Cover Contest 5/27-6/2 That's my favorite!

[Shalla Bal]

I'm torn between two covers but I guess I'll go with this one, by one of my favorite artists the great Maurice Whitman

[Rob Allen]

My favorite Frank Brunner cover, with a personal story to go with it. When this was published, my father worked for a religious publishing company. They saw the success of Spire Christian Comics and decided to try publishing some comics themselves. They hired Tony Tallarico to produce them. When I saw early copies of the first two comics, I thought they looked terrible. Seeing them again in recent years, they don't seem as bad, but they were definitely out of step with the comics world of 1974. So, trying to be helpful, I gave my father some recent comics that I thought had great art, so he could show his co-workers how badly Tallarico had missed the mark. I had enough sense not to give him an issue of Son of Satan, but I did give him this issue. His co-workers took one look at the subtitle "Master of the Mystic Arts" and my original point about the art was forgotten; they were concerned that my soul was in danger from this Satanic comic book. Fortunately my father knew me better than that, and the whole thing blew over. The company lost their shirts on the Tallarico comics. Four were published, and they're very rare today - look up Logos comics.

Anyway, here's Dr. Strange #1:

[icctrombone]

My favorite cover by my favorite artist Big John Buscema !

[Greg Hatcher]

So hard to choose. But I'm mostly a Batman guy so I think it has to be a Bat-artist. I think probably the finest illustrator to ever work on Batman was the late and still lamented Don Newton. And his Phantom was even better.



Bonus interior page just because...

[PaulBullion]

Don Newton died way too young.

[Jack Dracula]

Frank Quitely

[Iron Maiden]

I was a bit torn. Probably the first artist that left a big impression on me was when Prince Valiant was running as comic strip in the Sunday papers my Dad would buy. Little did I know that Hal Foster lived not that far away in Evanston, Illinois. The next one I would say that caught my eye was Frank Frazetta, again due to my father who would buy Creepy and Eerie horror magazines for us to read.

I have many favorite cover artists today, among them Alex Maleev, Art Adams, George Perez and many more. Hard to pick just one.

But I'm going back to my intro to Marvel Comics and that would be Jack Kirby and his Fantastic Four covers. My brother still has this comic boxed up. The other artists from that era that left a big impression on me were Gene Colan and Jim Steranko.

[Scott Taylor]

My favorite Frank Brunner cover, with a personal story to go with it. When this was published, my father worked for a religious publishing company. They saw the success of Spire Christian Comics and decided to try publishing some comics themselves. They hired Tony Tallarico to produce them. When I saw early copies of the first two comics, I thought they looked terrible. Seeing them again in recent years, they don't seem as bad, but they were definitely out of step with the comics world of 1974. So, trying to be helpful, I gave my father some recent comics that I thought had great art, so he could show his co-workers how badly Tallarico had missed the mark. I had enough sense not to give him an issue of Son of Satan, but I did give him this issue. His co-workers took one look at the subtitle "Master of the Mystic Arts" and my original point about the art was forgotten; they were concerned that my soul was in danger from this Satanic comic book. Fortunately my father knew me better than that, and the whole thing blew over. The company lost their shirts on the Tallarico comics. Four were published, and they're very rare today - look up Logos comics.

But wow, Google was no help in finding out anything about Logos Comics. Very interesting! Spire Comics were pretty good quality, which was unusual at the time for anything Christian in publishing. The other Christian comic strip to come close in terms of quality were the adventures of Tullus.

Speaking of Frank Brunner, and indie books, did you know he and his wife joined publisher Mike Friedrich and put out their own comic book in the 1970s?

Here is a little write up on it:

http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com...duckaneer.html

Recently I found Quack #s 1 and 2 at a thrift store.

[MRP]

Greg Hatcher

honorable mention to Paul Bullion, I almost went with Moebius in the initial post. Joe Kubert was my third contender.

-M

[kjn]

Greg Hatcher, because we can always need more of The Phantom here.

Honourable mention to Tami for Scott and Jean jiving into the fight.

[foxley]

So many great covers, but I'll stay parochial and go with the other Perez cover: wortsblogever

[Ravin' Ray]

worstblogever for the now retired George Perez!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'll roll with worstblogever this week!

[Riv86672]

Greg Hatcher for the neat Phantom cover.

[Tami]

ed2962 this week.