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.
Discussion and voting on future monthly themes takes place on the "Nominations, Themes and Statistics for A Cover A Day" thread. Click here to view the thread.
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From Kirby's last years of his first stint at Marvel. He was by then unwilling to give Marvel any new original characters but was producing pastiche/homages to existing concepts. Some from his own stories, some from others. Pretty obvious where this comes from. Still giving 100% to the art of course.
Hey just noticed Franklin isn't blonde here.
Hey just noticed Franklin isn't blonde here.
It's one of his lesser-known fantastic powers.
Today's history lesson actually fits the theme: Monitor vs. Merimac.
"The infection of war had now spread to the ocean! By 1862, the North had plugged up every Southern seaport, and in March of 1862, the new iron-plated Merimac steamed out of the South in an attempt to ram through the... BLOCKADE!
"That night, a ridiculous little water craft resembling a tin can on a shingle, sailed in from New York! The 'shingle' wore four inches of iron plate and the 'tin can' mounted two eleven-inch guns, and the whole business was called Monitor!
"And as the Merimac steamed back to the dockyard at Norfolk, the story did not end... for though two Federal ships lay beneath the water... the Northern flag still dominated the bay... the Northern blocade held, firmer than ever, and a strangling sensation settled over Dixie!"
The Monitor was so successful that they made many more of them (they were at Vicksburg). Eleven-inch guns . . .Wow! Everybody calls its opponent the Merimac (with several different spellings). That was the name of the derelict U.S. ship that the Confederates armor-plated and renamed the CSS Virginia. The odd thing about the cover scene is that the Army Infantry officer is telling the Navy guys that the cannonball is skipping over the water.
The last day of Shark Week and the start of the weekend. Let's have a little fun with this month's theme, courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.
I'll see your shark and raise you a great white whale.
I saw ads for this in older comics and I'll admit that I know nothing about Bomba the Jungle Boy but I would have bought this one in a heartbeat!
Plus they reprinted a couple of Bomba stories in the Tarzan 100 Pagers but had to rename him "Simba"!
So far, in "In the water" month, I don't think we've yet featured canals. I'd like to remedy that here. Cover artist Reed Crandall.
I couldn't find any comic covers for the canals of Venice, California, but here's a short video.
Venice Canals
Action Comics #7. You'd think this is where Superman permanently takes over the covers. You'd be wrong.
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