Saturday, July 17, 2010

Same Story, Different Cover: A bloody breeze from Massacre Mountain roughly blows o'er Slaughterhouse Bay

Sgt,. Fury #3/SME #5

L: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #3 (September 1963), art by Jack Kirby
R: Special Marvel Edition #5 (July 1972), reprinting Sgt. Fury #3, art by John Severin

(Click picture to Bulge-size)



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not a Howling Commandos story until Sgt. Fury loses his shirt!

Anonymous said...

You'd think Dum Dum would have remembered that that bloody breeze was going to blow his hat off if he didn't hang on to it.

Phillip said...

Jack knew you're not supposed to use the magazine as a grip.

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Special Marvel Edition #5 wins best cover by a landslide. Nick and Dum Dum are suspended in mid air while they hit the dirt to evade enemy fire. They aren't just falling into the sand, they are diving into it to save their lives! Shells flying, Dugan's hat blowing, theres just such incredible movement going on here. The poses are great too, Dugan's gun guides the eye to his arm and his game face (another plus of this cover!) to Nick's firing!

Even the soldiers in the background are an improvement. In Howling Commandos, they're all lined up under their crowded speech balloons, and running on contrary directions. In Special Edition, we see the team in a dynamic directional pose charging up the hill, gradually getting bigger as they emerge from the distance.

This illustration may be stuck in these boxes, it hate, but nixing all the speech balloons really makes the title from the story pop out!

If I were to say anything positive about the original it would be to compliment the excellent foreshortening on Fury's gun arm. I don't know much about guns, so I'm going to trust Phillip's knowledge on where to hold the weapon, that and having the hand being at the same angle as the line of fire just looks so darn cool.