Simply the Best: INCREDIBLE!

In this age of timely and plentiful trade paperback reprints, the sheer amount of comic book history available to the average fan is staggering. So much so, that many don't realize (or tend to forget) how rare they used to be. Sure, Marvel and DC featured reprints of older material in their annuals and giant-size formats, but their rather low profile and random selection never gave them the attention (or context) they deserved.

That all started to change in the mid-1970's when Fireside Books (a Simon and Schuster imprint) published a series of high-quality volumes reprinting Marvel Comics origin stories (which I covered here a few months back). As I noted before, as great as the inside stories were, it was the stunning painted covers that made these reprints really feel like something special and worth celebrating.

During this same period, the Marvel/Fireside alliance branched out from origin stories and began reprinting other famous or "key" stories that us whippersnappers may have missed out on the first time around. As a major HULK fan at the time, I still remember how thrilled I was to see a collection of Hulk stories solicited in a Marvel comics house ad. Ahh...but that particular ad (as I recall) featured a standard inked & colored version of Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk...so imagine the breathtaking moment I opened my mail package and found THIS mind-blowing painting staring back at me!...

 

Seeing that cover for the first time was truly one of the most thrilling moments in all my years of collecting comics. Although I'd now quibble over that bland, distracting "National TV Star" blurb, the sheer three-dimensional power of Bob Larkin's painting makes it easy to ignore.

I went on to purchase many more Marvel reprint books, like these Bob Larkin beauties:

(click on the covers for a larger view)

Regretfully, I sold most of them off during my feverish eBay phase several years back, but just seeing the cover images again brings back a boatload of fond memories...chief among them the thrill of discovering classic comic book stories, made even sweeter with covers that seemed like movie posters!

Comments

[Morgan Edge]

I still have my copies of all these books. They were absolutely gold to the young fan. I particularly loved the Dr. Strange book. It was this and then the little paperbacks that were all that we had in the pre-Essentials era.

[Ralph C.]

That Spider-Man cover is great. It would make an excellent t-shirt.

[Richard]

You'll notice the odd positioning of the words "the Incredible" on that Hulk cover. As it happens, there were a few additional words in the title that were left out at the last minute, leaving behind that empty space.

If you've got a Marvel comic cover dated October 1978, you'll find an ad on page 12 from a company called Superhero Merchandise.

In that ad, you'll see an image of the Hulk cover, but with it's original full title - "The Coming of the Incredible Hulk".

What's also interesting about that ad is they also have a drawing of the cover of the Lee/Kirby Silver Surfer graphic novel. A drawing done by Jack Kirby. The cover ultimately was painted by Earl Norem, who must have based it on the Kirby drawing used for this ad.

As it happens, I ordered these two books from that ad. I was quite surprised to see how those covers ultimately looked like when those books arrived.

[Richard]

Adding...

I was really disappointed by that Norem Silver Surfer cover, because the original Kirby drawing, though tiny in that ad, looked so much better.

To this day, that blank space in the Hulk cover bugs me when I look at it, because I knew something was supposed to be there.

[Al Bigley]

Always loved that Larkin HULK cover. Don't know why it hasn't been made into shirts, posters, etc....I think it's one of his best!

A new Sal Q book on the art of Larkin, is now out.

I snapped up all of these in the day, along with the Pocket Book reprints (I really thought I could have ALL Spider-Man comics in that series-they only got to the first 3 years or so), and the Marvel novels (also with great painted covers). That, and the Marvel characters taking over TV, really made it seem my exclusive Marvel, non-DC stance of the day was the right move to make! :)

Al Bigley