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]

[Steve W]

To think I once owned that JLA #1, and sold it in 1973 for 2p (approx 2 cents)!

Closer to home for me than Binky, was "Swing With Scooter" a DC title which ran from July 1966 to November 1972, a total of 36 issues.  No Showcase tryout for this title; it was a (vain) attempt to cash in on Beatlemania. The irony is that, one month after this title was launched, Lennon's infamous comments "now we're more popular than Jesus" reached US shores and caused the Beatles' image irreparable damage, especially in Southern states. As an aside, in 1967, The Monkees sold more records in the US than the Beatles.

And why was Scooter closer to home for me? Well, he was from England, and, just to see our little island mentioned in a DC comic was Nirvana for me at the time!

[Richard Willis]

When I started buying comic books, The Fox and the Crow was one I enjoyed. It ran from 1951 to 1968. Stanley and His Monster were introduced in issue 95 and began sharing the billing during that last year before taking over the title completely with issues 109 to 112, which was the end.

[Peter Wrexham]

"Closer to home"

How about an actual British comic?  Here's The Dandy.

Issue #1, 4th December 1937:

Issue #3610, 8th December 2012 (after which it became an online-only digital comic for another 13 issues, ending in June 2013).

[Lee Houston, Junior]

Just now getting here after a VERY long day but despite the fact it's after midnight my time, here's my Friday post and I'll be back "tomorrow" with Saturday's. Yet to continue my science fiction trip down memory lane, courtesy of the Grand Comics Database...

Mystery In Space was the granddaddy of them all for DC. It started in 1951...

Before originally ending in 1966 with issue 110.

Okay, Ultra the Multi-Alien was pure Silver Age, but MIS got to come back in 1980 for six more issues to use up the inventory from DC's then latest attempt at a sci-fi anthology Time Warp, which is a post for another day.

[Peter Wrexham]

Here's another comic with strong British connections (artist Brian Bolland, as well as the subject matter).

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Marvel Feature was a try-out mag...

...which lasted 12 issues. 

At that point, it became Marvel Two-In-One but, rather than #13. started over with a new #1...

...and ran 100 issues.

Meanwhile, Defenders also was awarded its own title...

...which ran for 152.

[Dave Palmer]

A-1 was Magazine Enterprises’ “try-out” title.  It ran from 1945 to 1955 for 139 issues.

The above was the fourth issue of Strong Man, but the 139th issue of A-1.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Reminds me a bit of Marvel-Team-Up #28

[Steve W]

I'm impressed with all these long runs. How about the opposite - the shortest run I can find (other than just one issue) is The Maniaks, who ran for two issues; they appeared in Showcase #68 and Showcase #71. Once again DC were trying to jump onto the gravy train as The Maniaks first appeared in May 1967, just 8 months after the first TV appearance of The Monkees, on which The Maniaks were obviously based.  The second issue even featured a cartoon version of real-life director Woody Allen.   Sales were obviously not good as the series was canned following #71.

Incidentally, those of you wondering about the origin of the word Maniak, apparently the word is of Hebrew origin, and I quote from the website WordReference.com...

The modern Hebrew word "manyak" has nothing to do with the English "maniac". Etymologically, it is an Arabic word meaning "f---ed"

[Philip Portelli]

Star Trek's voyage into the Marvel Universe lasted a mere two years with what has been characterized as a mediocre book! I doubt that the last issue became a collector's item! 

[Richard Willis]

The Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis title became just Jerry Lewis when they gave up performing together. The numbering continued, with 124 issues over exactly 20 years.