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.

[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