Unpublished Indy Page!

Jono11

New member
Actually meant to put this up awhile ago, but didn't get around to it. It's an unpublished Young Indiana Jones comic book page. My sources disagree on the timeframe. On the one hand, stylistically it looks to be an early- to mid-90s page, as it somewhat apes the "Adventures" style of Bruce Timm, which was very much in vogue at the time for taking PG-13 properties (Batman, The Mask, etc.) and making them more kiddified. If this is the correct reading of the page, then we could be looking at evidence that Dark Horse, Lucasfilm, or at least one or two editorial folks at one of the companies, was looking at a "Young Indiana Jones Adventures" line long before the anime-digest format made it the trendy thing to do, in 2008.

On the other hand, this is a better transfer than you usually see from a page that old. It's very clean, it's very crisp, it looks really good. It's ready for lettering and coloring. This is probably from some artist's personal collection of his/her own work. This could indicate that what we're looking at is much newer, firmly in the post-digital comic book world. This could be a tryout page from a creative team pitching a Young Indy comic for the Indiana Jones Adventures series.

Personally, I come down on the former side. The mid-90s comic book scene was a wasteland of cancelled projects, projects that one person that they were doing and another person thought they weren't, projects submitted on spec that never even got a second look from an editor, and so on and so forth. My money says this piece was from a Young Indy Adventures book that was at some mid-level stage of publication, someone started working on it, and then the book got canned.

Enjoy this page from "Young Indiana Jones and the Vaguely Middle Eastern Adventure."

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=61acc8d6db63464590a82c7bb0fad7ade04e75f6e8ebb871
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Jono11 said:
My money says this piece was from a Young Indy Adventures book that was at some mid-level stage of publication, someone started working on it, and then the book got canned.
I'm not convinced that this is anything more than a portfolio submission by a wishful thinker or, simply, fan work on the internet. (How did you come across the piece?) Due to the amateur-ish quality of its artwork, I highly doubt this was from a project cancelled during mid-level publication. Plus, there is only 1 name credited in the 1st panel: "by S____w". I'd like to be wrong but there are just too many tell-tale signs. I could go on...

Timeframe? Because the lettering style the "Young" logo looks identical to the Young Telegraph strips and Indy is still a Scout, my guess is that this was done by a UK fan c.1990 who was inspired by the "Mountains of Superstition" strip. (Crispness of the image is irrelevant since anything can be touched up once it's been scanned.)

That's my take, Jono and as Crack asked, where'd you get it?
 

Jono11

New member
I have family members and family friends/connections in quite a few of the entertainment industries. I've reached out to a few in particular in film and comics, which means occasionally I hear about things a little in advance. Also occasionally, the comics folks send me scans of unpublished pages they run across in archives, or in the personal collections of acquaintances, and so on and so forth, because they know I dig that sort of thing. I've got a couple of DVDs worth of scanned unpublished images, mostly from Marvel or DC, and even some entire issues and/or stories reconstructed.

Generally, you don't run across much in the way of unpublished Dark Horse--not only are they a smaller publishing house, but they have a generally higher standard of work, so fewer crappy, soon-to-be-cancelled projects ever get approved. You'll see a lot of unpublished stuff from the big houses, because they can afford to pay for something and never use it, and a lot from some of the lesser small houses, because they can't afford to not approve crappy work, and sometimes, can't even afford to publish it. Dark Horse is the one from which you just don't see much of anything unpublished. I think I have maybe one or two Star Wars pages. This is the first and only Indy page that's ever been passed on to me.

Good call on the logo, Stoo. Still, the style isn't very UK. (Granted, I've seen basically zero kiddie comics from the UK, just stuff like 2000AD and Crisis and whatnot.) However, I'm going to agree with you on your timeframe for it, because as I look back over the page, Indy looks very River Phoenix.

The single credit really doesn't mean much, to me. The credits go onto a comics page with the rest of the lettering, and this page is pre-lettered. That's just the artist signing his work prominently, which isn't altogether common, but not unheard of, either.
 

cool indy

New member
Young Indiana Jones Unpublished Comic!

