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

[Richard Willis]

Action #340, the first appearance of the Parasite. Note the shorts.

[Steve W]

From October 1964, Archie & Me #1.  Redrawn from the cover of Archie Comics #88

[Dave Palmer]

Adventure Comics #428 (1973). The introduction of Black Orchid.

[Richard Willis]

Adventures of the Fly #1.

[Hoy Murphy]

Strange Tales #147, cover featuring Advanced Idea Mechanics - A.I.M.

Hoy

[Steve W]

Our Army At War #123 October 1962. Cover art by Jerry Grandenetti.

[Steve W]

And from February 1967, Army Attack #47. Publisher Charlton Comics. Cover art by Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio.

[Richard Willis]

[Steve W]

Great cover. This one is issue #3. There's a very interesting history behind "Fighting American."

Bitter that Timely Comics' 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, had relaunched their hero Captain America in a new series in 1954, the writer-artist team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created another patriotically themed character, Fighting American. Simon recalled, "We thought we'd show them how to do Captain America". While the comic book initially portrayed the protagonist as an anti-Communist dramatic hero, Simon and Kirby turned the series into a superhero satire with the second issue, in the aftermath of the Army-McCarthy hearings and the public backlash against the Red-baiting U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.Simon specified for a panel audience at the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention that the character was not so much inspired by Captain America as it was simply a product of the times.

Simon said in 1989 that he felt the anti-Communist fervor of the era would provide antagonists who, like the Nazis who fought Captain America during World War II, would be "colorful, outrageous and perfect foils for our hero." He went on to say,

The first stories were deadly serious. Fighting American was the first Commie-basher in comics. We were all caught up in Senator McCarthy's vendetta against the 'red menace.' But soon it became evident that McCarthy ... had gone too far, damaging innocent Americans.... Then, the turnaround, [as] his side became talked of as the lunatic fringe.... Jack and I quickly became uncomfortable with Fighting American's cold war. Instead, we relaxed and had fun with the characters.

My thanks to wikipedia for the information.

[Richard Willis]

I recently bought the TPB collection of all of the Fighting American stories. It's in my pile of to-be-read. If I live forever I will get to all of my books and DVDs!

[Dave Palmer]

Adam Strange & Alanna.

[Richard Willis]

The robots are revolting? They don't look that bad.