Saturday, August 18, 2012

Same Story, Different Cover: Raven hair and ruby lips / Sparks fly from her finger tips


Left: Marvel Spotlight v.1 #11 (August 1973), pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Mike Esposito
Right: The Original Ghost Rider #7 (January 1993), pencils by Jeff Johnson, inks by Dan Panosian

(Click picture to black-magic-woman-size)



2 comments:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Wow. These two are night and day in terms of quality. "Spotlight" may have an unimaginative white background behind its scenery, but at least it has some scenery! It also have a villain who is actually a threat to our hero, striking a dynamic pose and using black magic to cause his cycle to veer off course and cause him some level of distress.

#7 is not "Ghost Rider"'s lucky number. The logo covers his cuffed hands (though being so close to the edge isn't helping any either) Ghost Rider looks completely bored, for all I know he's fallen asleep. The way Witch Woman is posed, with that stick thin figure, and closed, insecure posture and hair over one eye, I figure she's hanging on him waiting for Johnny to ask her to the homecoming dance rather than do anything remotely threatening.

The sets are just window dressing, without any sense of staging or environment. Even the text is a flat, boring san serif font thats just slapped on the bottom of the cover like it was an afterthought. That Exclamation Point at the end should be sued for false advertising. There is nothing exciting going on here.

Bully said...

Once again an incisive commentary, Erik! Yes, I was underwhelmed by the reprint as well. She looks so genial!