Jono11 posted her page on mediafire. When I try her link it didn't work. Can Jono11 posted on her thread and tell me what happened to the link?:( :mad: :eek: :whip: (n) :gun: :sick: :eek: :dead: :confused: :sleep: :rolleyes: :hat:
 

Stoo

Well-known member
cool indy said:
Jono11 posted her page on mediafire. When I try her link it didn't work. Can Jono11 posted on her thread and tell me what happened to the link?:( :mad: :eek: :whip: (n) :gun: :sick: :eek: :dead: :confused: :sleep: :rolleyes: :hat:
If she doesn't answer, I have the image on my hard drive and will post it.:) :mad: :eek: :whip: (n) :gun: :sick: :eek: :dead: :confused: :sleep: :rolleyes: :hat:
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Fan Work?

JuniorJones said:
...and the tumbleweed gently brushed the road as it floated by....
...before it was caught on the needles of a large cactus in the middle of a vast, vacant desert.;)

O.K. Here 'tis...

As stated above, my educated guess says that this is probably nothing more than a fan's work from c.1990. (But I could be wrong.)

YIJ_UnpublishedFanWork.jpg
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
;)
Rocket Surgeon said:
A one time candidate for The Thread to Nowhere Raven Award.Pretty well done if it is...

...very well done. Still, it would be interesting to find the FACTS. As we do like FACTS.;)
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Moedred said:
An older Mr. Havelock?
Mr. Havelock's dad?
Rocket Surgeon said:
Pretty well done if it is...
JuniorJones said:
...very well done.
I disagree. The 1st panel is nice but it must have been copied or traced from a photograph because the perspective in panel 2 is off (window shutters, stairs, etc.). The rest is flat and lacks depth. All the characters are roughly the same size on the same plane with little distinction between foreground or background. (I also don't like the outdated rendering style. The faces of the other scouts look like they come straight out of a 1950s comic and the eyebrows of the guy in the last 2 panels are out of whack.) Also, notice how the artist avoided the complication of drawing hands. Count how many people there are, then count how many hands are shown.:rolleyes:

This can't be the work of a professional.
 

JuniorJones

TR.N Staff Member
Stoo said:
Mr. Havelock's dad?

I disagree. The 1st panel is nice but it must have been copied or traced from a photograph because the perspective in panel 2 is off (window shutters, stairs, etc.). The rest is flat and lacks depth. All the characters are roughly the same size on the same plane with little distinction between foreground or background. (I also don't like the outdated rendering style. The faces of the other scouts look like they come straight out of a 1950s comic and the eyebrows of the guy in the last 2 panels are out of whack.) Also, notice how the artist avoided the complication of drawing hands. Count how many people there are, then count how many hands are shown.:rolleyes:

This can't be the work of a professional.

After that I hope the poor B%#@&*D is crying with shame!:D

Your right! But I think it's a nice fake. It has a Don DeCarlo feel about it.

Let's hope that Jack Kirby doesn't rise from his grave to draw an Indiana Jones strip, if you review it, it would sent him straight to heeeellll!
 
Stoo said:
The 1st panel is nice but it must have been copied or traced from a photograph because the perspective in panel 2 is off (window shutters, stairs, etc.).
I'd be surprised to hear that most artists we admire DON'T use light boxes/boards, (to "trace" pictures)!

Stoo said:
The rest is flat and lacks depth. All the characters are roughly the same size on the same plane with little distinction between foreground or background. (I also don't like the outdated rendering style. The faces of the other scouts look like they come straight out of a 1950s comic and the eyebrows of the guy in the last 2 panels are out of whack.)
I think the character style precludes depth, clashing with the background, (different artist?) and so supports your position. Maybe why its unpublished?

Maybe it was a test run to work out style...

Stoo said:
This can't be the work of a professional.
Eh...maybe.

Junior?
 
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