Four Color #355, Dell Comics, November 1951. Artist: Ralph Heimdahl.
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.
Ten to go after this one, these last two weeks flew by so I’m afraid to blink and miss this last little stretch.
Check out Ralph Heimgahl’s crisp, clean cover to Four Color #355, I’ll call it the Bauhaus issue!
I would have like Ed Hannigan’s cover to Batman #355 more have the ratio of characters to shadows been inverted.
I can think of about five good jokes for Jeff Purves’ rainbow cover to Hulk #355 but I probably should not print any of them.
Like the Bugs cover – can’t go wrong with Bugs.
My vote goes to Detective Comics #355 – its a nostalgia vote as the story appeared in one of the early Batman “Treasury Editions” and I love having this cover on my board.
Oh…that Four Color is a looker! Good choice on that one Walt!
Yup, Bugs and his hot rod is a winner. I really like fun hot rod covers anyway…the early Fawcett (Hot Rod Comics], Hillman (Hot Rod and Speedway] and Charlton (Hot Rods and Racing Cars) titles often had great covers. Lots of spectacular crashes. Charlton’s title ran for 120 issues, 1951 to 1973, plus Charlton did quite a number of spin-offs too.
Ok, I admit this is a nostalgia thing, since I was a sixties kid, building model cars, racing slot cars, and even subscribed to Hot Rod Magazine for a while. And there were real hot rods on the streets of San Jose, where I lived, and races out at the fairgrounds every Saturday nite, not that I ever went.
Bugs Bunny and particularly his Looney Tunes run, some 200 or so issues, feature many great gag covers. I pick up the especially fun ones…or ones like this, that offer double cross-over appeal to two collecting interests.
The Batman you chose is fun, that Catwoman costume is always attractive, old school as it is. Giordano didn’t do spectacular work, but he was solid as both penciller and inker. He saved many a 1950s Charlton title, i.e. many westerns, with a good cover, but inside they’re often still terrible. Giordano came into his own in the sixties with Sarge Steel and the hipper Charlton action titles, before he made the big move to DC for the rest of his career. Very nice guy, we met a couple times, but so hard of hearing, his wife often had to repeat what I would say to him.
It would be un-North American to say anything against Bugs, but I just want more going on on my covers. Another good poster.
The cover selection for #356 made me check the issue number more than once. It’s been a long time since I had this many possible choices. It’s a multi-way finish but I have to go with Detective – I just love this cover – story, action, composition, red, checkers. This IS mid-sixties DC.
I can’t figure out the order for the rest so I’ll just list them: Action, Adventure, Avengers, Batman, Daredevil, Sgt. Rock. I would be happy to own any of these and I do own one. As a hint, it’s tied for the first Adams Superman cover.
I’ll also give you Archie to go with your Mounties covers, because it is a pretty good cover all told. Also, Thor doesn’t really make the group, but I still enjoy it.
The Annihilator’s face looks like it was penciled by Wayne Boring and then inked by Adams.
My previous comment refers to Chris’ Action 356 pick.
Klaus, I never would have caught that. Your comment was interesting and I found that Boring was doing the interior pencils at the time, and that Swan covers were on either side of this one. It makes me think that Swan couldn’t do this one for some reason, and then maybe Boring started and Adams finished. I went looking for backstory but I haven’t found any, and everywhere the cover is credited solely to Adams. (While looking I came across an interesting Adams interview from 2017 where he recounts how Joe Simon tried to stop him from getting into comics for his own good.)
When I look at that cover, what I see is the kid having Bob Hope’s face. I have always seen this and I just went and checked – Adams was doing the covers to Bob Hope from August of 1967, and Action 356 was November, so I guess he had learned to draw that face and used it here, maybe again because of time pressure.
Also The Annihilator’s mask is very reminiscent of Mermaid Man’s.
Bud, I love those Charlton hot rod comics!!
Chris – respect for adding “North” –
Chris, there was a Detective featured several months ago where it was evident that Swan had done the cover although it was credited to someone else, Moldoff, I believe. You could tell by the Duo’s poses and faces that Swan drew it. I can’t recall the issue number right now.
That FC Bugs cover is amazing, I’ve never seen it and I wish I did a long time ago. I would have bought that as a back issue..
If he sold that to Wile E Coyote I think he would have caught up with the Road Runner.
Hot – Rod Hare…quite the nickname Bugs. No wonder Porky Pig didn’t trust ya with Petunia
