Category: Great Covers

Great Covers – BATMAN #230 follow-up

kurtbusiek: A Tumblr post yesterday suggested that a “person of color” didn’t appear on a Batman cover until 1970. I checked pre-1970 BATMAN, DETECTIVE and WORLD’S FINEST covers, to see.  If you take “person of color” to mean a non-Caucasian, the claim wasn’t remotely true. There were Asians, Egyptians, South Americans, American Indians, Latinos, etc. Often … Continue reading Great Covers – BATMAN #230 follow-up →

Great Covers – BATMAN #72

kurtbusiek: Even when Batman played Tarzan in “The Jungle Batman” in 1952, it was set on a Pacific jungle island and while it looked like a generic Tarzan setting and the villains were multi-ethnic, that meant a bunch of white guys, a Chinese gangster and a tough Sikh. No black faces in the story at … Continue reading Great Covers – BATMAN #72 →

Great Covers – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #28

A pretty brilliant cover from Steve Ditko that reduces the iconic silhouette of Spider-Man down about as far as is possible while still keeping it identifiable. The fact that the caption boxes are also done in Spidey’s colors isn’t an accident, either. I suspect the decision was made to color Spidey’s eyepiece red rather than … Continue reading Great Covers – AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #28 →

Great Covers – BATMAN #230

I can’t swear to it with absolute certainty, but I suspect that this BATMAN cover by Neal Adams represents the first time that any person of color has been depicted on a Batman cover. And especially given the time period in which this cover saw print, late 1970, you’d expect that most readers would be … Continue reading Great Covers – BATMAN #230 →

Great Covers – MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #36

Another classic Alex Schomburg WWII-era Timely cover, this one depicting an amphibious invasion of Manhattan in such detail that each element had to be individually labeled. Once again, the wealth of detail and the explosive action made this book all but irresistible. Note that the coloring halos the Torch’s fist and head with white where … Continue reading Great Covers – MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #36 →

Great Covers – FLASH #193

This Murphy Anderson FLASH cover is another example of a technique that editor Julie Schwartz used on numerous occasions: a cover on which a character engaged the prospective reader directly. This iteration adds the additional wrinkle of the Flash’s fate being too gruesome to be outwardly depicted–who could resist cracking the cover to see what … Continue reading Great Covers – FLASH #193 →

Great Covers – RAWHIDE KID #39

Nothing about the size relationships on this RAWHIDE KID cover by Jack Kirby makes any sense–but the cover works anyway, because it’s about a giant ape hoisting the Kid over its head! Rawhide is perfectly framed by the yellow background, and the light grey of the tiny town also causes the ape to pop. Me, … Continue reading Great Covers – RAWHIDE KID #39 →

Great Covers – DETECTIVE COMICS #33

Here’s another brilliant and beautiful classic cover from the dawning days of super heroes–so much so that the Batman’s utility belt has a pistol holster. As was typical of the period, that huge logo masthead is like a spotlight, drawing in the eye. And the blues of Batman pull your attention right to him, since … Continue reading Great Covers – DETECTIVE COMICS #33 →