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	26	310
Jun 2022	1394/9	George Perez	19	227
Jul 2022	1413/8	Parents	30	356
Aug 2022	1443/4	Fairgrounds and Carnivals	24	285
Sep 2022	1467/1	Joe Kubert	19	238
Oct 2022	1486/11	First and last issues	27	324
Nov 2022	1513/11	Classrooms and Education	22	264
Dec 2022	1535/11	Robots and Cyborgs	33	392
Jan 2023	1568/7	Trials and Courtrooms
Feb 2023		Doctors and Hospitals

[Peter Wrexham]

Here's the traditional image of Batman with his parents...

...and an unusually different take on that iconic scene.

[Peter Wrexham]

Steve:  Here's the new information to update the top-of-discussion index.  Link to the start of this month is http://captaincomics.ning.com/xn/detail/3370054:Comment:1696184 (Richard's post of Adventure #218)

Date	Page/Reply	Theme (and clickable link)	Pages	Replies
Jun 2022	1394/9	George Perez	19	227
Jul 2022	1413/8	Parents
Aug 2022		Fairgrounds/Carnivals
Sep 2022		Classrooms??
Oct 2022		First and Last Issues??

There's been no further comment on my suggestions for September and October.  Are people happy to go with them, or would you prefer something else?  I'm not trying to impose on anyone, I'd just like a bit of lead time to get the appropriate covers gathered together.  Feel free to shoot the suggestions down!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

My only concern with "classrooms" is that there might not be enough of them (we might end up with a whole month of Archie covers), but if others are okay with it, so am I. I'm fine with the other two.

[ClarkKent_DC]

The hallmark of George Pérez is that he always went the extra mile, especially when he didn't have to. (Who else would be insane enough to want to draw a 12-issue maxiseries featuring every hero published by a comics company? And take every opportunity to jam as many of those characters as he could on covers and posters and ancillary art? And make his career doing the biggest team titles for the two biggest companies?)

George Pérez went the extra mile even when nobody asked him to, God bless him. 

Like drawing eight-legged ants.

Dave Palmer said:

Here is a favorite cover partly because I always get a chuckle out of it.  In this story, I forget the particulars, Ant-Man attacks the Avengers.  At the time I thought it was odd that Ant-Man was attacking with spiders (eight legs) instead of ants (six legs).  Just think, George had to draw all of those extra legs (and Pablo Marcos had to ink all of them).

I found the following quote by George.  It was in The Marvel Art of George Perez by Jess Harold.

”Avengers #161 was a fan-favorite that showed Ant-Man attacking the Avengers, Scarlet Witch in the foreground with all these ants crawling over her body.  But, as I wasn’t really an entomologist or anything, I drew all these ants with eight legs instead of six.  Mut-ants!  But only a couple of fans spotted that.”

Since Hank Pam often gave his ants names, maybe we can consider each ant a character in its own right, so this cover could be in the running for most characters on a cover.

[MethodEng]

I'm almost certain I've posted this one before under a different context, and I probably mentioned it has a special meaning for me.

The first US comic I bought for myself of the spinner rack, as opposed to reading an older cousins comics.

With all the super telescopes, remote viewers etc around in the. Silver age it's a wonder any hero kept a secret identity for long!

[Philip Portelli]

Superman and his parents BEFORE they became his parents!

[Steve W]

Interestingly, Supes foster mom made an earlier appearance on a cover than his real mom. Here's Ma Kent on Superboy #8 (May 1950). The artist, as for Action #149, was Al Plastino, which may explain why Superboy looks a lot like an adult on this cover.  

[Richard Willis]

Peter Wrexham said:

Sep 2022 Classrooms??

I share Jeff's concern that there might not be enough of these.

Oct 2022 First and Last Issues??

If we go with this, would the first issue be the "Showcase" appearance or the actual title?

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I wouldn't want to impose artificial restrictions. If one wants to go with "first/last appearances" I'd say that would be okay. 

[JD DeLuzio]

How strange-- Kryptonian women wear bridal gowns that look exactly like the ones worn in Western culture on Earth!

[Steve W]

When you're a parent, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, but to take your son's superpowers away permanently seems a little drastic...

[The Baron]

Asuka and her mother, Kyoko, in one of their happier "elseworlds"