A Cover a Day

[Steve W]

Ok, how about this for an idea.  We take it in turns to post a favourite (British spelling) comic cover every day.  This went really well on the comic fan website that I used to frequent.  What we tried to do was find a theme or subject and follow that, until we all got bored with that theme.  I'd like to propose a theme of letters of the alphabet. So, for the remainder of October (only 5 days) and all of November, we post comic cover pictures associated with the letter "A".  Then in December, we post covers pertaining to the letter "B".  The association to the letter can be as tenuous as you want it to be. For example I could post a cover from "Adventure Comics" or "Amazing Spider Man".  However Spider Man covers can also be posted when we're on the letter "S".  Adventure Comic covers could also be posted when we're on the letter "L" if they depict the Legion of Super Heroes.  So, no real hard, fast rules - in fact the cleverer the interpretation of the letter, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

And it's not written in stone that we have to post a cover every day. There may be some days when no cover gets posted. There's nothing wrong with this, it just demonstrates that we all have lives to lead.

If everyone's in agreement I'd like to kick this off with one of my favourite Action Comic covers, from January 1967. Curt Swan really excelled himself here.

[Peter Wrexham]

Dave Palmer said:

So that's what this issue of Not Brand Echh is parodying!

Now I just need to identify the obscure film that inspired this Sick cover.

[Philip Portelli]

Marvel missed out on the classic JAWS but got to do the sequel at least!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

[Richard Willis]

The Moon-Spinners, some kind of adventure movie from 1964. They might have sold a few more copies if they used the movie poster as a cover. Hayley Mills was 17-18 at the time. In all of the stills from the movie she looks younger than her age and doesn't dress like the movie poster.

  

[Richard Willis]

Despite the cover, Moon Pilot wasn't about an inter-species romance. The girl from outer space was mistaken for a spy, and hijinks ensued.

[Steve W]

[Steve W]

[JD DeLuzio]

Some of Mad's more interesting movie parody covers:

[Dave Palmer]

[Peter Wrexham]

I like to imagine this set of covers as a sequence, demonstrating the rise and fall of a new face in the movies.

March-April 1950: "Hollywood Goes to Paradise Island", and discovers Diana.

November-December 1950: "Wonder Woman - Hollywood Star", showing the filming of her first big blockbuster action pic.

September-October 1953: "Wonder Woman - Hollywood Stunt Queen" after the blockbuster bombs, and she's left to find whatever work she can.  I've got to point out that this scene seems unlikely to end well for the poor elephant!  Or the rider.

[Philip Portelli]

For some reason, Close Encounters of the Third Kind did not have the same impact on Marvel as Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark or even Battlestar Galactica had. 

At least it made MAD's 200th issue!

[Richard Willis]

The Anthony Quinn version