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An exception to the general rule, fellow fans! I've decided to post this particular cover among the others in this Gallery -even if it has not been scanned from a Mexican comic book, like the rest, but from the original American edition instead- since I consider it to be of some significance in the context of Comic Books History... (I did have the Mexican version when a kid, but somehow it disappeared in the mists of the past, among other stuff which I deeply recall...) It's no less than a sample from one of the 3D comic books which caused a sort of ephimeral craze in the early 50s, just to vanish completely after a few months, not reappearing on the comic scene before three full decades were exhausted... A method created in 1953 by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer (the same team who was responsible for the "Tor" character, also shown in this Gallery), it was soon imitated by a plethora of companies, Harvey Publications among them. I've selected the splash page of the cover story of Harvey's "Adventures in 3-D" (Vol.1,Nº1, November 1953), for I find it to present some of the most striking stereoscopical effects available at the period. The art of the story, "Jungle Drums", is the work of one of the most competent drawing hands in this staff, Howard Nostrand, who managed to instill a good combination of Bob Powell's and Jack Davis's styles blended into his own, with a certainly pleasant result. WARNING! You must wear red-and blue eyeglasses to be able to appreciate the 3D effects of this "anaglyph" picture! The making of this 3D process, in that PC-less, Xerox-less age, strained the artist's energy to the limits, since it required to draw the pictures not in the familiar drawing paper, but in transparent cells (like the ones used in animation), and with a tiresome separation work, to be able to print the various "levels" of each panel in the proper form. (I'm trying my own method, PC-aided, and, believe me, it still can wear energies out!...). The printed result, then, had to be looked through bicolored "specs" (as they called them), with a red filter over the left eye and a blue one over the other. That produced quite a strain to the reader's sight, but, then, we were all young, were we not? This Harvey mag, priced 25c (almost 3 times the customary 10c of the regular comic book from those happy years), also had work by Bob Powell, containing four well-told suspenseful stories, of the kind which might have the audience asking for more. That "more" was not a big one, for in less than six months, the bubble burst and died. (Until a most talented fellow, and friend of mine, Ray Zone, resurrected the process a few years ago in a masterful fashion... You can find him in the Web!) |
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