Redartz: Greetings, gang! Here we are, halfway through another month. And, being Tuesday, it's time for a Follow the Leader. As always, the first commenter popping in gets the prize of naming the subject! And once again, I've got an extra topic to add to the mix.
Granted, it's a topic we've covered before, but it's always a fun one. Over the weekend I've been scanning some more favorite comic covers onto my tablet. You know, sometimes you don't feel like reading a whole book- you just want to feast your eyes upon some fine comics design. So, I am assembling a 'hall of fame' gallery of favorites to look over anytime, anywhere. And so, as you probably guessed, the topic added to the discussion this week is Favorite Covers! From any time, any company, any genre. Just covers you can admire time and time again. As a Tuesday treat, here's some of the favorites I added in last night. May they inspire you to think of your choices; and don't forget to name a topic for all the Leader's Followers. After all, I don't want to hog the discussion!
Extra bonus: Three gorgeous gems from the past. True works of art, each one...
20 comments:
Cool covers, Redartz; Spidey always had great covers in the Bronze Age. That Detective 500 cover is a good one; I just reviewed that comic on my blog a little while back and there are some good stories in there, and lots of guest artists.
Great covers! I’ve been particularly enamored with George Perez’ Taskmaster cover for Avengers 196! Simple pose but awesome. I’ve also been intrigued by Ed Hannigan’s various work and influence on Spider-Man covers. Who do you think is the best cover artist?
That is a fine collection of covers; a number of those would make my list of favorites as well (and of course, who wouldn't like, say, those beauties by Adams, BWS or Frazetta?).
Two of my all time favorites include Avengers #187 and New Teen Titans #13.
Martinex, Hannigan did a whole bunch of nice covers, and he also designed quite a few that were then penciled/inked by other artists. And that connects to your question about the best cover artist. I find that hard to answer, because there's so many artists who turned in outstanding covers, but Hannigan is definitely in the top tier. A few other personal favorites who could easily be proclaimed the best include Gil Kane, George Perez and, of course, my two favorite artists in general, John Byrne and Walt Simonson.
Great choices all!
Here are some Marvel covers that are burned into my memory (I had to look up the issue #'s);
Captain America #254- Baron Blood attacking Cap, by Byrne.
Iron Man #101- Frankenstein's Monster with a chain around Shellhead.
What If #13- Conan!
Avengers #181- Not an action cover but all those characters, wow!
sooooooo many more!
I'll try and tackle DC next.
Red - you sure know how to catch a comic-dude's interest!
Given you posted some covers outside the Bronze Age...
I would like to add Blackhawk #47 by the great Reed Crandall from 1951! Classic Blackhawk pose charging a machine gun with a barrel magazine!
Also, Don Winslow of the Navy 51 where Singapore Sal has her sword at his chest, LOL, from around 1947. A whimsical delightful! Reminds of Terry and the Pirates.
And to give DC a plug... those first several issues of the Shadow, by Kaluta.
B.t.w. that Scorpion cover by Chaykin rocks the house! That is about the only Atlas I have in the long boxes, and then only because of the cover!
Boy, this reminds me-- do we know if the Blogger system, here, has any way for us to include images in our responses? Maybe it's complicated, and we've just never pursued it? Seems so old-fashioned for us to not have that option, y'know?
That being said-- gosh, a few from memory that I've likely cited before:
TOWER OF SHADOWS #1-- That cover lay on top of a pile in the mess of my room for months, for some reason. And every so often the moonlight coming through my window would fall RIGHT ON IT in the middle of the night, and creep the BEJEEPERS out of me-! Wasn't until a relatively short time ago that I recognized it as a Romita cover.
INCREDIBLE HULK #118-- Hulk vs Subby; that one pops up a lot. . . it's quite striking.
PETER PARKER SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN-- had a long, long run of some remarkably cool and innovative covers in the. . .early 80's, I'd say? And I wouldn't be surprised if Ed Hannigan had a hand in many of those.
