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.

[Steve W]

A bit further back in the past - the Kilroys #1, June/July 1947, published by ACG. The cover artist is, sadly, uncredited.

 

[Steve W]

From Sept 1952, America's Pin-up Queen - Katy Keene #7, published by Archie/MLJ. This is the first cover, in 11 months of comic covers, drawn by Bill Woggon.

[Steve W]

Kathy #13, December 1952, Publisher Standard, cover art/inks by Art Saaf.

[Steve W]

From Sept 1940, and featuring a roster of heroes including Air Man (Shouldn't that be Airman?) Dean Denton, Spark O'Leary, The Eye and Dr Darkness, here's Keen Detective Funnies #24. I love this cover!

[Richard Willis]

It looks like Air Man is barbecuing his legs.

[Philip Portelli]

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #255: the Legion travels back in time to Krypton and meet Baby Kal-El which isn't as unusual an occurrence as one may think!

[Richard Willis]

Wally West (Kid Flash) gets his yellow uniform, magically generated by a lightning bolt using Barry's contemplated redesign. In Flash's series lightning bolts did what radiation did in Marvel Comics. Without looking it up, the redesign exposed Wally's red hair, kind of narrowing down his secret identity if someone wanted to know it. Later I think they employed a gas to make his hair look brown while in costume, so somebody must have pointed this out.

[Steve W]

So, the end of the month, and for me a decision looms. Who to pick as my favourite artist from the 3 featured so prominently this month - Kane, Kirby or Kubert? A difficult one and one that I shall contemplate on during this evening.  I like to think of a time when the 3 of them maybe collaborated on a cover or two. It was certainly possible - all 3 were roughly the same age, and all worked at MLJ/Archie for a time in the 50s.

It seems Kane left DC around the same time as Kirby arrived (1971), but Kubert worked freelance at both and may well have befriended the other two, if he hadn't already. All were either born or sons of Eastern European immigrants, all were of Jewish descent and I'm sure they would have had a lot in common.  Maybe they made artistic suggestions to each other about Green Lantern, Atom, Hawkman, Spider Man, Thor and the FF. I sure hope so.  Sadly Kane and Kirby both died relatively young, although Kubert survived until the ripe old age of 86 in 2012.

[3]

how about a Kirby kover for KO Komics-

(yeah, 'kover' was pushing it. But it seemed better to go with 4 Ks)

[Steve W]

Ok, my mind is made up.  I'm going for Joe for two reasons. One, he consistently and magnificently portrays the moving figure (as displayed below). Two,  Kubert's legacy is huge, not just in the art he left us, but also in the work of his sons, Adam and Andy, and the many artists trained at the Kubert school.

[Steve W]

And to prove it, here's a cover drawn by Joe's son, Andy. X-Men #280.  Magnificent!

[Steve W]

So -it's October (at least it is here in the UK) and I'd like to open with Adventure #312 - The Sacrifice of the Legionnaires to revive Lightning Lad.  Can't make a better start than that!