I understand when people copy the cover of an important or icvonic comic book. The cover of the issue of Action Comics that contained the first Superman comic has been plagiarized a lot of times. So has Amazing Fantasy#15, the first appearance of Spider Man. And Fantastic Four#1. Even the cover of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns#1 was appropriated by Mighty Mouse for “The Dark Might Returns!”
These I can understand. A lot of people have seen them, and would instantly pick up the reference.
But lately I’ve been seeing cases where they’re copying much more obscure covers. Covers which I can’t imagine anyone but a comics geek picking up on. Even more, they’d have to be a comics geek my age or so. A recent issue of The Simpsons, for instance, is a direct copy of th issue of Walt Disnet Comics and Stories that contained “THe Ghost of the Grotto”. An issue of Moore’s Tom Strong is a direct copt of Fantastic Four#26. These comics are over 40 years old!
Are they knowingly playing to a smaller body of fans who actually are familiar with this stuff? Or the artists just doing this to amuse themselves?
Both. Or rather, they’re the same thing. Comics these days are being read by an increasingly small and comics-educated audience, and they’re being created by the same people. So it’s only natural that comics become more and more recursive. It’s not really good for business, although if it’s done well someone unfamiliar with the source will still enjoy the copy.
Tom Strong, in particular, is a series that’s explicitly about revisiting old comics and genre-fiction cliches. Indeed, most of the highlights of Alan Moore’s career have been in exactly this vein (Miracleman, Watchmen (update of Charlton characters), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong (Doc Savage investigates fiction), Supreme (a/k/a Superman)).
I think its the artists having fun and calling back to some of those classic covers. It’s not just the first appearance that have covers that make an impact on someone. I think I’ve seen the cover for Crisis #7 done again about a dozen times. Uncanny X-Men #100 is another popular one to copy.
If you get the gag it’s fun, but I don’t think they’re trying to appeal to anyone by doing this.
Like any other Easter Egg - those that recognize the reference will get a kick out of it; those that don’t won’t realize it was a reference to begin with, so no harm’s done.
The JLI Justice League books had a typical ‘Group Shot’ cover that was used several times; The upcoming Great Lakes Avengers book does a take-off on New Avengers #1.
And sometimes it’s an artist making a reference to themselves.
I don’t have the issue numbers but there’s an issue of Fantastic Four by John Byrne where he has the villain standing in the center and the 4 tossed around him.
He later did an issue of Superman where 4 members of the Legion guest starred and the cover had Superman standing in the same spot as the villain and the 4 legionaries tossed around. The legionionaires were Blok (The Thing), Invisible Kid (Invisible Girl), Sun Boy (The Human Torch) and Brainiac 5 (Mr. Fantastic or the “brains” of the group)
In this case, I imagine they were playing to a smaller body of fans. A review of the comic I read (by animation historian Jerry Beck) pointed out it was a dead-on parody of the old Carl Barks stories, with references to Disney artists as well. (The plot involved Homer following Mr. Burns to Donrosa Island in search of the fabled Barks Billions.)
I also like Fred Guardineer’s recycling of one of his early cops 'n robbers Detective Comics covers for the collector market. Sorta has a Liechtensteinian quality; very hip. Hope he made some nice coin off it. (Current dealer wants $1,800.)
There’s kind of a fine line between plagiarism and “hommage.” There are two specific covers that John Byrne has drawn about a dozen times (One riffs Kirby’s FF ! cover, the other is his own FF vs. Gladiator cover), and it’s clearly an inside joke. Nearly every page of Kingdom Come contained a riff on some iconic comics cover; Alex Ross pretty obviously didn’t want to pass these off as wholly his own.
Less clear are the motives of embarrassing swipe-hounds like Keith Giffen and Rich Buckler. Giffen swiped numerous panels of the then-unknown Alack Sinner (by Jose Munoz) when he began affecting a Munoz-influenced style in the mid-80s. He apparently discovered a new way of approaching comics art and got lost in his influence. Buckler, under specific instructions to draw more like Kirby, shamelessly swiped specific Kirby panels–and Buscema panels and Adams panels. Swipes are the norm among commercial superhero artists and the bar for originality is set pretty damned low, but Buckler got called for the sheer degree of his swipes by The Comics Journal. He tried to sue them for libel, but they had lots and lots of documentation and he dropped the suit. The Journal has an ongoing feature called “Swipe File” where they bust artists for obvious swipes.
The X-Men 100 cover is a stock layout that had been used many times before by Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino and Ernie Chua in the 60s and 70s. There aren’t a lot of fresh ways to put a gazillion characters on one cover,
I’ll agree that the double-line up is popular, but the key is the Prof. X pose in the middle. I’d be hesitant to call the Frash cover, for example, an homage in this case (we can debate it) but when I see the figure standing in the middle with his arm outstretched (see the Sealab cover) making both sides fight I know it’s an homage.
