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.

Date	Page/Reply	Theme (and clickable link)	Pages	Replies
Oct 2016	1/1	Letter A	19	228
Dec 2016	20/1	Letter B	17	207
Jan 2017	37/4	Letter C	18	214
Feb 2017	55/2	Letter D	17	208
Mar 2017	72/6	Letter E	15	178
Apr 2017	87/4	Letter F	15	184
May 2017	102/8	Letter G	13	157
Jun 2017	115/9	Letter H	16	195
Jul 2017	131/12	Letter I	12	133
Aug 2017	143/1	Letter J	16	194
Sep 2017	159/3	Letter K	19	237
Oct 2017	178/12	Letter L	24	285
Nov 2017	202/9	Letter M	24	280
Dec 2017	226/1	Letter N	19	236
Jan 2018	245/9	Letter O	21	245
Feb 2018	266/7	Letter P	25	295
Mar 2018	291/2	Letters Q & R	20	243
Apr 2018	311/5	Letter S	22	270
May 2018	333/11	Superman’s 80th anniversary	21	250
Jun 2018	354/9	Letter T	21	250
Jul 2018	375/7	Letter U	17	207
Aug 2018	392/10	Letter V	19	228
Sep 2018	411/10	Letter W	20	233
Oct 2018	431/3	Letter X	15	180
Nov 2018	446/3	Letter Y	13	156
Dec 2018	459/3	Letter Z	13	156
Jan 2019	472/3	Person being carried	16	190
Feb 2019	488/1	Real people	17	214
Mar 2019	505/11	Homages/parodies	19	224
Apr 2019	524/7	Green-skinned people	17	207
May 2019	541/10	Wanted posters	17	201
Jun 2019	558/7	Boxing rings	15	180
Jul 2019	573/7	Empty uniforms	15	177
Aug 2019	588/4	Beaches	25	297
Sep 2019	613/1	Apes	28	340
Oct 2019	641/5	Haunted houses/graves	21	250
Nov 2019	662/3	Motor bikes	21	254
Dec 2019	683/5	Foreign language covers	17	209
Jan 2020	700/10	Playing cards/tabletop games	23	275
Feb 2020	723/9	Valentines and Cupids	22	259
Mar 2020	745/4	Statues	21	256
Apr 2020	766/8	Elephants	22	263
May 2020	788/7	Heroes & villains cooperating	17	198
Jun 2020	805/1	The Moon	26	322
Jul 2020	831/11	Flags & patriotic symbols	18	215
Aug 2020	849/10	Foreign locations (non-US)	20	233
Sep 2020	869/3	MST3K (with commentary)	24	292
Oct 2020	893/7	Vampires and Werewolves	20	245
Nov 2020	913/12	Giants	24	286
Dec 2020	937/10	Snow & winter scenes	24	289
Jan 2021	961/11	Doppelgängers	32	377
Feb 2021	993/4	Movies	23	275
Mar 2021	1016/3	Cats/cat-themed adventurers	22	263
Apr 2021	1038/2	Dogs/dog-themed adventurers	25	305
May 2021	1063/7	Big guns/Heavy weaponry	25	302
Jun 2021	1088/9	Dinosaurs/Time Travel	28	338
Jul 2021	1116/11	Big Questions/Question Marks	28	330
Aug 2021	1144/5	Highways, Travel etc	19	232
Sep 2021	1163/9	Favourite Covers/Comics	28	330
Oct 2021	1191/3	Lineups	21	260
Nov 2021	1212/11	JSA 80th Anniversary	23	269
Dec 2021	1235/4	Logos in the action	26	317
Jan 2022	1261/9	Dynamic Duos	29	348
Feb 2022	1290/9	Romantic Scenes	26	313
Mar 2022	1316/10	Bridges	29	339
Apr 2022	1345/1	Unexpected Green	23	286
May 2022	1368/11	Neal Adams	26	310
Jun 2022	1394/9	George Perez	19	227
Jul 2022	1413/8	Parents	30	356
Aug 2022	1443/4	Fairgrounds and Carnivals	24	285
Sep 2022	1467/1	Joe Kubert	19	238
Oct 2022	1486/11	First and last issues	27	324
Nov 2022	1513/11	Classrooms and Education	22	264
Dec 2022	1535/11	Robots and Cyborgs	33	392
Jan 2023	1568/7	Trials and Courtrooms	28	330
Feb 2023	1596/1	Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals	24	292
Mar 2023	1620/5	Detectives & Murder Mysteries
Apr 2023		Birds and Winged Creatures
May 2023		Strength in Numbers

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Wow, what an interesting month! Who would've thought that "first and last" would be so captivating!"

