Yesterday we looked at a vintage advert for a Milan-based boutique by an illustrator who became a comic book artist. So for today let's continue the same thread by looking at a comic book cover inspired by an iconic fashion photograph.
Mike Allred's Batman ‘66 style variant cover for Justice League #31 (August 2014; reused for the Italian edition of the Universo DC anthology, View this photo), features Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Atom all standing on the window ledges of a building, while Robin waits in the Batmobile downstairs.
The neatly composed cover in bold and bright colours is an homage to Ormond Gigli's iconic "New York City (Girls in the Windows)". A photographer for Time, Life, Paris Match among the others, Gigli took this picture in the summer of 1960 on New York's East 58th Street.
From his studio he saw this brownstone building that was being prepared for demolition and, by looking at the open windows, he thought it would have been nice to have a woman in colourful clothes standing there to fill that empty void.
The demoltion supervisor granted him the permission to shoot as long as they cast his wife (which they did) and the next day models, socialites and also Gigli's wife turned up in their best dresses (so nothing was styled) and the photographer took the picture standing on the fire escape of the opposite building.
The result was an impressive shot that looks beautiful even now, 60 years after it was taken, and that is still an inspiration not just for photographers and creatives working in the fashion industries, but also for comic book artists as Mike Allred's artwork proves.
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