Artists Edition: Walt Simonson’s Thor

 

As we announced at WonderCon this weekend, we’re publishing Walter Simonson‘s THOR in an oversize hardcover ARTISTS EDITION, similar to the Dave Stevens ROCKETEER book we did last year.

Which still blows me away. Not only for the sheer fact of us publishing this material in a joint venture with Marvel Comics, but also because of the material itself. Anyone who picked up that original copy of THOR 337, with Beta Ray Bill dressed like Thor and smashing the Thor logo with a new, stylized hammer, remembers the jolt of excitement and creative that that issue heralded.

I’d been a THOR reader since around the 290s or so, and as a kid, my “buying out of habit” routine was already in place. And THOR in the 310s and 320s was just sort of floundering, with nothing really new to say.

Well, Walter had something new to say in that first issue, and the book only built from there. It still remains the THOR run against which all others are measured, I think — even seeing John Workman’s hand-lettering on the new Matt Fraction run serves as a pleasant nod back to Workman’s amazing work on Walter’s run. It’s rare that the letterer becomes an instantly recognizable and important part of a page, but Workman did that with his balloons, his fonts, everything he did to accentuate Walter’s work. So running these pages at full size, scanned from the originals, is going to just make for a gorgeous book. I’m really appreciative to Marvel for letting this happen. Here’s just a small look at a couple early scans of the pages: