Tag: Mike Grell

Green Arrow #3, September 2016

Green Arrow is back on the air (CW) for its eighth and final season, so before the emerald archer fades into the TV sunset, we’re focusing a few posts on Green Arrow originals.

Neal Adams had a big year for DC in 2016. In addition to a themed-cover month in February, Neal started drawing the variant covers for the Green Arrow Rebirth series ands drew 17 in a row. Not too shabby, and pretty appropriate, since he created the first Green Arrow “rebirth” 50 years ago.

With a semi-monthly schedule, Neal suddenly had a lot of covers. And… a lot of deadlines. So, most of the covers are inked by others. 

This specific Adams cover — paying tribute to the Mike Grell reboot of the character in 1987’s Longbow Hunters — is inked by the talented (and underrated) Sandra Hope. The inks are terrific, very complimentary to Neal’s style; you’ll get no argument from Neal himself, who revisited and praised the inks last week at NYCC.

That’s the easy part. The more difficult side of the equation? It’s inked on a “blue-line” copy of Neal’s pencils. DC sent a digital scan to Sandra, who then printed it out, inked it, scanned it and then sent it back to DC for colors and final production. When you absolutely, positively have to have it overnight, forget FedEx. Digital is the wave of the present.

Now this version is the printed cover, no argument from anyone. (DC added Neal’s and Sandra’s signature digitally to the final published version.) But here’s the rub: The pencils themselves exist on a separate board. Neal has kept them or sold them — doesn’t really matter for this discussion. They exist separately. There are technically no Adams “pencils” on this page.

This subject drives many art dealers (especially those that specialize in vintage material) — and some collectors (ditto) — absolutely bananas. They prefer, and I think most of us do, the pencils and inks on the same board. Blue-lines, gray-lines, whatever, for many it reeks as “incomplete” if the inks are rendered over pencil copies. After all, it’s the penciller’s illustration that sets the stage for the inker.

But… it’s 2019. Digital is a way of life. We’re fortunate that any material is still created the “traditional” way.  And comics are now truly an international profession — we may be dealing with a penciller in Brazil and a separate inker in Romania. No amount of priority shipping is going to solve that deadline crunch.

So yes, I absolutely still prefer a Jack Kirby page that has Mike Royer inks rendered directly over jack’s original pencils. Or, a Steve Ditko original where I can see the faint pencil lines of his original layouts. Etc.  

And I respect that pages with pencils and inks both should, and will always, command a premium price.

But 20 years from now, a kid who loved, say, the Ivan Reis / Joe Prado Man of Steel #1 cover is going to grow up to be a Wall Street financier. Or a successful Hollywood producer.  And he’s going to want the original of the published cover, and not care one whit that Joe inked the cover from Ivan’s digital scan. By then, practically everything will be digital, and hand-drawn original comic book art will be a scarce commodity.

And… a killer published cover… is still a killer published cover.