posted March 03, 2003 12:05 PM               

As you'll be able to tell, I subscribe to the theory that this story was originally intended for a 2nd Big All-American. Until I get to the conclusion, which has many lettering changes, this page will have required the most work as I had to add the roll call, the head shots, the logo, the title, and change the font of the will and the will's heading. (Not to mention removing stray marks and the editor's corrections/comments.) The second worst offender was page two where I had to move some word balloons.

As far as the rest of the story goes, I'm not sure what I want to do. Should I fill in the missing material since I want to emulate a complete story? The only problem there is some new art may show up and completely change what I've done, or at least parts of what I’ve done. Any thoughts?

-Steve

posted March 03, 2003 12:11 PM               

If I were you I'd hang loose and wait for more art to show up rather than trying to fill in missing material.

posted March 03, 2003 12:37 PM               

As for filling in material, I'm mainly on the fence because I have some good ideas for recreating the Hawkman and Johnny Thunder chapters. Since there have been no art from either of them yet, I may go ahead and do those just because I really want to use those ideas... (Tell me, what could have more potential for fun than Johnny Thunder having to get to the moon and then bringing back a piece of green cheese?)

-Steve

posted March 03, 2003 03:23 PM               

It's funny, it actually crossed my mind to scan the pages in and assemble them in order, just so I could read it, but you've gone a lot further than that. I know what you mean about the ALL-STAR COMPANION. I'd tried the same thing with the Jack Kirby PRISONER story, but some of the pages only appeared in THE COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR. (It just grates on me that they keep putting out collections of the magazines, but INSIST on added new pages-- trying to "force" fans into buying them, even if they have the separate issues.)

Yes, the tones are yellow. If you can use CYMK color, try this:

posted March 03, 2003 05:43 PM               

If this new version is better, I can make the new color one of my choices in PhotoDeluxe.

And no, I haven't shown this to Roy yet. I need to e-mail him some All-Star house ads, and I'll send him the link to this when I do. I'll also see if I can get his permission to post the available material online for all to enjoy. As an unpublished work it should be in the public domain after the recent Supreme Court ruling, but Roy was the one who made it available to everyone, so it's only right that I get his approval first.

-Steve

posted March 03, 2003 07:24 PM               

------------------
Rock a little,

posted March 03, 2003 07:33 PM            

I had scanned in the panels myself and made up my own little comic (and you're right, it is a pain). I realized that one of the Atom tiers was in the wrong place in "The All-Star Companion". Follow the links below for that section of the story to see what I mean. If you're curious about my reasoning, I'd be happy to explain my logic.

posted March 03, 2003 11:33 PM               

1)Yes I keep master files, these all scanned at 300 dpi, but it takes a little while to color each page so I don't know when they'll get done.

2)Yes, restoring the lost work would mean rewriting and drawing it. Naydel's Flash and JSA are easy to emulate (and it's much more fun to draw in his style that look at it), but I haven't tried the other styles yet. Stan Aschmeier seems to be another easy/fun one to copy, so Dr. Mid-Nite and Johnny Thunder shouldn't be too hard. Paul Reinman and Jon Kozlak will be the harder ones to emulate. However, once I catch up to that point in the Archives and study their work a little more, it may be easier. I see some things in Kozlak's work that reminds me a little of my own. That should make it a little less difficult should I decide to complete the story. As for Hawkman, I'm not too familiar with Kubert's GA work and not sure I'd even want to try and copy it. If I do recreate Hawkman's chapter, it'll likely be in either Kozlak's style, or a simplified version of my own.

3)DC has no plans to ever reprint, or rather print this story for the first time. As for the other missing JSA stories, here are the current theories (along with my own). If you want them expounded upon, perhaps someone else can help you (it's late and I'm getting tired), or you can track down a copy of All-Star Companion (which I really recommend!!!):

A)"The Emperors of Japan" This is thought to have been like "This is Our Enemy!" from All-Star #24. Fox's records show he was paid for the script in July 1945. In August, the bomb was dropped, the Soviet Union joined the war, and Japan surrendered. The story was obsolete. In my opinion, if any art for this was even produced, it was minimal.