FF #82 (Kirby-- w/ Black Bolt & the Inhumans)
Hey, y'know-- even though it became an almost instant-cliche' and was copied and "homaged" to death-- that group-portrait cover for JLA #1 was lovely and engaging and fun. And obviously iconic in itself.
OH! And then, geeze, ALL of the Alex Ross cover portraits for the latter part of the JSA reboot-run. The Jay Garrick/G.A. Flash is my favorite of all of those. . . really, one of my favorite covers ever. You believe that it's a portrait of a living, human being--- not a representation of a fictional character. And you feel like you know the guy personally.
OUTER LIMITS #1-- sentimental favorite; but quite a painting. Those old Other-company painted covers were kinda their whole own thing, weren't they? Truly did not appreciate them at all as a tyke.
HB
Let's see...
Jim Aparo's cover for Detective Comics #440, with Batman being menaced by a purple bear.
Nick Cardy's cover for Action Comics #440, with a rain-swept Superman being scolded by his parents' ghosts.
Jim Aparo's cover for Adventure Comics #436, with a purple octopus eating Nazis as the Spectre looms large over the scene.
Nick Cardy's cover for Superman #276, as Supes squares up to a Captain Marvel clone.
Craig Russell's cover for Amazing Adventures #32, with Killraven facing up to a giant, talking dragon.
Gil Kane's cover for Tomb of Dracula #16, where Dracula confronts a skeleton in a raincoat.
Frank Robbins' cover for The Shadow #7, our heroine clutching her collar in dread, as a malicious degenerate makes ready to pounce.
Mike Kaluta's cover for The Shadow #12, The Shadow holding Margo, as a gang of pitchfork-happy locals close in on them.
Gil Kane's cover for Frankenstein #15, with Frankie surrounded by hostile pig-men.
Beyond that, basically any Superman/Superboy or horror cover drawn by Nick Cardy, and any horror cover drawn by Tom Sutton or Luis Dominguez.
Thanks for tossing in your choicest covers, crew!
Mike W.- yes, that Detective cover is a winner, and has the added attraction of being a wraparound cover!
Marti- hmmmmm, best cover artist? So many possibilities: Kane, Romita, Kubert, Kirby, Byrne, Perez, any of the above? My personal favorite is Romita Sr.; a sense of dramatic design that made every cover he did a striking one.
Edo- indeed; Hannigan was responsible for a bunch of excellent Bronze age covers, whether by his drawing or his layout. His Spectacular Spider-man covers were, well, spectacular.
Killraven- great choices. That Avengers 181 is definitely one for the ages...
Charlie- glad you named some really vintage covers. Sooo many gems in that Golden age mine. And Kaluta? Just about anything he does is a bounty of visual pleasure. Great, great design in the tradition of Frazetta.
HB- if there's a way to post your covers in reply, I've not found it (unfortunately). If you can reply with images on facebook, you'd think you could here as well. And nicely done- saluting those painted covers. Dell/Gold Key seemed to have the monopoly on those, but there were others. DC had some, especially among their horror books. But offhand, I can't think of any Marvel painted covers (other than magazines). Can you?
Steve DC- excellent list. Nick Cardy really had some fine Silver age covers, some of DC's best. And the color schemes were so sharp (for instance, some of those classic Aquaman covers); wonder if he did that as well...
Okay, here's my choices, in alphabetical order:
Alpha Flight 6: Snowblind!!!
Avengers Vol 1 140: the Vision descending into a giant Yellow Jacket in an attempt to save his life
Avengers Vol 1 223: Ant Man on the tip of Hawkeye's arrow
Conan The Barbarian 14: The Comic Of Elric
Fantastic Four Vol 1 245: Childhood's End. Sue Storm fights alone... to save her son!!!
Fantastic Four Vol 1 249: Gladiator Triumphant!!!
Marvel Feature Vol 1 4: Red Sonja. White and blue cover, Red Sonja defiant.
Red Sonja Vol 3 1: Close Up on her face, her swords crossed in front of her.
