It appears that they've made a wise choice and updated the plans for the upcoming CREEPER hardcover to include the story that was scheduled for SHOWCASE #106, and later "published" as part of CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2. The story will be in black and white, the rest of the book will be in colour, increasing the page count to 288 pages with no increase in price.
Good news, and this should mean that if/when they do a collection of SHADE they'll include SHADE #9 which is in a similar situation.
Good news indeed! Hopefully there will be good reproduction of the pages... Most of the xeroxes I've seen of the Cancelled Cavalcade pages have looked kinda bad (altho I've not seen the CCC book itself).
ReplyDeleteYeah, that concern did cross my mind, but I have to believe that DC has kept some better source material than that. I've seen a few scans taken directly from original copies of CCC (not of the Ditko pages), and they're better than the nth generation photocopies I've seen circulated, but still seem a far cry from what you'd want to print from.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why it has to be in B&W, though. Ditko drew the issue with the idea that it would see print in color.
ReplyDeleteYeah, colour would be preferable for that, but that seems to be DC's style with those not-quite-published things, as they did with the Blue Beetle and Captain Atom stuff that only saw print in later fan publications. I imagine all-new colouring for these kinds of books is considered too pricey.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be especially jarring if they insist on making SHADE #9 b&w in a (still hypothetical) reprint.
FWIW, the BB & CA stuff that saw print in Charlton Bullseye & Charlton Portfolio was in b/w.
ReplyDeleteThis is great news. This moves this edition up on my want list.
Shade collection
ReplyDeleteShade collection
Shade collection
Shade collection
Shade collection
please please please
The explanation I was given by the editor a few years back, when they used some of my material for the Action Heroes archive (the CPL Blue Beetle story, in particular) was that they wanted to reprint the material as it was originally produced. In the case of the BB, as well as the Creeper story, originally they were intended for color, and I think that is how they should be reprinted, but that probably won't be happening anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteNick C.
Hear hear for a Shade collection.
ReplyDeleteIncluding the unpublished #9 (even if in b/w).
And I'd love to see an afterword from Ditko on what he had planned (I've seen articles on-line claiming he had the next dozen or so issues plotted).
And I've loooong wondered how much of what he might have planned for The Shade (with his theme of hero accused of a crime trying to clear his name) might have been re-used in the storylines of similiar characters like The Mocker, etc.