RECOMMENDED READING: THE AVENGERS - VINTAGE STORIES FROM DIANA COMIC...

I must admit to having mixed feelings about BIG

FINISH's collection of The AVENGERS strips from

DCT's DIANA comic from the 1960s.  While the art is

terrific and more than deserving of a wider audience,
the published result could have done with more care

before being released to the panting public.

First of all, the pages would benefit from being
printed in a larger size, so that the art by EMILIO
FREJO and JUAN GONZALEZ could be apprecia-
ted at its very best.  Secondly, the book claims that the
pages have been 'restored', but there are word balloons

and captions missing from a few panels.  This means that

the pages were sourced from the original art, but surely
the printed comics could have been used to supply
replacements for the missing lettering?

(Interestingly, some of the lettering on some of the
later pages looks as if it's been redone, as the balloon
and caption shapes don't match the originals.)

Thirdly, the text material at the back of the book

suffers from insufficient spaces between many of the

sentences, and the word 'hear' is rendered as 'here' in

one instance.  So while it's great to see these beautifully

illustrated stories, the book has a certain slapdash air

about it which prevents it being the polished pub-

lication it could and should have been.

Maybe Big Finish will do a second edition one

day and do these iconic pages justice.  We can only

hope so.  Still, it's worth having just to view some

terrific artwork from the swinging '60s.

Below, the original printed page, next to Big 

Finish's version.  Can you spot the mistakes?

Above, one missing caption and three missing speech

balloons on the very first page.  Talk about careless?

Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

Can you spot the missing caption on the above page?

 

  

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