Friday, August 17, 2012

A Field Guide to the IDW Artist's Edition


Seen above is supposedly an early concept for the hugely popular Artist's Edition. This image, with its dreadful title font, appeared late last year on message boards. To the best of my knowledge, no copies of the actual book ever had this image.


This one was the cover as solicited but as far as I know there are NO copies out there with the light blue as it was changed to the orange below by the time it was printed and shipped.



Seen below is the First printing variant cover, a limited number of which were made available at a convention after the main edition had sold out so quickly and unexpectedly. It is still a First printing, not the Second.


Finally, shipping now are Second printing copies featuring the cover below with the pea-green color. No word yet if there is or will be a variant cover for the Second printing. 



The book is copyright by IDW, the art copyright by EC and Wood's trademark signature is a trademark of Wallace Wood Properties, LLC 

5 comments:

  1. The reprints are the blue cover; I know for a fact because I saw them this weekend at Forbidden Planet in NYC. Although sold out, they have copies.

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  2. I do the design work on the IDW Artist's Edition books. The Wally Wood book was part of my responsibility. So, I thought I could offer up some comments and clarification. The top image was only shown on my personal blog, so that explains where that came from. The "dreadful title font" was my decision. In the blog, I explain the process I go through in designing the books. That particular cover was an early concept. The second cover was "mocked -up" rather quickly for the sake of solicitations only. The third cover is the actual cover for the printed edition of the book. The fourth cover is a variant version, but still considered a first printing. The last "pea-green" colored cover, is indeed the 2nd printing of the book. There is no actual blue printed cover version of the book. Those are the facts.

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  3. Thanks much, Randy!

    You can check out Randy's great blog at http://retrorandy.blogspot.com/. Greatf un! Think I'll plug it in my I.T.C.H. column this week!

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  4. Bought the 2nd edition and I think it's great! Wood did so much art for EC, any plans for more material of his in an Artist Edition?

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  5. Tom, as you probably already know, IDW will be printing a MAD Artist's Edition. This book will contain the comic book version, which was done before they started doing the magazine format. If you are familiar with the early issues of MAD, you know the great artists that were involved. The book will have some incredible stories and beautiful artwork by the greatest comicbook artists to ever work in the industry. I'd suggest reserving your copy now. I'm guessing this will have the same enthusiastic response as the Wally Wood Artist's Edition.

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