THOR #8 cover prelim by Marko Djurdjevic

Thor #8 Cover Pre-lim
By Marko Djurdjevic
Published in Thor Omnibus
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Graphite on comic board
11 x 17 in.
Not for Sale

This was acquired from Anthony Snyder two Wednesdays ago on Dueling Dealers. It was only advertised as a sketch, but it looked very familiar to me, and since Marko was such a central part of the Straczynski run (along with Olivier Coipel), I had always wanted one of his drawings but his Thor work had always eluded me. I had meant to include him in the original Pop Sequentialism exhibition back in 2011 but budget prevented it. Miraculously I was able to include a beautiful Coipel splash of Baldur confronting Thor in the throne room (which I eventually sold to JMS, himself!)

As a low-key, high-priority acquisition I made an offer for this exceptional rendering and an all-Bucky Steve Epting page from Ed Brubaket's The Death of Captain America (the other series that got me back into comics in the early oughts). When it arrived, I scanned it and did a Google reverse-image search. I quickly discovered that this wasn't just a convention sketch, but an actually published prelim, to one of the most iconic Thor covers of the modern era, and that's why it had seemed so familiar! 

Djurdjevic discussed this piece with IGN in their Behind-the-Covers feature. I prefer this earlier version of the cover which radiates with raw, pagan savagery. Here's what Marko had to say about it:

"Thor 8. This one was a classic. Thor wielding his hammer, lightning everywhere, raindrops and rocks levitating from the electromagnetical discharge... What more do you need to sell the concept of Thor? I did a quick sketch first. Since I didn't have the script for this issue either, I was bound to go with the iconic depiction once more. I then turned it in for review."

People throw around the term "grail" a lot, but this really is a personal triumph. It's one of my favorite sequential art pieces of all-time from an Eisner Award Winning story and team.