Dec 24
The Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas
Every year, for the past four years, the great folks at the Comic Book Resources Classic Comics forum have participated in a Classic Comics Christmas list. Thought up and moderated by the Spectacular Kurt Mitchell, past lists have been built around favorite single issues, favorite characters, and favorite comic adaptations and merchandise. This year, the topic was favorite covers from before 1990.
So, presented here with gracious permission from Kurt Mitchell and the rest of the Classic Comics crew, are my picks for this years Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas.
My selections were chosen with no solid criteria but were all pulled from my personal collection. Generally I wanted them to stand on their own, regardless of the story inside. If someone needed some information from inside the comic, the cover was probably disqualified from my list. Also, I looked for pieces that were more than pretty drawings. Either they exhibited something new and weird or they utilize the form and tropes of comics in a way that moves them away from being anything other than comic art. Of course, there are pieces that break all of these rules. Enjoy.
12. Nexus #25 by Steve Rude
Nexus is a sci-fi comic drawing here and there from superheroes. It deals with themes of death and justice and guilt and responsibility, and I feel like this cover is a strong representation of all of that.
11. Astonishing Tales #21 by Gil Kane & Mike Esposito
Astonishing Tales was a Marvel anthology/try-out title that featured Dr. Doom, Ka-Zar the Savage, Deathlok, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and this guy, It! the Living Colossus. I don’t think ol’ It! ever appeared outside of his four-issue run in Astonishing; I found him courtesy of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe when I was younger and fell in love with the character design and the idea that it was some guy in a wheelchair mentally controlling him. I think this cover captures the excitement I felt watching Godzilla and King Kong during the summer between kindergarten and first grade.
10. Mister Miracle Special #1 by Steve Rude
I didn’t realize that Steve Rude made multiple appearances on this list, but, well, here he is again. Here he’s working in a more traditional style, but the circus poster effect was something I really got a kick out of when I first got this comic in 1987. I don’t think I even noticed Darkseid lingering on the right until later, and I didn’t know that the circus poster was actually a circus poster on a wall until just now. So cool.
9. Tarzan #210 by Joe Kubert & Tatjana Wood
I will never get tired of Joe Kubert’s linework. The characters here are perfectly posed, with Tarzan wound tight and about to spring while the captured man in the background seems ready to sag right off the page. And while the jungle is only represented by a few lines, they are definitely choice lines that make me almost feel the humidity. The colors by Tatjana Wood complete the mood.
8. Thor #356 by Bob Layton & Jackson Guice
When I first got this comic, I was a little peeved that it wasn’t really about Thor. Now I think it’s hilarious. The audacity of not even showing the title character’s face and the sort of meta-awareness of “Herky” helped get this cover into the tops, even if it is just a fill-in issue in one of my favorite comic book runs.
7. Kamandi #23 by Jack Kirby & maybe D. Bruce Berry
I don’t think this comic would be taken seriously today. But here it is, in all its Jack Kirby glory. It’s far from my favorite Kirby drawing, but the mad energy combined with the sensationalist copy (”Men have killed for fish before… but these men were trained by them!”) make this a standout cover. DIE, BUNGLING GNAT!
6. Sinister House of Secret Love #2 by Jeff Jones & Tony DeZuniga
Could there have been a time when the title of this comic didn’t sound like some late-night Cinemax movie? I’m not sure. In all seriousness, though, this cover is a pretty brilliant piece, with everything coming together to make me feel like I have to know what happens inside.
5. Doom Patrol #94 by Bob Brown
Poor Robotman. He’s always getting crushed, disintegrated, melted, and worse. The Doom Patrol was one of the weirdest comics of the 1960s, and that’s saying a lot in an age of Nazi gorillas and dinosaur islands.
4. Watchmen #2 by Dave Gibbons & John Higgins
I’m trying to avoid jumping on the Watchmen bandwagon; I think it’s a fantastic comic, but it’s good because it works so well as a comic book. While the story is above average, Alan Moore wrote it utilizing narrative methods that could only be done in the comic medium, so I’m not really excited to see that taken away. The covers of each issue also served as an opening panel and Dave Gibbons, who normallly has a little bit of cartooning in him, seems to be channeling Brian Bolland’s hyper-realism, aided vastly by John Higgins’s colors.
3. Shade the Changing Man #4 by Steve Ditko
It was really hard choosing my favorite Steve Ditko cover, but I knew it had to be from Shade. Ditko was an artist I never appreciated up until a few years ago. His figure poses are always a little strange, a little stressed, but I think that’s just the world that Ditko works in, one of extremes. Here we have the classic Ditko oddities in the projections from Shade’s “M-Vest” (see Shade’s real face inside the projection’s mouth?), those bizarre costumes, and the unreal look on the two women’s faces. I don’t know how I ever planned to live a Ditko-free life.
2. Tales of Beanworld #2 by Larry Marder
Anyone that read last week’s Emanata knows how much I love Beanworld, and here’s another little dip into that strange place. Automatic points for the graphic design element of including the main illustration inside a box, and you can just feel how worn out and full those beans are despite how non-representational the art is.
1. Midnight Tales #17 by Wayne Howard
I’m going to let CBR poster benday-dot handle the intro to this one, even though his quote applies to a different cover:
“Once upon time, when they hit the racks for 10 or twelve cents, comic books had no shame. They were what they were. They took no pretense. They were lighter; shrugging away the gravity that came to weigh upon their descendants. And judging by their covers seemed all the happier for it. There is 1000 pounds of absurdity in this cover, and not a single ounce of irony. The funny book, once as disposable an art form that ever was, paid the price of public scorn, but gained the gift of liberty. They were free to be anything, and so often they were. How about a war comic cover where a bunch of G.I’s hang off a tree to make a human chain while a giant snarling Tyrannosaurus Rex leans in to make lunch of them!? They wouldn’t even have debated that one. It wasn’t ridiculous; it was a natural. Why? Well, sure enough, it was a really fun idea. But even more to the point, for a comic book at that time it would have seemed like precisely the right thing to do. Long live comic books and the triumph of the imagination.”
Also, let it be known that there are no sharks, submarines, or even underwater scenes contained in this book. READ COMICS!
And, for kicks and appreciation, here are some picks from some of other participants:
 by Harvey Kurtzman chosen by Kurt Mitchell, contributor to Roy Thomas’s All-Star Companion |
 by Russ Heath & Jack Adler chosen by Cherokee Jack |
 by Carl Barks chosen by PolarBear |
 by Gil Kane & Jack Adler chosen by benday-dot |
 by Carmine Infantino chosen by dan bailey |
 by Steve Ditko chosen by prince_hal |
 by Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson chosen by icctrombone |
 by Jim Starlin chosen by Andy Hardy |
 by Mac Raboy chosen by Red Oak Kid |
 by Jaime Hernandez chosen by JKCarrier |
 by Norman Saunders chosen by LoneRanger |
 by Wally Wood chosen by Slam Bradley |
 by Joe Kubert chosen by MWGallaher |
 by Keith Giffen chosen by Spoon Jenkins |
 by Gene Colan chosen by T Guy |
 by George Evans chosen by Paul King |
 by Gilbert Shelton chosen by Tony Bang |
 by Neal Adams chosen by zilch |
3 Comments so far
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I think the Thor cover is my favorite. Great post.
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for showing us the other selections as well.
Awesome post. That Doom Patrol cover is priceless