, who was doing Alpha Flight at the time.

    Anyway, just thought you’d appreciate the info. Personally, I always enjoyed the “Crossroads” saga (it ran from Hulk #301-313), but then I have always enjoyed most Bill Mantlo scripted comics. Had a great time chatting with you at ECCC last year. Hope you can make it this year, since Heidi and I have the booth for Comic Fairplay again. I know she’d love to hang with you again, as well.

    Best,
    James Meeley

  2. Jon Hendry
    December 13th, 2006 at 11:52 pm

    Is it possible the “art reconstruction” people were actually tracing/copying the original art, and that’s what’s in this book?

  3. Dwight Williams
    December 14th, 2006 at 8:47 am

    Scanned pix as often as not here.

    And as to the main point of “credit where credit is due”, I’m in absolute agreement. If the proper credits were intended and planned for yet accidentally dropped in the production process, that’s something that can be remedied, even if only in Marvel’s online errata pages(which do exist, thankfully).

  4. David C
    December 14th, 2006 at 8:48 am

    Were there art credits in the original MU Handbooks? I dimly recall that there were not, and that it was an interesting point of differentiation between them and DC’s “Who’s Who” series, which gave rather prominent credit to the artists.

    Anyway, it might be that they’re just copying the old style, as opposed to consciously snubbing artists.

  5. gorjus
    December 14th, 2006 at 9:34 am

    David, there were–but it was at the front of the book, which made it like an artist’s index, as well.

    Growing up, I used Who’s Who and the Handbooks to “train” myself to learn the art-styles of different creators . . . something that worked amazingly well. And you’re right to recall that Who’s Who actually boasted in ads about how much more “arty” than “sciencey” their volumes were. (I still preferred the Marvel).

  6. JD
    December 14th, 2006 at 11:01 am

    Curiously, this is only a problem with the “themed” 2006 Marvel handbooks : Marvel Legacy, and those tying into main events (Civil War, Annihilation, Secret War, Decimation…). The “normal” handbooks (including the current A to Z series and the 2004-2005 themed handbooks) all carry proper art credits.

    This is very strange. Why the discrepancy ?

  7. Mathew
    December 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am

    Correct me if I am wrong, but since their inception in the 80’s, the handbooks have been classified as a publicity item. As such, they would be exempt from royalties owed to artists for the reprinting of their work.

    I loved the original series, and the follow-up deluxe edition, but they were helmed by Mark Gruenwald, who treated the project with respect. I’ve been nothing but disappointed in the more recent editions. Frankly, they feel like they’ve been slapped togther by office interns. There no sense of care in the project. I wasn’t aware that they were indulging in art “reconstruction”, which just seems wrong and cheap.

  8. Dave White
    December 14th, 2006 at 5:59 pm

    The art credits in the original handbook were only for the artists drawing the pin-up pictures, not the photos. And while I don’t like the idea of artists going on uncredited, in this case it’s got nothing to do with the “art reconstruction.” All that means is that they have to trace the panels and fake out areas of them to form a continuous image (you know, since back in the day they actually had word balloons on the art instead of floating somewhere in cyberspace).

  9. Martin Wisse
    December 15th, 2006 at 8:04 am

    Like Dave said, Marvel never credited the original artists of the artwork they snatched for the OHOTMU books, though they did make a point at the time of promoting the books as containing Goerge Perez art etc, at a time when George Perez had very publically stated not to want to work for Marvel anymore…

  10. Mike Fichera
    March 28th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

    Scott, saw your blog. I’m Mike Fichera, one of the new Handbook Team writers. When doing the Legacy books, we modified a few things from the current formatting we’re using to give it more of a retro look. In the original Handbooks from the 1980s, art credits were not written on the page as per the 2000 series Handbooks, so we dropped them from 80s and the previous decades. But then, we had no room in the covers for the credits, and the credits were dropped. In retrospect, you’re right - we should have given the artists credit somewhere. The credits were returned for the Legacy 90s. Once I gather the info, I’ll post it on the Marvel.com/universe page.

    As for the Crossroads image, my notes say we used art by Alan Kupperberg from Hulk Annual #13, p.6, panel 1 to be exact.
    -Mike

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