Well, K-Metal may now be "complete" (in that we now have a complete, finished version of every page in the script and a readable comic book), but that doesn't mean that it is in any way "finished" or "done"
As part of our
original goal, we stated:
If you are an owner of any of the original artwork or have copies of any of the additional original pages, please contact us. Even if we have already published our own version of the page, we will replace it with a restored version of the original page by the original artists.
and we stand by that statement.
Originally, working from page one of the script alone, Angel drew a proof-of-concept sketch for the restoration project, back around 2004 or 2005 -
Bob Rivard re-worked, inked and colored Angel's pencils. This was our first published version of the page, from 2006 or so, I would guess:
Angel later inked his pencils himself, this time colored by Randy Sargent - I utilized my newly created
"K-Metal" font (the above was "Anime Ace"); and we tried adding a "newsprint" effect:
The newsprint experiment was nixed, and this is the latest version, still live on the site:
At some point along the way, a reader found and sent in a copy of the original Shuster Studio artwork for page 1. And although it was very different, it was also remarkably similar in some ways.
The only drawback was that, for whatever reason, this reader did not have access to the complete piece of artwork; only to three sections of it.
I took the three pieces, and tried to place them as best as I could in relation to each other, sort of extrapolating where I thought they should be positioned, creating an incomplete jigsaw puzzle of the page:
A couple of years ago, Angel reconstructed an entire, restored Studio Shuster version of the page based on these three pieces, to replace his own earlier effort - in keeping with the integrity of the project goal. He had gotten as far as pencils and inks; just last week, he colored it:
As soon as I've recovered from the overwhelming emotional experience of the previous K-Metal update; I will be lettering and posting this fully restored version of the page.
And hopefully more updates to the project coming down the line, as always...
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