Covered 365: Day 236

Fantastic Four #236, Marvel Comics, November 1981. Artist: John Byrne, Marie Severin.

I love this 20th Anniversary celebration cover to Fantastic Four #236 by John Byrne and Marie Severin. Yikes, I consider this a modern book and its 38 years old, almost double the span of the 20 years since title launch.

It seems impossible to keep Neal Adams off the board, today he chimes in with a strong cover for Superman #236.

Morris Gollub (we think) makes great use of shadows on Four Color #236.

Another guy that seems a shoo-in each day is Bernie Wrightson, check out his fine work on the cover of House of Mystery #236.

A great comic book cover matching each day of the year, 1 through 365. Please chime in with your favourite corresponding cover, from any era.

Walter Durajlija
Walter Durajlija

Walter Durajlija is an Overstreet Advisor and Shuster Award winner. He owns Big B Comics in Hamilton Ontario.

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Scott VanderPloeg
Admin
4 years ago

Find the one face that Severin did on that Fantastic Four cover.

David Mackay
David Mackay
4 years ago

is it Stan’s face Scott? assuming thats Stan in the top right corner? All nice covers today Walt

Bud Plant
Bud Plant
4 years ago

Four fine choices, I like them all. The FF must have been inspired by “The Wedding of Sue and Reed” cover for FF Annual #3. But kudos for Byrne, Stan jammed that 1965 issue with blurbs everywhere.

However…even now I can recall that glorious feeling of finding those first Marvel annuals, 1964-1967 or so, and knowing I was in for an extra-big package of treats. DC 80-page Giants gave you great reprints, and started sooner, but Marvel included cool new material too, all for 25 cents, every summer.

That Wrightson HOM is my favorite here…and it passed the code! What a beautiful work.

Bud Plant
Bud Plant
4 years ago

Ha! Walter, say hello to Ken Steacy for me! And to Ivan, too. Wish I was there with you guys. One of these days…

Chris Meli
4 years ago

When those two titans of comic art appreciation, Bud Plant and Chris Meli, align on the pick of the day, Walt had better take heed.

I overlooked the Four Color. It wouldn’t have been a pick – it’s a realistic crouching around cover – but still a nice Western illustration.

Re the sense that the FF is a “modern” book. Obviously the first reason is that we are of a certain age. But I think another reason is the almost quantum leap in availability in very high grades that occurred right around the time that X-Men went monthly and became Uncanny, about the beginning of 1979. Many more people began buying copies purely for collecting/investment at this time, and hence these remain ubiquitous at low prices today, so they seem familiar/modern. (From an “Undervalued” perspective, I think it should be interesting to focus on scarce books from just before this time that are being tarred with the same brush.)

Not much going on for #237. Batman is another great Adams classic and the pick. Distant runner-up is Tarzan, although in my opinion Kubert’s consistency of quality in these Tarzan covers is extraordinary. I get the feeling some folks (maybe even one whose initials are W.D.) don’t really dig Kubert, but in the past month or so I’ve really been sensitized to how the guy never turns in anything bad. There are a few other Kuberts to choose from today, and they are all solid – OOAW just missed being a runner up.

Otherwise House of Mystery is still a runner up, even though it seems to me to be a bit derivative of #192. I will also cite Superman, although if this were by anybody but Adams I probably wouldn’t.

Byrne copped out with some concentric circles on FF #237, so there’s a pick for you that I will reject in advance.

World’s Finest is a weak JOWA candidate with its Beginning of the End-inspired cover, but the award goes to Detective for Batman’s disregard for poor Robin in blatantly filling out his checklist of charms.

Scott VanderPloeg
Admin
4 years ago

You got it Dave.

tim hammell
tim hammell
4 years ago

That’s one jammed 20th Anniversary cover and impressive for all those characters. Some great comics today and other days, even the crouching around Four colour. There’s a story in that crouch.

This cover column just pushed a thought into my head – are there warehouses somewhere filled with originals of all these covers? And the pages and pages of content from how many million comics produced since Action #1. Must be millions of pages, where is it all?

b) Were there art directors at comic companies or were the artist’s self responsible for that? I imagine there were non-comic graphic artists doing all the paste-ups, etc.

David Mackay
David Mackay
4 years ago

Thanks Scott…Damn Stan denying Kirby his due…once again. Stan is nothing if not consistent 🙂