B)"Peril of the Paper Death" We have no clue as to what this story could have been about, but Jerry Bails is of the opinion that the title was changed (and the story may also have been) to become "The Paintings That Walked the Earth" from #28.

C)"The Men of Magnifica" Like the last one, nothing is known about this story, but also like the last one, it may have seen print in a different form. "Five Drowned Men," the story that Superman and Batman appeared in (#36). It seems to be in the Fox style, and John Broome wasn't sure if he wrote it or not. The theory is that it was a Fox script, and Magnifica was the original name of the University in the story. It was just rewritten (possibly by Kanigher, but he vehemently denied it). In the end, it's all just speculation, but in my opinion, it's quite logical. Unless the last two stories never went beyond scripting, how is it that we have so much art for "The Will of William Wilson" and none for these? Surely if they were produced and just scrapped, SOMETHING would have survived. Besides, four unused stories, that DC paid for mind you, seems a bit much to me.

4)I see the logic behind your Atom theory Outpost. Good detective work old chum (I say in my best Adam West voice), I wouldn't have noticed it had I not been looking. As Roy has it in The All-Star Companion, the thug with the wide nose doesn't have his burnoose in the first panel of the second tier on the page these are printed on, yet in the first panel of the third tier, Atom is ripping it off. And since the thugs get the better of Atom by the third panel, the second tier on that page has to be from a second fight. Afterwards, Atom and the girl seem to be tracking down the pair using the burnoose. They find them, and the second fight occurs. I'm sure Roy will be interested to see this if he hasn't found it out for himself yet.

Finally, Roy says that he has the tiers at the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 of the Flash chapter, but couldn’t print them for legal reasons. Have they been printed elsewhere? If so where, and could someone scan them for me (300 dpi please)?

-Steve

posted March 04, 2003 12:26 AM               

"Legal reasons"? Did Roy even try explaining that in English? (sigh)

posted March 04, 2003 12:35 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by srca1941:
Finally, Roy says that he has the tiers at the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 of the Flash chapter, but couldn’t print them for legal reasons. Have they been printed elsewhere? If so where, and could someone scan them for me (300 dpi please)?

---

Yes, they were reprinted in one of the Alter Egos (I'll have to look up which one). I scanned it in, but off-hand don't know the DPI that I used. I'll re-scan it if need be. Do you scan using grayscale or black-and-white?

posted March 04, 2003 12:44 AM            

Steve,
Yes..you should fill in the missing material
with your own creativity or ask someone for
story idea help if you only want to illustrate.
If new parts show up...then you can tweak it
or not..up to you..i wouldn't worry about that.
I think taking the existing material and coming out with a finished story with missing
story and art ..newly created by you or a friend would be wonderful!

go for it!

posted March 05, 2003 12:00 AM               

Outpost: Thanks for the scan offer! I scan in color and then convert to grayscale. Black and white makes for too rigid of an image, and lighter lines can vanish. If you can dig up the issue of Alter Ego those tiers appeared in, I'd greatly appreciate it! One of the Green Lantern tiers was in AE #2, so that would be the first place I would look. (I didn't get it until #12, and have just been buying regularly recently.)

As for completing the story, I'm still thinking about it. I'll finish coloring the existing art and then make up my mind about what to do about the rest.

-Steve

posted March 07, 2003 08:22 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by profh0011:

"Legal reasons"? Did Roy even try explaining that in English? (sigh)

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The "legal reason" was that DC wouldn't let him print that many pages of art from the same story in one place, stating that it exceeded "fair use". I'm pretty sure DC does not consider this story to be in the public domain.

posted March 08, 2003 01:46 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
Of course it isn't in the public domain--since it's only now being printed, even fragmentarily, there hasn't been time for the copyright on it, which is brand new, to expire. In fact, I'd think that any part of it which hasn't ever been printed at all isn't copyrighted yet. The characters are still covered by DC's trademark protection, of course.

---

You're right about it not being in the public domain, wrong about it not being copyrighted. The way it works now, copyright automatically begins when the work is created, not published. I copied the following paragraph from the U.S. Copyright web site http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html . There are other sections which further discuss the copyright of unpublished works.

"Works Originally Created before January 1, 1978, But Not Published or Registered by That Date -