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.

[Martin Gray]

Just for the word 'dickered' - I have no idea...

[Steve W]

Perhaps I could turn our attention to CHARLTON COMICS which published a large number of comic-book genres between 1944 and 1985.  

The company was known for its low-budget practices, often using unpublished material acquired from defunct companies and paying comics creators among the lowest rates in the industry. Charlton Comics were also the last of the American comics to raise their price from ten cents to 12 cents in 1962.

It was unique among comic book companies in that it controlled all areas of publishing—from editorial to printing to distribution—rather than working with outside printers and distributors as did most other publishers. It did so under one roof at its Derby headquarters.  During its life it published at least 382 series and a total of 6499 comic books. Amongst many other titles, CAPTAIN ATOM was a perennial favourite. Cover art here by Steve Ditko.

[Steve W]

And following @Martin Gray's posting earlier today, Charlton also published CHARLIE CHAN for a while, after acquiring the title from a defunct publication.  Artwork here is by none other than the one and only Kirby!

[Steve W]

One of Charlton's most popular post-Wertham publications was NYOKA THE JUNGLE GIRL. Nyoka managed to look both pretty and feminine without looking overtly sexy, and thus avoided censorship by the Comics Code (unlike many of her competitors).  Artwork here (Sept 1956) by Maurice Whitman.

[Dave Palmer]

Here's Cobalt Man again -- a reprint of X-Men #31.

[Steve W]

My final CHARLTON contribution is Strange Suspense Stories #17, published just one month before the Senate hearing into juvenile delinquency. Subsequent covers were toned down, but SSS continued to run for another 13 years.

[Luke Blanchard]

The Simon and Kirby studio did Charlie Chan for Prize in 1948-49 (cover-dates). Kirby did the covers, and Carmine Infantino and Dick Briefer drew some of the stories. The Charlton series appeared in 1955-56, but it continued the Prize series's numbering, so it's a fair guess the issue with the Kirby cover was partly or wholly an inventory one. The cover illustrates the text story.

Charlie Chan titles were also published by DC (The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, 1958-59) and Dell (1965-66). The DC title was edited by Julie Schwartz, and handled by John Broome and Sid Greene. The Dell one was drawn by Frank Springer.

A newspaper strip drawn by Alfred Andriola appeared in the late 30s/early 1940s.

[Luke Blanchard]

Nyoka was a Republic movie serial character. Fawcett licensed the character. She appeared in Master Comics and her own title. The initial stories in Master Comics were serials drawn by Jack Sparling. A cartoonier style was used on the strip subsequently.

Charlton's title came out over a couple of years, but not on a monthly schedule. The series started off with Fawcett reprints, then switched to new stories.

[Ronald Morgan]

There were two serials, starring different actresses.

[Luke Blanchard]

I forgot Fawcett started off with a one-shot adaptation of second one, Perils of Nyoka, but titled it Jungle Girl after the first serial. Fawcett did a number of movie adaptation comics.

I've seen Perils of Nyoka named as a major influence on Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I can't say whether that's true. (There was so much jungle fiction, and I know so little of it.) Indy's costume was apparently modelled after Charlton Heston's in Secret of the Incas, and the bolder scene was reportedly a homage to an Uncle Scrooge story.

[Ronald Morgan]

I've read Spielberg based Indiana Jones on Humphrey Bogart and told Harrison Ford to watch The Treasure of the Sierra Madre before filming started to get an idea of his personality, but that's a lousy film to base a heroic character on, considering he goes crazy in that movie and shoots his partner.

Interestingly the DVD (and VHS I used to own) of the second serial calls it Nyoka and the Tigermen.

[Luke Blanchard]

According to Wikipedia that was a re-release title.

Dial B for Blog says the Raiders opening combined elements from two Uncle Scrooge stories, "The Seven Cities of Cibola: and "The Prize of Pizarro".