There's no question that Alex Schomburg was one of the finest cover artists of the Golden Age of Comics. He cut his teeth at Timely, where he excelled in crafting spectacularly complex images of Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner battling just hordes of enemy soldiers or criminals or war machines or whatever. … Continue reading (Not So) Great Covers: THRILLING COMICS #57
Behind this excellent Alex Schomburg cover (rife though it is with unfortunate racial stereotypes) lay not only a pair of adventures of the Young Allies, the kid gang team led by Captain America's young pal Bucky and his rival, Toro the Flaming Kid, but an after-the-fact account of Captain America's experiences after the bombing of … Continue reading Captain America after Pearl Harbor
As I've mentioned in previous entries, I had my eleventh birthday just before this time. This was also the period when, for some reason, Marvel decided to forego cover dates on its comics for three months. I don't know if this was an experiment in seeing if they could get newsstand outlets to keep the … Continue reading BHOC: INVADERS #27
This one's one of the more memorable early Marvel comic books that I bought and read. So much so that it's another book where for some reason my younger brother Ken later bought his own copy. As I've mentioned here before, the Marvel of 1977 was having a tough time making its deadlines, leading to … Continue reading BHOC: INVADERS #24
This Alex Schomburg cover for EXCITING COMICS is as chock-a-block full of imagery as any of his Timely covers, and yet it’s almost the antithesis of them, in that here it’s the heroes who seem needlessly violent and brutal. Sure, those are enemy Japanese soldiers (caricatured hatefully though they are), but they’re not doing anything … Continue reading Great Covers – EXCITING COMICS #35
Another great Alex Schomburg CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS cover, this one illustrating in horrific fashion the fate actually befalling Jews trapped in Nazi territory. Schomburg often leaned on horror as well as action in his covers, but this may have been his most horrific cover of all–because it was really happening.
Here’s a first, from the great Alex Schomburg: the first time in comic book history a cover promoted an epic battle between two separate super heroes, in this case the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. This MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS cover must have proven exciting to readers, as Timely went on to stage several other Torch-Namor … Continue reading Great Covers – MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #9
Another crowded and overwhelming Alex Schomburg masterpiece, this cover to USA COMICS is typical of his output for Timely Comics. The figures of Cap and Bucky are large, ridiculously so in proportion to the other elements of the piece. But it works–even if it does look like Bucky is shooting down a toy plane with … Continue reading Great Covers – USA COMICS #7
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
Another ridiculously over-detailed (and fundamentally racist) cover from the WWII era by Alex Schomburg, this one for USA COMICS. There’s almost too much going on here, though it all promises thrills aplenty within the pages. My favorite detail, apart from Bucky gunning down Japanese soldiers like a fiend, is the fact that Cap can’t be … Continue reading Great Covers – USA COMICS #13
The Tom Brevoort Experience 