Is this Gil Kane cover to STRANGE ADVENTURES #75 the greatest comic book cover ever produced? Could be! I mean, it has everything! A gun-toting gorilla! Who’s robbing a library of books! So that he can conquer the world! And (of course) he talks! This is one where the concept itself is more important than … Continue reading Great Covers – STRANGE ADVENTURES #75
It’s a homage to the movie poster for The Exorcist, but regardless, this JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA cover by Kevin Maguire pops. The greytone work is lovely, the red logo offsets it perfectly–and they even went to a different typeface for the logo on this issue, so that it wouldn’t detract from the mood of the … Continue reading Great Covers – JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #27
This MISTER MIRACLE cover by Jack Kirby really shouldn’t work, and yet somehow it does. Especially at the start, Kirby’s assorted Fourth World covers received some horrific coloring, as though the DC production staff couldn’t figure out quite what to do with them. (They typically emphasized the wrong elements.) but here, the coloring works nicely. … Continue reading Great Covers – MISTER MIRACLE #2
From the days when Nick Cardy was DC’s house cover artist, doing most of the covers in a given month. This FLASH cover was pretty clearly laid out by editorial director Carmine Infantino, which is something he did for a lot of Cardy’s covers. That cloudy ghost figure is so clearly Infantino-based. The strong diagonal … Continue reading Great Covers – FLASH #224
Well, it’s hard to top this one, isn’t it? But even putting aside its historical significance, this Joe Shuster cover to ACTION COMICS #1 is excellent. First off, it’s got a great logo, and that classic DC banner area at the top, which always screams 1930s design. Then within the image area itself, the focus … Continue reading Great Covers – ACTION COMICS #1
Despite the visual clutter of that list of titles down the left side, here’s the great Joe Kubert telling an entire story in one dramatic image on this cover for SUPER DC-GIANT #S-14. That mirror lets us see both combatants, as well as the confederates of the bad guy who are about to massacre the … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPER DC GIANT #S-14
A positively spooky HOUSE OF SECRETS cover by Bernie Wrightson, whose use of light and deep shadow would become a trademark. There really isn’t much to this image, but it’s nevertheless creepy–it looks like the image of a skull within the wafting smoke is almost covered up by the logo, which doesn’t help. Good, simple … Continue reading Great Covers – HOUSE OF SECRETS #103
Another Jack Kirby piece, this KAMANDI cover really shouldn’t work at all–and yet it does. The tiny figure of the hero with his back towards the camera, lots of dead space and only sparse wreckage to give it all a sense of place. But the two bits of Kirby cover copy cement the whole piece … Continue reading Great Covers – KAMANDI #20
Boy, they don’t make ‘em like this one anymore–if they ever did! This is the cover of PREZ, one of the most insane series ever produced by mainstream comics. And this cover by Jerry Grandinetti defies you not to pick it up and look inside. I’ve got a few qualms–I don’t love the balloon lettering … Continue reading Great Covers – PREZ #3
An acknowledged classic, for obvious reasons, this SUPERMAN #233 cover features a Superman who is lean, powerful, dramatic and realistic (at least within the context of a super hero comic book cover.) The yellow-orange background silhouettes and pops his figure perfectly. This is also the first time that the trick of the “Big #1” is … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN #233
