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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And now, the double feature I promised yesterday. In 1976 Marvel published a Bicentennial themed calendar, but the closest I ever came to a copy was house ads. While researching for this month's theme, I have discovered that selected months/pages were either reproduced or recreated as variants for various Marvel titles. Below left is the original cover by John Buscema. On the right the variant by Luciano Vecchio. (Images and information courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.)
There aren't that Sgt Rock covers with the Flag!
The Justice Society for America and Democracy! V for Victory!
The Spirit #31. Two numbers 31 from two different Kitchen Sink runs.
An Alex Ross wraparound cover.
As I said on a call last night to a friend in Detroit (and the Best Man at my wedding, lo these many years ago), Happy 4th of July, and I look forward to better times.
Ghosts of my Country
by Paul Jenkins*
I hear a ghost of my country
Made real on this day in July
I am unrested from tyrany's clutches
By the sound of its birthing cry
We are bound by a fair declaration
Of which I am a proud engineer
I hear a ghost of my country
'Tis a promise of all I hold dear
I hear a ghost of my country
Through the rain and treacherous air
Through the thunderous noise of the cannons
Through the sound of the bugle's blare
I see a battery of angels
That no rocket's red glare will obscure
The ghosts of my country are calling
That my country will ever endure
I see a ghost of my country
In whose men it is clearly defined
With the glory of God to protect us
We'll stand and we'll hold the line
Though we face the greatest of perils
We will neither surrender nor flee
I see a ghost of my country, boys
And that country will always be free
I hear a ghost of my country
A specter of what we will be
It is born of our nightmarish actions
It is guided by hellish decree
It calls with a voice full of anger
It thrives on a message of hate
I hear a ghost of my country now
It's a voice that I helped to create
I dream of a ghost of my country
I dream of familiar skies
Though our voices are silent
We still dream of home
And a thousand unspoken goodbyes
I see a ghost of my country
Of my country I always will be
I have weathered the storms of my enemies
In the name of the Land of the Free
I have tested resolve to its limits
I have slipped from the confines of Earth
For all of my days I have sworn to uphold
The ideals of the place of my birth
I am a ghost of my country
Of my country I always will be
I am born in the heart of a nation
My sweet land of liberty
I dwell in the souls of the fallen
I breathe life to their just memory
I am a ghost of my country
My country's a ghost of me
*For the illustrated version (and to learn who's speaking each stanza), see the "Theater of War" one-shot. "Paul Jenkins' run on Theater of War comes to a close, in this, his most personal and poignant tale of the legacy of Captain America. From America's first Independence Day, through wars that nearly tore the country apart, to the rebirth of a nation, the spirit of Captain America has always been with us. And no one embodies that better than Steve Rogers."
Happpy Fourth of July! God save the United States of America!
The 90s version of Archie's Shield! It lasted 16 issues!
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