Dark Reign: The Goblin Legacy

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

The Goblin Legacy one-shot was basically a reprint of the classic Amazing Spider-Man story in which the Green Goblin and Spider-Man discovered each other's identities in #39-40. What makes this one different is that the story was completely recolored. 

For comparision, the final page of #39 as it originally appeared...



...and the recolored version...



Thoughts? Is it an improvement, or does it ruin the classic story?

Also, there was a wraparound story in which Ms. Hand, Norman Osborn's Deputy Director at H.A.M.M.E.R. interviews Peter Parker about what he knows about Norman (given that he's friends with Harry.) Afterwards...







Hmmm...does this mean Norman's going to remember that Peter Parker is Spider-Man?

Comments

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

Meh, prefer the original coloring.

I thought for sure he was going to push her out the window, Christopher Walken in Batman Returns style.

[darkknightjrk.insanejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing. I'm kinda glad they didn't though, because it brings something I haven't seen in Dark Reign yet--subtlety.

[xammax.insanejournal.com]

That is the one complaint I will never get; who wants Dark Reign to be subtle... its Norman Crazy-Ass Osborn running around in charge of the world. This is actually one of the best ideas in comics for a long long time, and really I like how abrupt it's been sometimes.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Still waiting for Goblinland to open up..

[kingrockwell]

Just compared the two there to the one in my John Romita Visionaries trade, and they're both a far sight better than the recoloring in that book, where they should've left well enough alone. I don't hate the recoloring job here, and I can be very picky about recolors, so it has that to its credit.

It does bug me a lot of times when artists try to make Norman's hair look like something plausible, though, since I'd never know who it is without the dialogue.

[sir_razorback.insanejournal.com]

Can't blame 'em for trying. It's either that or say that he has a corrugated skull.

On the art... I normally like the newer style of coloring, but it looks out of place in that reprint. Flashback sequences are one thing, but this is just odd. I'm not anti-remastering in general, just not this.

[kingrockwell]

For contrast, the version from the John Romita Visionaries trade.

(i assure you it looks worse on paper, just my scanner's poor quality somehow makes the colors blend a lot better)

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

Much better!

[kingrockwell]

Oh, not at all. My scanner just isn't good enough to show how bad an airbrushing job they did. (Seriously! Airbrushing! Look a little closer at the shading and you might be able to see it, but the dot matrix my scanner's throwing in is really playing it down.)

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

I don't like the airbrushing effects either (but then, from this scan, I can't tell the extent of just how bad the airbrushing is), but I certainly favor this color over the oversaturation of the one above. It looks to me like a cleaner version of the original, which is what I'd hope to see from a reprinted comic.

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

It does bug me a lot of times when artists try to make Norman's hair look like something plausible

That is what the Osborn hair is meant to look like, though. It was an actual style, though so old it was probably dated as soon as Romita put down the pencil.

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

**Ditko, I should say. Not Romita.

[petalsinthewind.insanejournal.com]

It's sorta like my how my friend's kinky hair naturally grows into, sort of waves of tight curls.  It's great fun, I love playing with it.

[akodo_rokku.insanejournal.com]

I keep wondering if Victoria Hand is Tarantuala III (introduced in the post-Civil War Heroes for Hire series) undercover or something, or if their matching hair coloring is just a coincidence.

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

I was wondering the same.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

I love it if Miss Hand was working for Roderick Kingsley really digging up any sort of dirt. But alas ah the thoughts and hopes of dreams that'll never happen.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

As truly, truly awesome as that would be, I have trouble seeing a high ranking member of SHIELD being in Hobby's employ.

[danielolsen.insanejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of the overuse of gradients. On the whole it feels a bit overdone.

I also know its probably for the sake of contrast. But the artwork on the Ms Hand sequence feels way too naturalistic to sit right with me. The panel with Norman gleeing insanely at the match though is gold. Clip that out and you have a perfect cover.

[taggerung301.insanejournal.com]

who's the artist who did the last few pages with Norman and Ms. Hand? Norman looks a little odd to me, but otherwise, I really like it

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

Mike Mayhew.

[qob.insanejournal.com]

he doesn't really look like Tommy Lee Jones which is a good thing

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

There are tons of old comics I dearly wish we could see recolored, but the original coloring works much better here. I think it has something to do with the art style.

This coloring works better with Silver Age stories, but dear lord, there are so many reprints of comics from the 70's and 80's especially that I wish to god someone would take the time to recolor. Nothing too drastic, but just to clean it up and make it look a little less garish and dotty.

That said, I'm reminded of how some people hate the recoloring for the Neal Adams BATMAN hardcovers. I thought they were gorgeous, but some felt the new colors ruined 'em.