The Amazing Spider-Man 151: Spidey in the sewer, going after the Shocker.
The Mighty Thor 337: Beta Ray Bill!!!
The Uncanny X-Men 138: Scott 'Slim' Summers... walking away.
Werewolf By Night Vol 1 32: The Beast versus the Moon Knight!!!
You can see them here: bronzeagejuniorgroovy.blogspot.com/
(I come home in the morning light
My mother says, "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh, mamma, dear, we're not the fortunate ones
And girls—they wanna have fun
Oh, girls just wanna have fun
The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells, "What you gonna do with your life?"
Oh, daddy, dear, you know you're still number one
But girls—they wanna have fun
Oh, girls just wanna have
That's all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Oh, girls—they wanna have fun
Oh, girls just wanna have fun
Girls—they wanna
Wanna have fun
Girls wanna have
Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun
Oh girls they wanna have fun
Oh girls just wanna have
That's all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Oh, girls—they wanna have fun
Oh girls just wanna have fun,
Girls—they wanna
Wanna have fun
Girls wanna have
[Ad-libs:]
They just wanna
They just wanna
Girls
Just wanna
Girls just wanna have fun
They just wanna
Girls just wanna have fun
Just wanna
Just wanna
They just wanna
They just wanna
When the working day is done
Everybody
They just wanna).
It's a cover!!! Get it, a cover!!!
I have no idea what this book is about, but I really like your selected Arn Saba's Neil the Horse. Great colorwork!
Chim- Neil the Horse was a fun, charming book published in the 80's. Inspired by "Walt Disney's comics and stories ", the book told of the adventures of talking, banana loving horse Neil. And his friends, the talking, cigar smoking cat Soapy, and Mamselle Poupee (A living marionette, sort of, on the search for true love). There were comics, text stories, songs, even paper dolls. It advertised itself as "making the world safe for musical comedy ". Great fun, and recently collected in a tpb edition. I recommend it highly!
The painted covers on the magazines were always terrific. I'll mention two in particular:
1) The Savage Sword Of Conan #4 (1974). The UK version of Savage Sword was launched in 1977 and the story that had been in #4 in the original Savage Sword was printed in #1 of the UK version (yes, it's confusing). Anyway, the story was "Iron Shadows In The Moon" which is my ALL-TIME FAVOURITE of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories (it was called "Shadows In The Moonlight" when it was printed in WEIRD TALES magazine in 1934). The Savage Sword Of Conan cover showed Conan fighting a huge "man-ape" while the obligatory half-naked female cowers in the background. But here's the twist - I first read "Iron Shadows In The Moon" not in the Savage Sword magazine but in Conan Treasury Edition #19 published in late 1978...which had a brand new cover by John Buscema.
2) Planet Of The Apes #7. This painted cover was also the cover of Marvel UK's Planet Of The Apes (weekly) #35, dated June 21st 1975 and it heralded Marvel's adaptation of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. The adaptation of 'BENEATH' had been trailed for weeks beforehand and, as a huge apes fan, I was insanely excited. Looking at that cover 44 years later I still feel the excitement :D
Is America celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing? The BBC has gone moon mad with documentaries, dramas, one-off science specials and even a bonkers comedy called THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON AND HOW THEY DONE IT - in which Kissinger and Nixon plan the moon landing to divert attention from Nixon's "shenanigans" while Mrs. Armstrong and Mrs. Aldrin go on a Thelma & Louise-style adventure. And Phil Collins is the 3rd astronaut but he never leaves the toilet...I said it was bonkers.
Ohhh Colin-- god, we SHOULD be celebrating the moon-landing big-time. . . but the anniversary is completely overshadowed by the daily horror-show of our administration, as it leads its base supporters down a path of willful, gleeful, wicked white-supremacy and virulent nationalism. And since the administration can't claim any credit for the original moon-landing, it doesn't really register as being relevant or important-- (beyond some requisite sound-bites-).
