Miracleman #1 - Cover Recreation

 It's a Miracle, Man!

Here's the original cover for "Miracleman #1" by Alan Moore and Garry Leach

Before "Watchmen", a young, English bloke named Alan Moore wrote a comic which had a profound effect on me growing up, "Miracleman" (well, "Marvelman" as he was known/published in England).  "Marvelman" started off as a pretty shameless pastiche of Captain Marvel (hence the "Marvel" of Marvelman) who said "Kimota!" ("Atomic" spelled backwards--sorta) rather than "Shazam!".  But Alan Moore re-wrote the origin and the tone of the comic and set it in the "real" world, being one of the first in a long line of deconstructions of the superhero genre.  Marvel Comics later forced them to change the name of the character in America and it was published by Eclipse Comics as "Miracleman".

It was one of my favorite books, which I discovered my senior year of high school a little over 20 years ago (holy cow, could it REALLY be that long ago?).  I used to look forward to each issue, and remember having to wait a year between issues #14 and #15.  While I have all the issues, I can hardly wait for Marvel to collect and reprint the issues.  Garry Leach's art was great in the first story arc (and Alan Davis was no slouch, either), but to me, John Totleben's art completely blew away everyone else.  John Totleben's art from "Swamp Thing" (another great book which heavily influenced me) and "Miracleman" redefined what I thought comic book art could be and made me want to (someday) work in comic books.

The first issue also had a quote from a philosopher named Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who I had never heard of at the time, regarding the "Superman":

“Behold...  I teach you the Superman: He is this lightning... He is this madness!” 

Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra 

This caused me to look up more writings from Nietzsche and, in turn, other philosophers and writers, and sparked a real intellectual curiosity in me at that time.  While many of the troupes in Miracleman may seem somewhat dated now, I still look back on the books with the same edge of wonder I felt when I first read them so very long ago.

Also, I'm sure this is heresy, but I prefer the name "Miracleman" to "Marvelman".

This was done with acrylic paint on 11" x 14" hardboard.

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I also threw the logo on in Photoshop and submitted this to the great Covered Blog as a re-created cover, which Rob was kind enough to publish today.  THANKS, Rob!

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