Jimmy Olsen #98 – DC Comics, December 1966 – Artist: Curt Swan.
I can just picture the Marvel staff meeting in December 1966 – “look at these numbers people, we must be doing something right, lets keep up the good work”, or something like that. Stan would have been half right with that pep talk.
This is one of my all time favorite covers, I had a copy hanging in the office for years.
Jimmy Olsen was my second pick actually. I wanted to go with A-1 #98 but since the cover says Undercover Girl #6 I didn’t want to cheat. Strong contenders included Modern #98, Fables #98, 100 Bullets and that great cover to Laugh #98.
Sweethearts #98 is my 1st pick that will bring you to a good CRY (Charlton Romance Yearning). I won’t do these every time, just once in a while as a cover hits me.
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.
When I saw that Jimmy Olsen was among the predictions for today’s cover choice based on a “weirdness” factor, I decided to not look ahead and search out an image of the cover, but wait for the surprise if it was chosen. But all I can say is “What was DC thinking?” The opening sentence of your review about the Marvel bullpen seems appropriate, but it left out the howls of laughter that must have followed their first glimpse of this cover. And as sad I feel for poor Jimmy, I can only imagine the shame Superman must have felt while participating in this cover.
The choice of this cover results in total redemption with respect to past criticisms. To dig this cover is to dig comic books. Amen.
Re the other possibilities (not real possibilities, of course): I had exactly the same reaction about A-1 which is why I left it out. Modern is good but not quite good enough. Fables is amazing and I missed it because of its muted light colors/colours. I have to confess that I have been actively avoiding Fables because there are many great covers, but they generally aren’t comic booky enough for me. #98 is a standout even amongst Fables covers so I can handle that pick. Similarly I have been avoiding 100 Bullets, but I would not pick #98 as particularly outstanding in that case, there was one earlier with a skull in a wine glass that I really wanted to mention. While I would not pick Sweethearts I can appreciate it (now), and it really excels with respect to the “tells a story” criterion.
We are getting close to the big #100. I haven’t reviewed but I’m betting that will be a tough one to choose. For #99 however I didn’t see much. The clear standout is Falling in Love, which strongly reminds me of some pinball machine backglasses on machines that I loved back in the day. This cover is unique and uniquely of the period, and also just really pleasing. I will put House of Secrets as the distant runner-up, and that’s it.
Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane gets this issue number’s Superman Hall of Shame award, as Superman tries to send Lois to the “Death House”.
Horrible !!!!
This cover accurately depicts the reasons why many people in today’s society opt to go common law 🙂
I’d comment except I am still gasping for air…..
Considering Jimmy Olsen was out selling any Marvel comic by 100,000 of thousands of copies in 1965/1966…554,931 an issue in 1965, I imagine Marvel had some meetings about the same. Strangely, Gorilla covers were always among DC comics biggest sellers. Comics were written and drawn for Children. It was a much different and bigger market back in the day. Much bigger. By 1967 Marvel had spiderman sales up to 360,000. Their # 1 comic. The same year DC had nine of the top ten selling books. Archie was the only non DC title. DC sales were between 800,000 to 500,000 per issue. see https://www.comichron.com for source among others. DC was the real deal despite being in the market for 30 years.
Did any of those DC sales have a reflection on their controlling distribution?
I cant say Gerald, though Ive heard of such things. As a child from the sixties, I recall as many or more Marvels then DC books in my area retailers. And as today, I collected equally DC Marvel Harvey and Archie and gold key.It makes sense retailers made available what sold best. It was in their interests. Besides they returned what didnt sell. Archie comics, Tarzan and many of the Harveys were out selling Marvel in 1965. Suggesting they werent impacted by DC distribution. More Like a tale created by Stan to persuade Ditko and Kirby that poor old marvel trademark toys cartoon and such werent generating $
In fact Marvel never out sold DC until the famous Marvel changing their titles to 25 cent larger issues…only to revert back to 15 cent titles a month or two in. DC maintained the 25 cent titles for a year in response….and the rest is history
cynical Dave 🙂
Gerald…if you consider that sales by character,there was only one Spiderman title at this time in 1965. His issue reached less then 300,000 copies/readers each month. Batman was in his own title, Detective comics and Brave and the bold and Worlds finest. Superman in his own title, Action, Adventure,Worlds finest and you could consider Superboy Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane Superman Titles as well….The Batman and Superman characters reached millions of readers each month. Hot stuff had three titles. Casper as many or more. Sad Sack, Archie as well. I could go on and on. As per character sales, any single marvel character paled to other company characters at the time.
Im not saying that Spiderman isnt great. He was and is. What I am saying is that once upon a time , The comic Universe was much larger and richer then just marvel and what we know today. A lot of the reason was comics were designed for children, Funny comics were the doorway drug for young comic readers. And romance comics existed for pre teen girls, All this is gone now.