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
Jun 2022		George Perez
Jul 2022		Parents
Aug 2022		Fairgrounds/Carnivals

[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".