Some years ago I found reprints in two magazine series in Italy. The quality is quite good except for some sunday pages and a grey background colour. Also there are slight changes where panels have been extended or shortened and word balloons made bigger to fit the Italian text. These reprints cover The Incredible Hulk from 30. October 1978 to 14. April 1980 with only one strip missing. For some unknown reason the daily strip from 14. January 1980 wasn't reprinted.
The Incredible Hulk dailies also ran in a Canadian TV magazine at the same time the TV series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno appeared on the screen. Along with other strips like The Amazing Spider-Man the Hulk strips covered one page per issue. Four daily strips appeared each week. I managed to get six of the magazines from 1980.
It is almost a shame that no one seems to care about the Hulk strip. Writers like Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber put a lot of work, energy and effort in this project. Not to forget artists like again Larry Lieber, Joe Sinnott, Rich Buckler, Frank Giacoia, Charles Nicholas and Ernie Chan.
Whenever I have the time I try to restore strip by strip with the best possible quality. I don't own any original dailies, just some printed sundays as the latter appear more often for sale on the internet. The first three stories are complete but not fully restored yet. If you like my work, check for updates from time to time. Until then sit back and enjoy The Incredible Hulk.
Above: Four pages from the first Ace Tempo Book in pocket size. Freaky layout with parts of art missing from some of the panels (e.g. the woman's face in the third panel). Also dates and signatures have been covered with redrawn extends.
Above: Italian reprints with original layout but in this case thin lines and not as good as the quality of the pocket books.
Above: Best of both worlds. First panel and parts of the second from the pocket book combined with Italian parts. Below: restored result using different sources.
Sometimes recreating the strips can be extremely tough. As I mentioned earlier, the only Hulk strip that hasn't been printed in the italian magazines is the daily from January 14th 1980. I found it in a terrible condition in a digitalized American newspaper archive somewhere on the Internet. Three parts of its panels are missing in the pocket book. I tried my best to put an image together that fits with the rest of the strips I restored and posted here.
