Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Corentin Pruvot covers Essential X-men 1
























Original credit unknown (please help me out if you know); Panini (U.K.) 1995. Corentin Pruvot's website is here.

12 comments:

  1. Very cool concept. This is one of the reasons I love this site so much. Love seeing something that already looks great and then having it taken in a totally different direction that is equally as awesome, if not more so. Good work, Corentin.

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  2. I like this one a lot better than the original.

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  3. I agree, the composition and idea is much better than the original.

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  4. Yes, the idea is a lot better than the original.

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  5. I'm gonna be a bit of dissenter here, but I think this barely qualifies as a cover version. Even some of the most radical covers on this site maintain some of the original elements, but this is an entirely new composition, featuring on the same characters. That said it's an amazing piece of art.

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  6. Eric, I'd have to argue that it contains all the information of the original version, so therefore is justified as an alternative version of the original cover...

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  7. I was thinking about addressing Eric's statement yesterday, before he event stated it, because in a large sense I agree with it. Like the discussion of when does something becomes parody some of us talked about when Dan Scanlon's X-Men 94 posted, it isn't always easy to nail down when someone deviated too much from the original. I'm really not looking for an alternate cover to a comic, so this one was a tough call for me. It does deviate a lot. In fact, if it wasn't executed so well, I probably would not have run it, but I was seduced. It just looks really good.

    I also don't mind discussing these things here when time allows. Other issues I can see coming up that are similar in the "how far is too far" world is when people trace an original in Illlustrator and alter the colors or other aspects. I'm seeing more of those being sent my way and I have to ask myself if it's been changed enough or if the results are even interesting. In theory it can be, but I believe the bar needs to be set pretty high.

    I also do keep in mind peoples comments and opinions that I read here. It's good to see people debate these issues as long as it doesn't get nasty.

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  8. Thanks for all your feedback.

    I didn't mean to "parody" the cover, I just tried to take the original elements and give them a personal touch.

    When I saw the cover, it looked like Gambit was "launching" Psylocke and Rogue toward the reader. He is in the background, and the two girls are "jumping". Knowing the kinetic powers of Gambit, I thought that it would be funny to put the two girls on cards (favorite Gambit's weapon). I kept the stripes in the background like in the original as a reminder.

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  9. In my opinion, covers like this one that deviate wildly from the original are far more interesting than most of those that retain the original composition and simply change the style of execution.

    There was a cover a few weeks ago of a romance comic that had virtually no connection to the original (in fact it struck me that the two covers could not possibly contain the same comic), but it was one of the most beautiful pieces of work on the site.

    Corentin's piece, as Paul says above, contains all of the original elements in a much more intelligent, dynamic design. Very well done indeed.

    Robert, please continue to post these pieces that "push the limits".

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