(left, top to bottom) ALL ART ORIGINALLY PENCILLED BY SAL VELLUTO * Original art splash from BLOODSHOT # 16, p. 4, 1998 / Commission recreation, 2001 * Original cover art from BLACK PANTHER # 45, 2002 / Cover recreation, 7/28/03 * Original cover art from BLACK PANTHER # 35, 2001 / Cover recreation, 8/6/03 * Original cover art from BLACK PANTHER # 26, 2000 / Cover recreation, 8/11/03 (right, top to bottom) *Original cover art from BLACK PANTHER # 30, 2001 / Cover recreation, 8/19/03 *Original cover art from BLACK PANTHER # 41, 2002 / Cover recreation, 5/10/04
I did my first recreation art in '01 and recently I have explored that venue once again. Since I have photocopies of everything I've ever worked on I can tap into any art to reproduce over my lightbox onto board. I won't reproduce an artist's work without their blessing and, in these cases, I had Sal's. I also limit myself to exclusive re- creations, one of each, so as to not diminish the special nature and value of the 'original' printed art. The recreations are also clearly labeled so as to limit fraudulant claims in the market. As recreations, I try to stay as faithful as possible to the original work; in the case of the original cover of BP # 35, I'd initially added cracks to the pave- ment under Hulk but either I changed my mind at the last minute or Sal asked me to not keep it. So it wasn't printed but there it was in my photocopy of the original cover which was made just before I'd deleted that detail so, in this case, I decided to add it to the recreation as a distinctive variation. For the cover to BP # 30, Sal originally inked his own pencils so this was a 'first-timer' for me. I also enlarged the image 10-12% to better show off the art within the space and adding the title filled the re- maining blank space well. For the cover of BP # 41 (probably the last recreation that I'll be able to do for a while) I not only enlarged the image to better fit the space but I obviously added black to the background to make the figures and Panther symbol much more pronounced. Personally, I think it's the superior image of the two.