VALIANTfans.com Message Board 3.0

Most of us "marvel" at the simplicity of Rai #0's cover...
three colors, very striking Bloodshot silhouette on the red circle
(without the silhouette, the cover would resemble Japan's flag)... but...






...did you know that Rai #0 cover artist Dave Lapham may have "borrowed"
the silhouette for Bloodshot from a Mike Zeck pin-up of Punisher?
[Edit: Rai #0 cover artist Jim Shooter definitely "borrowed" this image... see below.]



This pin-up of the Punisher appeared in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe
Deluxe Edition #10 (1986).
(Silhouette on the right created from the Punisher pin-up.)

Get a rope

"Frank it's time you switched brands..."

~Unblessed

That's a cool observation. Sometimes cover swipes are a lot of fun. The Superverse is doing that with Zoom Suit with an X-O Cover swipe, several Ironman cover swipes and a Superman swipe.

Well, the red dot resembles one of Japan's flags anyway. Thats why I always thought the need to explain the markings on Rai was a little silly. He's the patrotic hero of Japan, so of course he resembles one of their flags. What's next? A story to explain why Captian America wears stars and strips ?

What are you talking about?
This topic isn't about the red circle...
it's about the "swipe" of the Punisher!

Shrug.

I was responding to your first paragraph.

Actually I was waiting to respond to the rest until I looked up this. I'm not really surprised at the swipe since I read about it years ago. Are you sure it was Lapham who did it though?

From a Shooter interview from Blood of Heroes website...

And the whole red circle, that was tying into the Japanese flag, the rising sun, and Rai's legacy?

Yes. Here's a little-known fact: I actually drew the cover to Rai #0. It was just a silhouette, so someone had to fill it in and ink the dot. We had obviously planned the look of the character by that point. And I should admit this, in the interest of fairness: I was looking at a drawing that Mike Zeck did. I mean, I'm not that good an artist and the only reason I did it was that we didn't have anybody with a free pair of hands who could do it. If we'd had a real artist available, somebody else could have done it, but I ended up doing this because it was a silhouette. I figured, You know, I could do this. So I did just to save time for Bob and for Don and the other guys. I don' t think anybody could tell it was done by an amateur.


http://www.geocities.com/angelo_mortall ... ooter.html

Great quote...
Lapham usually gets credit for Rai #0 since he pencilled the book.

Nice work!

WOW! That's cool that Shooter's the cover artist of Rai #0.

"I did not know that"

You would think that as many times as Marvel hassled Valiant about various things they would have noticed this bit of "borrowing".

Good point.

Okay, that was an awesome piece of Valiant trivia there. One of the most simple, but powerful covers in Valiant was done by Jim, cool.

Valiant Trivia, I smell a new fan project. Anyone interrested in helping?

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Good morning.

It's hard to hassle someone if you don't know you've been borrowed from (it's not like he the cover to Amazing Fantasy 15 or something). Finding the specific Mike Zeck drawing was actually a very good find on Greg's part.

What hassling are you referring to? The bit about Marveling hassling Valiant over X-O? I actually hadn't heard that before I saw the Englehart quote on the Layton chat thread. I'm sure that it was legal notices about trademark infringement, which doesn't surprise me considered how active Marvel's lawyers were at the time. But it's a bit different than someone swiping a cover (I've never actually heard of anyone sueing over something like that).

We had Gene Colan, Bart Sears, Bob Layton and Jim Starlin re-pencil/imagine some of thier most popular covers. In our case, the artist homage is to his own work.

Bob did IM #117 and #126, Gene did his classic IM#1, Jim #100 and Bart X-O 14 (of course). You can see them all at www.superverse.com

Greg and I are working on getting every board member an exclusive version of the Bart cover. We're trying to figure it out with the printer. It will be limited to the number of board members at the time of printing.

JT

And probably one of the most recognizable covers in the last 15 years from any company! Swipe or not,I'd love to have that on my resume!

Original credit goes to Randall Glass, February 9, 1998.

That sounds really cool John and Greg! Thanks!
DAN

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Sonicdan's Valiant Website:
http://www.sonicdan.com/VALIANT.HTML

JT,

I know I have said this before, but you are a real class act!

Thanks for doing this for us - I very much appreciate it!!!
Chris

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Hundreds of Valiant and Acclaim comics for GREAT prices! http://www.webstore.com/shop.php?user_id=96791

Didn't Marvel hassel the over the name Starwatchers? The original name for Psi-Lords.

Or was that DC??

The two of you love us... you really, really love us!

Er... in a platonic sense, of course...

I think JT is a marketing genius. By the way, JT you stole my post.... I gave props to you guys for this like 9 posts up....

U da man....

New exclusive stuff for the board members, I think that this could be cool. I hope it works out!

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Good morning.

yay for us!

Oh, and does anyone have one of those multi-colored signature Rai 0's for sale? The one with sigs across the Rai? I think Dino posted one a while back? Anyone?

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I had a great opportunity to buy a butt load of Rai #0's and I couldn't because I ran out of cash. There were well over 30 of them for 50 cents each. I'm still kicking myself because I would have snatched up every issue I could.

One of my favorite comic covers ever.