Concept and copy-oriented, this Curt Swan SUPERMAN cover succeeds by teasing the events of the story inside. In a day when comics typically contained three separate stories, the promise of a longer tale “in three great parts” was like getting the promise of a movie. Clearly this had to be an important story to warrant … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN #132
And sometimes, you don’t have any good ideas for a cover at all. This Wayne Boring SUPERMAN cover is self-referential and meta, in an era when such ideas weren’t common. The strong yellow background makes the image vibrantly pop off the page.
And some covers need no copy at all, such as this Wayne Boring SUPERMAN cover. This was the post-War period where the selling trend was towards comedy, and so the Superman covers of this period tended to be absurd and goofball, like this classic entry.
As preserved in the personal art collection of Batman great Jerry Robinson, here’s the original artwork to that Fred Ray SUPERMAN cover.
It’s tough to make a pink background work on a super hero comic book cover, let alone a yellow and green logo, and yet this Curt Swan SUPERMAN cover does just that. Part of it is simply that the concept is so strong–this is the first time we’ve ever really seen Superman dead on a … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN #149
An acknowledged classic, this Fred Ray SUPERMAN cover is perhaps the best-known of the wartime era. It equates the titular character with patriotism and defense of the nation by putting him into context with the large shield and the armed forces subtly in the background. The black background is really effective in popping the figure … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN #14
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
If there is a better WWII-era SUPERMAN cover than this Jack Burnley masterpiece, I’ve never seen it. The whole story is there in a single image: the sinking of the American steamer, the terror on the part of the Nazi submariners, and the terrible anger of Superman himself. The outcome is never in doubt. (If … Continue reading Great Covers – SUPERMAN #23
SUPERMAN #300 June, 1976 SUPERMAN #300 was, to the best of my remembrance, the first anniversary issue I ever purchased. It wasn’t double-sized, it didn’t present “a radical turning point in the life of the Man of Steel.” What it contained was a splendid single-issue story, which was something of a precursor to DC’s current … Continue reading BHOCOS: SUPERMAN #300
SUPERMAN VS. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 1976 THIS SAYS IT ALL! And it pretty much did. Even though I wasn’t a Marvel Comics reader in 1976 when SUPERMAN VS. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was published, I nevertheless recognized it as something important, and so purchased a copy. Printed in the oversized Treasury format, it was a massive 96-pages … Continue reading BHOCOS: SUPERMAN VS THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
The Tom Brevoort Experience 