Roberto Macedo Alves

Ocasionally, I like to grab my old issues and reread them. And there is something strange about that. Each comic is special in its own way. For each comic on my collection, I remember when it was bought, what was I doing when I bought it. Each comic is treasured and very special, and ocasionally is fun to talk about that.

So, as the memories of the Colleen Doran visit to Funchal are still fresh, I decided to start this with The Amazing Spider-Man 326, the comic where I first saw Colleen’s artwork.

Actually, it was the brazilian translation: O Homem-Aranha 122. It was the beginning of the Acts of Vengeance crossover. I remember distinctly reading it on the subway (Metro) while going to the Amoreiras Shopping Center. And the the detailed artwork, and the realistic way everyone was dressed. And the strange empty green wall between Mary Jane and the yellow caption.

Only years later, when I got a back issue of the original issue (I talked about that here), I discovered that most of the text was cut for the portuguese version, as it can be seen on these scans. Much information cut on the portuguese version? Even half of the music notes are gone!

I really liked that issue. Colleen drew the prettiest Mary Jane I’ve ever seen! Even prettier than the John Romita version, so sweet and pretty. “This lady should be the regular artist on Spider-Man”, I said to myself. The action scenes were great, there were lots of backgrounds and solid storytelling. All the locations (streets, cars, houses) were very believable, and everyone was dressing in a very fashionable way, very realistic, not just with generic “pants and shirt” or whatever. And there were some memorable bits of storytelling, like these priceless 4 panels with Peter Parker. His body language and expression changing from bored to shocked with that slight delay when he sees the Bugle Building floating is really something memorable.

It was something really different, even without knowing much about storytelling (I guess I should be 17 or 18 when I first read the issue) I really thought it was a solid work. And hoped she ended as the regular artist.

I spent hours reading that story, noticeing all the tiny details, the candles, the curtains, the clothing, the very nice non-agressive expression of everyone. That’s why Erik Larsen work on the next

issue, was a little bit of a shock. Where were the detailed backgrounds? And the depth? The perspective?

All those aggressive lines and angles all over… and worse of all, I really really hated the way he drew Mary Jane, like an inflatable sex doll that got dressed like something out of “Taxi Driver“.

I missed the believable apartment the Parkers were living, and the realistic clothes everyone was dressing. I hated that pointy chin on Mary Jane and those boots, how did she put those on? Or the different eyebrow sizes on Peter. Not that I don’t like Erik Larsen’s art – it was just the initial shock!

Some issues later, I got used to it, but I always imagined “what if“…

In the following years, I continued buying the comics Colleen drew (Valor, Silver Surfer, Sandman, A Distant Soil…) and I even have some pages of her original art in my collection. This year, I had the privilege of having her as our guest for our Book Fair, and we could spend hours talking (most of the time until 2 AM) and she taught me a LOT about drawing and comics and storytelling, really inspring me to try to do something else beyond the usual watercolor panels for some Art Exhibits. We had such a wonderful time, lots of witty conversation, nice, intelligent jokes – and I am glad to know Colleen now has a copy of the portuguese translation too!

The Comic Memories: Amazing Spider-Man 326 (1989) by Roberto Macedo Alves, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Portugal License.

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