[kingrockwell]

I think a lot of it has to do with the shading. Older comics did most of their shading in the pencils and inks because the color was so expensive to print, leaving everything with only one tone in the coloring stage. Nowadays it's shifted, so more of the shading in the pencils is carried over in the coloring stage instead of the inks, but when you apply modern coloring to older comics, the color shading looks a little redundant.

As for Neil Adams, they only recolored a couple stories from the Flash backups in the Green Lantern/Green Arrow trades, so comparing the recolored stories with the other stories that kept their original colors does leave you feeling like something's missing. It's not the worst I've seen (compare the Brent Anderson's art with the colors in X-Men: God Love, Man Kills with the colors on his art in the first Astro City trade), but it could be so much better.

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

What do you mean they only recolored stories from the Flash backups? I have one of the Neal Adams Batman hardcovers, and it's all been totally redone, with new effects. Look at the new version of "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge," which is currently collected in the JOKER: THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD tpb, and compare it to the version collected in the original GREATEST JOKER STORIES EVER TOLD.

[kingrockwell]

I guess I ordered that a little weird, I meant that the Flash backups were the only recolored stories in either volume of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, being the only Neal Adams trades I have handy.

[oddpuppets.insanejournal.com]

The sad thing is, loads of concept artists and colourists I see on Conceptart, DA and the like do some amazing retro-flavored coloring which puts most modern colorists to shame. The idea is to keep the same flavor of the original but with our more modern digital palette, so the coloring has more range while being very simplistic.

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

Ooh, have you any links?

[the_jeff.insanejournal.com]

I'd like to see some links as well, but it would be nice to have a seperate post, just to find it easier. :)

[oddpuppets.insanejournal.com]

I'll try and see if I can compile such a list.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Hmmm, hard to say how I feel about recoloring. I really thought it improved CoIE and wood love to see Michael Golden's Micronauts (don't get me started) . I think some art was way ahead of the production printing of it's time. Some is meant to be seen the way it was created at the time.

[sinisterlink.insanejournal.com]

I always find it interesting when an artist draws Norman or Harry's hair looking like what it's actually supposed to look like.

[felinephoenix.insanejournal.com]

Ditto. I've grown to vastly enjoy mocking love the Osborn hair, but sometimes I wish people would draw it more like this. This might actually be one of my favorite takes on Norman, just because of the hair.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

I know. Mike Mayhew actually did his research!

... Also, I just went to his website, and I am truly astounded at his ability to make Vampirella look badass and almost classy. Good heavens, this man has talent.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I disapprove of the recoloring. There's nothing wrong with touching up the colors a bit, but it should be done in the same style as it was originally. They didn't HAVE fancy computerized coloring effects back then, just ink and paper. I mean, the whole point of touching up the colors is so the artwork can communicate the same general feeling as the original. Pulling out all the fancy modern bells and whistles for comics that are almost fifty years old is not a tribute to the original comics - it's a tribute to your software.

[geoffsebesta.insanejournal.com]

There are good things about all three versions. If there's one place that the "modern" one falls down, it's in the weird red shadows on Parker's face. The use of a deep red in a multiply layer for facial shadows (also on display in the wraparound, which is a very nice piece of work regardless) will be as much of a cliche of the 00s as the formless gradient highlight was of the 90s.

If the faces weren't so weird the 00s version would be the best all around. The purple's much better in that one. I think I like the desaturated green in the first better, but that's just personal preference there.

Oh, the naturalistic office is much stronger with modern coloring, but the electric blue surprise lines seem a much stronger choice to me than the yellow ones. Go figure.

[queen_marshed.insanejournal.com]

I'd say the original colours look a lot better.

And say, why does Norman look like Pierce Brosnan? O_o

[flipbeter.insanejournal.com]

I'd say Tom Hanks.

[flipbeter.insanejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I'm distracted by how normal yet FUCKING BIZARRE Norman's hair looks in the second set of scans.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

I think the most interesting thing about this issue was the new way they referred to what the formula did to Norman's mind. Not "drove him insane", but made him smarter and completely changing his basic thought patterns.

Color Me This

[(Anonymous)]

Coloring issues aside (and I agree, the original version is SO much better), the comparison of the pages reminds me yet again how much I really wish mainstream comics would lose the "photorealistic" fetish already. The stilted poses always leave me cold, especially when compared to the dynamic style of someone like John Romita, Sr. Does anyone actually *prefer* that style, and WHY?

[lawrence_live.insanejournal.com]

I like this.

I almost always prefer the recoloring of old stories, as long as it's done with love and respect. There are some reprints of golden age DC material where the recolorists just didn't seem to care at all, resulting in very garish and even more unnatural coloring than the originals.