I did. ;)

"For example I never knew that DC had skipped issues 905 to 956 of Action Comics. Why did they do that?"

Three words: "The New 52."

What's frustrating is, back in 1987 when DC wanted to launch a new Superman #1, they transferred (what we would now call) the "legacy" numbering over to a "new" title.

[Lee Houston, Junior]

Does anyone know if any of the contributors to New Talent Showcase "made it"?

Meanwhile, besides Westerns, I personally feel Science Fiction is under represented in today's comics, outside of licensed properties.

Therefore, courtesy of the Grand Comics Database, Star Hunters made its debut in DC Super Stars #16

Before graduating to its own series.

Unfortunately it was one of the many victims of the infamous DC Implosion of 1978. Writer David Michelinie has said in the past he's tried either pitching a revival or retrieving the series from DC to go elsewhere and start fresh but the company keeps saying no despite the fact it hasn't done anything with the property since issue 7!

That's over 40 years of inactivity on a title that deserves much better than it's gotten in my humble opinion. Makes one wonder if DC is still the legal copyright holder after all this time...

[Dave Palmer]

1970

1980

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Because you demanded it--the last issue of the Dazzler"

[Dave Palmer]

Without meaning to sound snarky I guess it boils down to what you mean by “made it.”  Many went on to do lots of other work in the industry/field.

Without doing a census of all of the contributors, here are a few that come to mind

Mindy Newell

Stan Woch

Norm Breyfogle

Tom Mandrake

Eric Shanower

Stephen DeStefano

Rick Stasi

Todd Klein

I’m sure there are others.

For some of them New Talent Showcase represented their first professional work; others had done a few things previously.

Lee Houston, Junior said:

Does anyone know if any of the contributors to New Talent Showcase "made it"?

[Peter Wrexham]

Yesterday I showcased Showcase, today I've picked DC's other Silver Age tryout comic, The Brave and the Bold.

[Richard Willis]

All-Winners had 20 issues, numbered 11-19 and 21. The numbering after 19 continued as a teen humor title. For some reason they published an All-Winners 21, so it and the teen humor title both had a number 21.

[Lee Houston, Junior]

To Dave Palmer: Most of those names I've heard of and liked their work in the years since, but I honestly thought Todd Klein was already active BEFORE New Talent Showcase.

Anyway, while anthologies can be hit or miss, one that will always have a place in my heart is Strange Adventures.

While primarily a science fiction title, it also gave us Deadman and Animal Man. My personal collection is pretty solid its last couple of years of publication, but grows sketchy the further back in time you go.

First and last issue images courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.

[Dave Palmer]

Klein was already doing production work and lettering.by the time New Talent Showcase appeared.  In NTS he did some writing.  I just checked on the GCD and he had done a number of scripts (for years) before NTS.  I guess by then he was a seasoned veteran.

Lee Houston, Junior said:

To Dave Palmer: Most of those names I've heard of and liked their work in the years since, but I honestly thought Todd Klein was already active BEFORE New Talent Showcase.

[Steve W]

Determined to grab some of the lucrative "Archie" sales, DC launched its own version in 1948.

The adventures of teenager Binky Biggs started in Leave It to Binky #1 (cover-dated March 1948), which ran for 60 issues through 1958. The series was revived in Showcase #70 (Sept 1967), which was popular enough to bring the series back, resuming with issue #61 in July 1968. With issue #72 (May 1970), the title was shortened to Binky and the series ran until issue #81 (Nov. 1971). The entire DC humor line was cancelled between 1971 and 1972, including Leave It to Binky, Date with Debbi and Swing with Scooter.

The comic was briefly revived for issue #82 in Summer 1977.  (Source-Wikipedia)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Richard Willis said:

All-Winners had 20 issues, numbered 11-19 and 21. The numbering after 19 continued as a teen humor title. For some reason they published an All-Winners 21, so it and the teen humor title both had a number 21.

All-Winners #21 got its numbering from Young Allies. (It was you who set me straight on that!)

All-Winners #1-19 (became) All-Teen #20 (and) Teen #21-35

Young  Allies #1-20 (became) All-Winners #21

[Dave Palmer]

#1 (1976)

#11 (1978)

in between we got Cracky, Wacky Witch, more Tom, Dick, and Harriet, Dagar, Dr. Spektor, Tragg, and O. G. Whiz.