For all of their crudity, there’s something very elegant about the covers to many of the earliest comics. Those big, bold, brash title mastheads, the clean design aesthetic. Moves all copied from the pulp magazines, but adapted and copied with more simplicity, as the artists creating them just weren’t as accomplished. This cover to DETECTIVE … Continue reading Great Covers – DETECTIVE COMICS #31
For clean simplicity, it’d be difficult to find somebody more skilled than Carmine Infantino. His open lines, expansive vistas and idiosyncratic figures often combined for concept pieces that were immediately readable from a distance, and which drew a prospective buyer in to purchase the magazine. This cover to FLASH #153 is a case in point. … Continue reading Great Covers – FLASH #153
A very simple cover by Ross Andru for FLASH #184, this image simply demands that you buy the comic and read the story. It’s primarily a triumph of typography, as the image is more than ¾ lettering. But that Flash figure, with his face hidden in his hand and his defeated stance, makes an impact … Continue reading Great Covers – FLASH #184
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nick Cardy was virtually DC’s go-to cover artist, and he produced dozens of memorable, well-designed covers. Often he’d work off of sketches by cover editor and eventual publisher and president Carmine Infantino. This cover to BAT-LASH #2 is a great example. The white border perfectly frames the action, … Continue reading Great Covers – BAT LASH #2
Here’s a nice SUPERMAN FAMILY cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. This one owes much of its success to the color choices. While the overall design is nice, it does become a bit cluttered. But by knocking out the background to a black and white monochrome and only using full color on the key figures, the … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN FAMILY #189
A beautiful, simple and effective design on this G.I. COMBAT cover from 1961. The color contrast between the red-orange fade of the background perfectly silhouettes the shattered helmet in the foreground, and the frame of the sniper’s bullet hole perfectly focuses your eye on the gunner himself. In an instant, this cover tells a complete … Continue reading Great Covers – G.I. COMBAT #88
SECRET ORIGINS OF THE SUPER DC HEROES 1975 This was DC’s answer to Marvel’s very successful ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS. It was also one of the most highly-awaited books in my household from the time I saw the first house ads for it. Big and expensive, I had to wait for Christmas before I could … Continue reading BHOCOS: SECRET ORIGINS OF THE SUPER DC HEROES
The Tom Brevoort Experience 