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]

Speaking of Supergirl

The most well-adjusted teenager, ever. Everyone she knew is dead, including her parents, but she still has a big smile. Any other issue would have cover-featured Metallo.

After hiding out for years, she is finally revealed to the world. I guess having her wear that brown wig was a good sign that one day he would do this.

[Peter Wrexham]

Dave Palmer said:

My parents assured me that this really wasn’t the Captain Marvel, or Plastic Man, that they remembered.

In other comics, this Captain Marvel also met Dr Fate (not the one you remember), Dr Doom (not the one you remember) and The Ray (not the one you remember)!

[Peter Wrexham]

...apart from a few tiny cameo appearances, [Nightmaster] vanished for a quarter of a century

One of the "tiny cameo appearances" was in Showcase #100.  This features (almost?) every character to have appeared in the first 99 issues.  The story by Pauls Kupperberg and Levitz was great fun, and Joe Staton pulled out all the stops on the art

[Philip Portelli]

Nightmaster's appearance in Showcase #100, though listed, is a bit debatable. He's supposed to be on Page 8 but which figure is him. I have no idea!

The guy with the googles on the bottom is Jason from "Jason's Quest"!

Edit: Maybe he's the dark-hair guy behind Jason? Though why he wouldn't be in costume is beyond me!

[JD DeLuzio]

Ahoy, Mateys! It be Talk Like Robert Newton a Pirate Day! Arrr! And here be a fine cover set on the high seas:

[Dave Palmer]

Pirates, I can work with that.   An artist whose work fascinates me is Alex Nino.  He is literally the only artist that I will buy a comic he drew simply for the art.  Okay, maybe Alex Toth as well.  

After Supergirl left Adventure, Joe Orlando leaned into “adventure” in a big way for a few issues, before returning to superheroes (e.g., Vigilante, Black Orchid, Spectre).  The first non-Supergirl issue saw the introduction of Captain Fear by Robert Kanigher and Alex Nino.

Captain Fear never appeared on a cover as best as I know, but here is the cover to the issue where he debuted.   It is a stunning cover by Michael Kaluta.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Captain Fear never appeared on a cover as best as I know..."

He appeared on the cover of The Art of Walter Simonson tpb. :) 

[Philip Portelli]

By a strange coincidence, I've been rereading those early 70s Adventure Comics and Captain Fear appeared on-and-off for about two years though he never wore the Simonson outfit.

He did, however, reappear in the early 80s as a feature in Unknown Soldier of all places!

[Dave Palmer]

Thanks.  Here’s one more.   He’s under Captain Marvel’s right elbow.

[Steve W]

Sorry, been away for a couple of days again (short holiday in Hay-on-Wye).   It's my birthday today (63, if you're asking) so I'm posting my favourite Action Comics cover. I always thought this was a Curt Swan cover, but having done the briefest of research, I find that it's actually drawn by Carmine Infantino.  I loved the whole idea of 'world peace' and this cover seemed to epitomize it. I was 11 at the time and world peace was an ideological objective for all 11 year olds (in my school) at that time. 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Happy birthday, Steve!

I always thought these two (purple) covers by Steve Rude complemented each other.

[Steve W]

Thanks Jeff. Great covers.  This is not on topic but i'd just like to point out that I share my birthday with the late, great Adam West who was born OTD 1928. I watched every episode of Batman in the mid/late 60s. He died in 2017 aged 88.  Still miss you Adam!