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

[Jeff of Earth-J]

A two-fer:

[Peter Wrexham]

Peter Wrexham said:

[The Flash #145] introduced me to the Weather Wizard, who was always one of my favourite Flash foes.

So, naturally, I couldn't resist buying this comic, even though I wasn't a great fan of Batman.  This was the sort of crossover that virtually never happened back in the Silver Age!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I followed Badger from Coyote...

...to Nexus...

...to his own title.

[Richard Willis]

I think I had seen references to them before in fanzines, but this was the first time I actually experienced the JSA (I missed their cameo in Flash #123 during my first cold-turkey on comics). As prominent as Superman and Batman are on this cover, it hadn't been long since Julius Schwartz was told he was free to use them. In early JLA stories they were either busy, on missions or just passing through.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

...and it's purple!

[Lee Houston, Junior]

As previously mentioned, DC's Crisis On Infinite Earths altered many agendas both series internally and publication wise. Here's one example...

After being canceled, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew were going to get a revival attempt via a 6 issue mini-series to at least publish what would have been issues 21-26. However the Crisis shrunk that down to 3 double sized issues. Can you imagine what the other 3 covers would have looked like?

As a reader (and I always stress the R word) I voted for this as Favorite Limited Series and Carol Lay as Favorite Artist in the Comics Buyers' Guide ballot the year this was eligible for the strength of her work not only keeping Scott Shaw's character designs recognizable but also maintaining the distinctive visuals of John R. Neill and W. W. Denslow (the Oz characters) and Sir John Tenniel's Wonderland group besides everyone else involved over the course of the story.

Unfortunately 1986 was also the year the first Batman: The Dark Knight mini was released, so you can guess who won.

(Images courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.)

[JD DeLuzio]

Man, I am not spending what people are asking for on ebay for that thing, but that is one damn fine visual explanation of why kids read comics.

Dave Palmer said:

Wham-O Giant Comics from 1967.  This thing is huge (21 inches by 14 inches).  My copy is a bit ragged since it is hard to store.

[Steve W]

I loved the short-lived series of The Hawk & The Dove.  I bought Showcase #75 and followed that up with acquiring the 6 H & D issues when they came out. My absolute favourite cover from the series was this one - coincidentally also drawn by Gil Kane. Was Gil deliberately chosen by DC to draw short-lived series? 

[Richard Willis]

The Hawk and the Dove, along with several other books, was “pruned” from DC’s lineup in this time period (late ’68 to mid ’69). There was no such thing as a planned miniseries back then.

Anthro (6 issues)

Angel and the Ape (6 or 7*)

Atom and Hawkman were combined into a single book, which was cancelled in mid-1969..

Bat Lash (7)

Beware the Creeper (6)

Captain Action (5)

Hawk and the Dove (6)

Secret Six (7)

*they started to deemphasize the Ape. Issue 7 didn’t have the words “and the Ape” on the cover.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Both Nexus and Coyote started as b&w magazines.

(So did Dreadstar, but there's no decent cover image.) 

[JD DeLuzio]

A recent cover with frequent adversaries sitting down to dinner:

Of course, the Hulk is eating beans.

[Dave Palmer]

JD’s cover reminded me of this cover