HB (in a very sad state. . . )
On the original topic, tho--
Prowl, I have either 10 or 11 of those issues you cite! (Not sure about Conan #14--) Yes, excellent choices all!
HB
Colin- yes, at least some elements of our society are observing the Anniversary. There are many news specials retelling the story. For those of us fortunate enough to remember watching it, it still brings chills.
HB- Ah, take heart my friend! Yes, our current 'status' is discouraging. But one side effect of the Apollo mission- it put things in stark perspective. The earth is a mighty small dot in a mighty big universe. Which means, by extension, that self important public figures are embarrassingly insignificant in the scheme of things. Note my attempt to be quite diplomatic here, a friendly hand and best wishes to one and all!
Hi Colin, et al.
You know... the big challenge I see now is "how does one communicate and engage the community in such a celebration???"
Before, when all there was was television, newspapers, and magazines it was easy to create "the story" and party on! There was no way to avoid it, lol.
Now, only old folks are doing the formerly-so-called "mass media" of newspapers and TV and radio so... While probably most are aware of the 50th anniversary, it doesn't seem to have much traction towards anything beyond awareness.
But, that being said, as HB and Red referenced, we are all aware of what is being mouthed by President Bonespur and his minions. So I have successfully contradicted myself to some degree. (I hope nobody sends me back to Scotland! Oh the horror that would await me!)
No kidding, CH. I hear can't eat anything except haggis there...
I will say this about the current Space Program:
Though the previous administration cancelled the Constellation Space Program, which was big news here in Space City, the current administration has renewed the SLS launch program and the Orion space craft. Say what you will but a multi-billion dollar, multi-year program to return us to the Moon by 2024 and Mars 20 years after carries a lot of weight here.
Many of our local TV/Radio stations have been covering the upcoming anniversary. From rebroadcasting Kennedy's speech at Rice University to replaying vintage broadcasts, it's been HUGE here. My wife and I went to Johnson Space Center July 6th to see things before everything got crazy and IT WAS CRAZY!!!
Here are some highlights from 1969:
The Beatles opened the year by ending the Beatles. PBS launched. The Air Force ended the year by ending Project Blue Book. They said they found "nothing". Allegedly...
June 25th The Stonewall Riots
July 20th Moon landing
July 25th Chappaquiddick
Aug 9th Tate-Labianca Murders
Aug 15-17th Woodstock
One last tidbit... Catherine Zeta-Jones!!!
(Doing all right
A little jiving on a Saturday night
And come what may
Gonna dance the day away
Jenny was sweet
She always smiled for the people she meet
On trouble and strife
She had another way of looking at life
The news is blue (The news is blue)
Has it's own way to get to you (Ooh-ooh)
What can I do? (What can I do?)
When I remember my time with you
Pick up your feet
Got to move to the trick of the beat
There is no elite
Just take your place in the driver's seat
Driver's seat, ooh-ooh
Driver's seat, yeah
Doing all right (Ooh-ooh)
A little jiving on a Saturday night (Yeah)
And come what may (Ooh-ooh)
Gonna dance the day away (Yeah)
Driver's seat, ooh-ooh
Driver's seat, yeah
Jenny was sweet (Ooh-ooh)
There is no elite (Yeah)
Pick up your feet (Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Pick up, pick up (Yeah)
Pick up your feet (Ooh-ooh)
Gonna dance the day away (Yeah)
Driver's seat, ooh-ooh-ooh
Driver's seat, yeah
Driver's seat, ooh-ooh
Driver's seat, yeah
Driver's seat
Yeah
Driver's seat).
(Psst--Prowl-- Beatles do still have another year. . . albeit a contentious one. In '69 Ringo left for, like, a day-- and then came back; and then John left-- and came back. Jan '70-- that's when Paul "officially" de-railed the train for good, yep.) (It's funny how, to a young teenager/new Beatlemaniac in the mid-70's, that break-up seemed like ANCIENT history. . . heh.)
(HB)
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