A Brief Cover Story

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Recently on Facebook, someone posted am image of the cover of Superman Family #181, which had a cover date of January of 1977. It was a very odd cover signed by Ernie Chua and I replied with a brief story about it. Several Facebook users suggested I repeat it here so I will…with slight alterations…

I own the original art to this cover. Ernie Chan had just changed his name from Chua back to the original family name and he was selling original art at a San Diego Con. He told me I could have anything in his display for half-price and this was marked at $10, I have a certain fondness for the kind of cover you look at and think, "What the hell was on their mind?" So I handed him a $5 bill. He was quite amazed that I wanted it.

A few minutes later as I was walking around the dealer room with it, Ernie ran up to me and handed me a very nice Batman page he'd drawn which he'd already signed to me. I tried to pay him for it but he said, "No, I insist. I don't want that cover to be the only piece of mine you have in your collection."

He said it was the first piece of art he'd signed as Ernie Chan since all the buyers he'd signed for earlier that day asked him to sign "Ernie Chua."
Incidentally, I pointed out to him that the Superman Family cover was inked but not signed by Vince Colletta. Ernie said, "I noticed. Vince inked in my name but there was no way he was going to put his name on a piece like that."

One correction to what I posted: I hauled the original cover out to scan it for this post and I noticed that on the back of it, the price of "$8" was written. So Ernie was asking eight for it and he gave it to me for four and threw in that very nice Batman page. Don't tell me I don't know how to get a bargain. (Later on, I paid Ernie to do a commission drawing for me and probably overpaid by enough that we came out about even on the deals.)