lelak wrote:

If a publisher were to put out an edition of "Of Mice and Men" or "The Martian Chronicles" or "The Lord of the Rings" with reconstructed contents which were really nothing more than a well-crafted facsimile...would that be acceptable to you?

If EMI put out a remastered and enhanced CD of The Beatles that sounds completely different...and I mean completely different...from the old vinyl, is that acceptable?

If there were a missing scene in CITIZEN KANE and a version came out on DVD with a "reconstructed scene" as a replacement, would that be OK with you...even if the original scene were available in a sub-standard form?

The original DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was released in the standard screen format of the day. Today's standard format is widescreen. Should that classic movie be re-released in the present format, even though it would distort the original?


I think you are comparing apples to orange here. The concept of reconstruction & restoration is prevelant throughout the art world. Your examples are really from the worlds of drama, literature,  and music

And in point of fact, in those fields new productions/arrangements of works occur all the time. There was just a remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. There have been many other artists doing their versions of Beatles songs.

Yes, there are those who have "recreated" classic literature. There have been any number of published versions of, say Peter Pan, that significantly alter the words that James Barrie wrote in his original version. Ditto for Lewis Carroll's Alice books. EC Comics did their own versions of Ray Bradbury stories. There are versions of Shakespeare's work that have been essentially re-written. Most editions of The Count of Monte Cristo are abridgements of the original text. Someone other than the original authors (Dumas & his staff) went in and cut out approximately half of the book. The unabridged version runs about 1450 pages, yet the editions you find today in most book stores clock in at around 750 pages.

As with comics, if you want the originals, you can find them, but many prefer these "reconstructions."

And yes, in the world of film restoration, for example, when say the original titles have been lost, there are people who work on reconstructions of the lost titles.

In the world of fine art, the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel has had restoration work done on it more than once. The paint people view today IS NOT the paint that was applied by Michaelangelo. The works of DaVinci and others had also been "restored" - again, meaning the paint people look at today was applied by other, more modern artists. It has not and does not devalue these paintings.

I have a good number of animation cels. Unfortunately, some of them tend to deteriorate over time. I have already had two restored and have a third that is need of restoration.

In the world of music, when releases of older material are being prepared for new media (like CDs), technicians do apply new technicues to the original source material - what they call "re-mastering."

Now, you may lament BAD restoration work. But restoration and reconstruction occur in the art world all the time. And the NEWSBOY LEGION is not "completely different" from the orignal comics. It may not be to your standards, but it hardly looks "completely different."