| Posted: 05 January 2013 at 11:05am | IP Logged | 6
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Reasons to prefer the Kirby covers for both ASM #10 and AF #1 include: Coloring. Ditko's covers are busy, with figures and detail everywhere, a potential problem when dealing with Marvel's generally muddier printing back in the day. We're looking at modern recolorings of what those covers would have looked like. Back in day itself, however, the standard Marvel palette of dark greens, grays, browns, etc. would have made the "read" more difficult. Yes, they could have patiently gone through and differentiated this element or that, but why would they need to when Lee can more easily fix the problem by going with a different, cleaner composition altogether? Composition. In both examples, the focus in the Kirby cover is squarely upon the hero. In Ditko's ASM #10, Spidey is just one of four more-or-less equally sized characters in a tangle. The primary focus of the cover is on the mystery of the Big Man. While Spidey is clearly the central figure of the Ditko's AF #1, he is still partially blocked by the man he's carrying. Why does that guy get to be in front? Also, he is somewhat smaller than Kirby's thug, making Spidey look bigger in comparision to him. Much of Spidey's appeal comes from the fact that he's not a big guy, but rather a smaller, more acrobatic figure. Ditko's initial layout does not put this across. Pose. Ditko's Spider-Man reads very much to us, the modern reader, as web-swinging. We've all see Spidey do it a hundred thousand times at this point. What it looks like objectively, however, is Spidey running on the air, much like the Flash's foe, the Trickster. Again, the debut cover needs to emphasize what is different about our hero, and one of those elements is that he doesn't fly. He doesn't run from place to place. He swings. Kirby's conveys this without question or confusion. Ditko's, buried in downward-looking street detail and holding a runner's pose, does not. Lee apparently often had Kirby "ghost" compositions for other artists to help then convey that sweeping sense of motion Lee sought, the focus upon dynamic figurework, and the ability to tell a moment's worth of story with complete clarity. I agree with others that Ditko's covers would have been fine and are excellent pieces in and of themselves, but they weren't the impactful, dynamic pieces Lee was looking for to sell his books. Kirby and Lee were far more sympatico in this regard. Clearly, Ditko was still needed to add that special, street-level element to the inking and to fine-tune Kirby's more open, less picayune approach to individual character detail. I like the Ditko ASM #10 quite a bit, especially in comparision to the more sparse Kirby layout, but Spidey himself is lost in a muddle of figures. The Kirby cover leaves no question as to who the star of the book is. Our boy Peter may be the modest, unassuming type who hides his Spider-Signal under a bushel, but there's no reason why his editors and publishers, who do have families to feed after all, need do the same!
Edited by Brian Hague on 05 January 2013 at 11:08am
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