Monday, December 17, 2007

The World's Greatest Pin-Up Magazine!

I was quite pleased that several of my trusty commenters (thanks, guys!) picked up on the unspoken "moral of the story" I was trying to get across in yesterday's "Ten of a Kind"—that you can have a comic book cover sans dialogues, blurbs, and captions, but which is still dynamic, compelling, and which gives you a tease of the story within. In other words, a comic book that inspires the reaction "I gotta read that!" instead of "Have I read this one already?":
Pin-Up Covers


Or, to quote my friend Snuckles, the poetry-writing pig:

Pretty to look at
Delightful to hold
If I can't 'member I bought it
That's one more copy sold.


What's interestin' to me is that the trend at Marvel seemed to start with the Ultimate line, but those books have now moved to more representational covers. While the first couple years more often than not featured generic pin-up covers, the recent runs give us a taste of the contents right up front. Here's the first issue next to the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Fantastic Four:
Ultimate Covers
I fully admit the generic pin-up covers are often lovely and impressive, but I've always felt they should be the exception, not the rule. While I realize that comics are now a self-selling medium and no longer rely on catching kids' eyes on the news rack in order to make a sale, I'd certainly love to see more Marvels moving to memorable imagery tying into the story rather than just some dramatic posing. Save the dramatic stances for anniversary issues or variant covers, why doncha?

But Bully, you ask, is there any place where pin-up imagery is appropriate all the time? Why, of course there is! In the contents of the book itself. I say bring back the Mighty Marvel Pin-Up Pages of old, like this treasury of fantastic...er, Fantastic Four mini-posters that I handily clipped out of my mint copies of early Kirby comics and taped on my wall. Let's all take a big wondrous gaze at 'em, shall we?
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up


All of the above examples are from the great FF age of Lee and Kirby, and the pin-up pages mostly fell into disuse after that era, but John Byrne resurrected them for his "Back to the Basics" FF run:
FF Pin-Up
FF Pin-Up


Some may complain that pin-up pages take one page of the story away, but I say, bring 'em back! They're interesting, colorful, inventive and best of all, fun.

Also, with all my pin-up pages, I totally don't have to buy wallpaper now.


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Bully,
Just one exception to the 10 of a kind covers "which gives you a tease of the story within". The Marvel Comics Presents Dr. Doom seems the opposite and much like the four "Have I read this one already?" generic covers you posted as examples. Otherwise, top notch work as always. I very much enjoy your blog & look forward to it daily. So...Thanks Bully! (also. I'm a big P.G. Wodehouse fan as well. Would love to hear your thoughts on the Fry & Laurie PBS series Jeeves and Wooster)

Bully said...

That's a very good point, Kenneth: that Doom cover is fantastic but ultimately a pin-up. I won't change it, but thanks for the course-correction! (I have such sharp and helpful commenters!)

Anonymous said...

Man, Ben sits EXACTLY like I do when there's no chair. Of course, I sit like that when there IS a chair too, so, huh.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Fully. I've been griping about this for years. Thanks for being so right.

Anonymous said...

The Doom "pin-up" does have a get-out clause: it was for a one-off story, in a try-out book, so it didn't need to say anything else than "It's Doctor Doom!". Indeed, anything more complex might have been considered confusing. The try-out stories in Marvel Super-Heroes before that also tended to have pin-up covers, as they featured either new characters or characters who'd not had their own solo story before. The key exception is a Spider-Man story, where the cover did illustrate the story events, presumably to ensure it was seen as distinct from the main Spidey title.

Maxo said...

The Yancy Street Gang is one of the greatest inventions in fiction - that pin-up made me laugh out loud.

Bully said...

Maxo, I too love the Yancy Street Gang! I really enjoyed the Mark Waid FF run except for one development: that the Yancy Street Gang's pranks were all pulled by Johnny on Ben.

I choose to ignore this plot point in my personal canon. (Anyway, it's been disproven by earlier actual events).

Harvey Jerkwater said...

Ah, who doesn't love the early Galactus look, when he had bare legs and arms? Just because you eat planets and exterminate whole civilizations to sate your eternal hunger doesn't mean you can't totally rock out with a purple miniskirt! And what happened to that big "G" in the middle of his chest, like in his first appearance? That was rawkin'.

billjac said...

So in that last pin-up is Sue making the stool invisible or is she proving that she never needed the stool in the first place and only took it to annoy Johnny?

Anonymous said...

Was Lockjaw in post-asssniffin' on Galactus form right there?

Anonymous said...

Boy...Sue went through some bad hair back in the day, didn't she?

Otherwise, deeply cute.

Evan Waters said...

An old-school pinup page appears in the latest AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL in honor of her tenth anniversary. It's a nice touch.