Jungle Comics #161, Fiction House, Winter 1953 – Artist: Suspected to be Maurice Whitman.
I’ve taken note of the great run of covers on Jungle Comics covers these past few days. Thank’s to some great info provided by Bud Plant in the comments of Day #158 I know now why my interest has been piqued. Fantastic stuff from Maurice Whitman cover after cover. Great details on the cover of Jungle #161 and I love the shared burden composition.
Neal Adams put in some great work on Superboy #161. I like the Marvel battles covers on Hulk #161 and Amazing Spider-Man #161.
Four Color #161 had a chance but the Tarzan pose is too static.
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.
Great on an absolute scale – I didn’t pick this one because there are relatively better ones, like the ones we just discussed. Similar for the Superboy. Those Ma and Pa Kent Adams signature poses don’t work for me either.
While X-Men #162 (2004 series) is a standing around cover, it is a really good standing around cover, so I will make it my pick. Thor is the close runner-up. I like Conan but there isn’t much story and I don’t like the background color. I could imagine picking Jumbo if you don’t mind repeating on Whitman – I especially love the hokey insets on the left.
Who was buying these Blackhawk books? Yet another stupid contraption (actually two: “Safari-Mobile” – with this painted on the side, to boot – like a parody of the already ridiculous (but cool) Schomburg English labeling on German and Japanese equipment).
JOWA to Batman. Another low point emphasizing the historical importance of Detective #327.
Walter, I am pleased to have been influential in some way. I can’t imagine the juggling you must through to pick each day’s choice, while watching your chance to highlight a particular title or artist or genre perhaps slip by.
Four Color #161 is AWFUL. Jesse Marsh’s Tarzan is NOT mine, even if the mighty Alex Toth was among Marsh’s fans.
The great early Tarzan covers were on Tip Top, first some good Hal Foster panels lifted from his Sundays. But my favorites beginwith #32, original work by Paul Berdanier. Check out #33, 34, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47… berdanier was also drawing two true-fact/history Sunday Page strips, reprinted inside. But evidently he worked on staff, doing the occasional cover for the newspaper syndicate United Features (UFS), who published Tip Top.
And, of course, those beautiful Burne Hogarth covers on Sparkler are stunning, again, I think, just pulled from Sunday panels nut very well done.
Later on, the painted Dell and Gold Key Tarzan covers are plentiful and great, starting past the photo covers with #55 but running all the way into the Russ Manning issues, way past #150.
I didn’t quickly see a Four Color Tarzan cover to suggest. I like some of the very early line-art Tarzan covers in that title, like #8 and 9 in in particular, from 1949. They have a primitive charm.
I was going to give you a hard time after your comment about not visiting this area since ‘93. It is beautiful in Northern California, even if we do get to deal with fires and earthquakes.
However, I realized its been even longer than that since I was in eastern Canada, specifically Toronto. I visited Silver Snail owner Ron and his wife Uli (spell?) during some event in Toronto, but before ‘93 I think. I used to wholesale comics, ‘zines and books to Silver Snail, they were one of my largest customers before I offed my distribution arm to Diamond in ‘88. Ron had several strange pets, a de-smellified skunk and snapping turtles…
We all used to stay at Phil Seuling’ huge, rambling old but charming 3-story house in Seagate, from where you see ships sailing in and out of NYC, under the Verrazzano Bridge, which connects NYC and Staten Island. What a lovely place for a home, I loved staying there. Right on the water, big window in his office. We’d hang out there before and after Phil and Jonni’s NY Comic Art Conventions. Somewhere I have a great picture all of of us, Ron, Uli et al, on Phil’s living room couch.
But I digress, as usual….
I gotta get up there and meet all you Canadians, including Ivan Kocmarek, too. One of these days….
I picked up a nice raw copy of Tip Top #33 on eBay last year – not many of those graded – cross your fingers no resto.
I’m not sure who was buying those Blackhawks back then Chris but I can tell you who’s buying the Blackhawk back issues today… NOBODY!
