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	28	330
Feb 2023	1596/1	Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals	24	292
Mar 2023	1620/5	Detectives & Murder Mysteries
Apr 2023		Birds and Winged Creatures
May 2023		Strength in Numbers

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Moving to a new volume is like losing one's virginity: once it's done, there's no going back.

Don't be fooled by DC's current numbering. There were no issues numbered #905-956.

(I plan to revisit this phenomenon time and again throughout the month.)

FIRST:

LAST:

[ClarkKent_DC]

Another case of retitling but not renumbering:

All-Star Western #1 (August-September 1970)

Final issue under that title, #11 (April-May 1972), featuring the second appearance of Jonah Hex. Hex's first appearance was in the previous issue, #10 (February-March 1972), here.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Continuing this saga ...

All-Star Western was retitled Weird Western Tales with issue #12 (June-July 1972), joining the spate of comics with the word "Weird" in the title, such as Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, Weird Worlds, and Weird Adventure Comics.

Jonah Hex alternated with El Diablo as the cover feature until permanently taking over the spot with issue #17 and continuing until issue #39. With issue #40, Scalphunter became the new cover feature until the title was canceled with issue #60 (October 1979).

[ClarkKent_DC]

Continuing on ...

Jonah Hex graduated to his own series, titled Jonah Hex of course (March-April 1977), with the cover blurb "The WEIRDEST WESTERN Hero NOW in His OWN Magazine!"

Our scar-faced cowboy held on through changing tastes, different artists and even the Crisis on Infinite Earths (yes, really!) before the "GUT-WRENCHING FINAL ISSUE!", #92 (August 1985).

[ClarkKent_DC]

Speaking of changing tastes, writer Michael L. Fleischer tried to breathe new life into this tired cowboy saga by turning him into DC's answer to The Road Warrior movies. With Hex!, Jonah found himself in the 21st century (I forget how; it's been a long time since I've read it) and soon became leader of the Road Reapers gang, trading in the "Confederate coat Jeff Davis give me" for sleek black leather. 

Hex! #1 (September 1985)

The series began with Neal Adams clone Mark Texiera on the art. Unfortunately, along the way he was replaced by Keith Giffen, who was then doing his best to imitate caveman drawings. The book went down the tubes with #18 (February 1987).

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Richard Willis already posted the first and last of She-Hulk's second series. Here's her first...

[Peter Wrexham]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Even though the title changed from Green Lantern to The Green Lantern Corps with issue #201, it's still the same series, but Showcase #22 is not part of that series. (Showcase #1 & 104 would qualify, however.)

Yes, I was already considered the first and last issues of Showcase (not least because we also recently saw the final issue as a transition from "Carnivals" to "Joe Kubert").

And I now notice that one of the stories in the first issue is "Fire Under the Big Top", so both issues feature a circus, even if the covers don't!  Aaand another story is "School for Smoke-Eaters", so there's a connection to "Classrooms" too!

[Dave Palmer]

1984-1985

[ClarkKent_DC]

I loved that book.

Dave Palmer said:

1984-1985

[Philip Portelli]

After Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash teamed up in Brave & Bold #54 proved so popular that the TEEN TITANS were born in #60 by adding/creating Wonder Girl. Another appearance in Showcase #59 led to their own series that got cancelled then revived with new members until that ended with #53 which ironically gave the team the origin they lacked. 

[Richard Willis]

This first series of All-Star ran from 1940 to 1961, with the title change in 1951. The first Johnny Thunder lost his name to a new character before he got it back.

[Steve W]

Wow, what an interesting month! Who would've thought that "first and last" would be so captivating! For example I never knew that DC had skipped issues 905 to 956 of Action Comics. Why did they do that? Learning something new every day here.

'Angel and The Ape' made their debut in Showcase #77 (Sept 1968). They subsequently gained their own mag for 7 issues (changing the title to 'Meet Angel' at issue 4), with their final issue, 'Meet Angel #7' coming out in December 1969. This was just my comic buying era, where I bought pretty well everything that arrived in the UK from DC, and I snapped up all of these.