You are right about that Four Color #161 Bud, the face is poorly drawn too. Maybe Tarzan fan Dave Mackay can chime in here with some good cover suggestions.
Problem with the States is there is so much to see, Colorado and Wyoming on one trip, North Cali on another, Florida on another, NYC etc, then being Canadian I have to find time for Cuba and then some more time (and even more money) for trips back home to Serbia/Croatia! As I get older I’m liking day trips more and more, an hour’s drive south to Port Dover is good enough for me these days.
Ron is a great guy, was always well ahead of the curve and always good to a young upstart named Walt, I believe he’s up in North Ontario spending his time fishing these days.
Ivan and I would love to have you come up for a visit Bud, no bridge views but I have a nice row of cedars in the backyard.
Thanks, Walter! I live on Seven Cedars Drive, so we do appreciate our Cedars. And pines, oaks, manzanita…and poison oak and the occasional rattlesnake. Had three fox cubs born under the porch outside the bedroom window last year, but their Mom moved them on quick.
Hey, and I still collect Blackhawk. I actually have picked up several upgrades recently. Still looking for an affordable first Lady Blackhawk upgrade. But like other old-timers, I have them all after several decades.
I think early Military issues are undervalued, say up to #21 or so. So have happily upgraded mine into the fine tange or better. Great books, the first ten are filled with solid GA material, like Dave Berg’s Death Patrol, and Al McWilliams, long before he drew atwin Earths. Reed Crandall issues #12-21 are to kill for. Crandall’s post-war Modern issues also have Torchy back-ups strips as a bonus, and he did some good work in the actual Blackhawk title, say #20s-65, until he moved to EC around 1952.
But DC did run them into the ground after the first few years. The Quality issues up too #108 are all pretty fun, if formulaic. Great pre-code red menace and giant machine covers, like the awar Wheel.
It wasn’t until Steranko’s History of Comics that I realized Blackhawk had such a long history as a youth. I was never interested in them that much with their multi colored uniforms and their hokey villains. I had picked up a couple late Quality issues but sold them a couple decades ago because they didn’t hold that much interest and it seems that view still holds among collectors still.
Gerald,, I guess you have to be in the right time and place. I think I liked team comics, i first fell for the Fantastic Four way back in 1964. I got interested in Quality Group comics after discovering fandom and back issue dealers…Plastic Man by Jack Cole, Eisner’s The Spirit, Dollman by Reed Crandall, and Blackhawk was part of that. It was clearly Quality’s best selling title as they moved into the 1950S.
In the mid to late sixties, I could buy 1950s Quality Blackhawk issues for $1 and $2 each.
DC trashed them…and the multi-colored suits were a low point for EVERY fan. That killed the title, though it had run out of steam long before that. It was a wartime strip that outlived its era, kept alive through the cold war, but that was it. They were cool in the forties and early 1950.
DC published just one volume of Blackhawk Archives, but for my audience, it was among my best selling of the series. Today its long out of orint and goes for a premium…as you could tell reading History oof the Comics, Steranko grew up with them and he loved that Reed Crandall art.
Morris Gollub did the best Tarzan covers I ever saw for Dell. His Jungle Jim, Turok and so on are also mind blowing. Walt also knows I love the photo and painted covers of UK’s Tarzan adventures. So many gems out there. 🙂
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vPzP-ZMMPw4/SaovFFKWk8I/AAAAAAAAAaQ/nwFU0F1vWTY/s400/tarzan13.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/12/c6/b3/12c6b3b07e10680f3cdf7220b069efdf–morris-golden-age.jpg
https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/9/95448/1957062-13_1.jpg
Gollub is the best comic cover artist ever in my mind.
David, thanks for the tip. I recognize Morris Gollub’s name but usually I have almost no idea who did which painted covers for Dell.
I will start paying closer attention. I bet he did those post photo but pre-#100 covers I like so much…yes, he did, I just checked, like Tarzan #56 and 60, and maybe, GCD is uncertain, #70. That whole mini-run there, from #55-79, is fine work.
Always liked those Turoks, too, worth buying if only for the great covers on those early issues.