Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!

. . . and then KEEPING it!
How (and Why) the Silver Age Comics Covers "Worked" (Part 3)

As long as I'm working the Marvel Comics side of the street, at the moment: Marvel's own answer to DC's Gil Kane in the Classic Covers Demolition Derby -- after the immortal Jack Kirby had fiinally migrated to greener comics pastures, I mean -- was the always-elegant John Romita.

Another really nice bit of essential "framing" going on, here... twice-over, in this instance (the larger image is, itself, "framed"... and our Extremely Startled Hero is framed on the monitor screen within that). And -- again, as mentioned elsewhere -- "washing" the surrounding figures in monochrome only serves to make Spidey stand out in bolder relief, as a result. A lovely bit of work, this.

Speaking of the Grand Old Man of Comics: here's one of the drop-dead nicest of all the choice covers he rendered for the title with which he's most intimately associated in comics fandom's memory: THE FANTASTIC FOUR.

Here, it's the complete absence of any words on the cover (other than the title logo, obviously) which makes the excitingly-posed and intelligently-arranged characters seem to promise imminent action and excitement.

Too: everything on this cover -- Mister Fantastic's outstretched arm; the charging Ben Grimm; the swooping Black Bolt -- is pointed in the exact same direction: towards the reader. Another nice, subtle "cue" that -- whatever's going on in this issue -- it's all but threatening to spill out from between the pages and directly into said reader's lap. The sense of urgency -- of immediacy -- is almost phyysically palpable.
Watching as your hero writhes while being impaled on the horns of a moral and/or ethical dilemma is always good for vicarious thrills, as well. Here, we have erstwhile spaceman Adam Strange idly pondering the etrnal question: "... maybe if I... y'know... jiggle it both ways... I can shut both of 'em the @#$% up..."

(The management would like to tender its most heartfelt apologies for the exceptional lameness of the preceding joke. It's late, and the coffee here tastes like that dead bird that Hawkman's still holding, over on Page Two.)

I don't suppose I need point out, at this late date, that our old friend f-r-a-m-i-n-g is back again... do I...?

Same Song, Different Verse; Marvel Comics style, this time.

The "split cover" motif utilized here, by the way -- while certainly nowhere near as popular or omnipresent as it was back during the Silver Age -- is (when properly utilized) one of the neatest tricks around. Say (as in this instance) you have a choice of two images from a given story... either one of which would make for a powerful cover. What to do... what to do...?

The end result (provided the artist in question can keep things from looking "cramped" in the process) is to make the potential buyer feel as if the book he's holding in his hands is so filled-to- bursting with potential goodies galore that he simply can't put this issue back on the spinner rack.

More Kirby. Because you can never go wrong, if you know your Kirby.

By the way: this is one of the first two Marvel comics I ever bought. And it was the cover that grabbed me. So... you know.

Finally: one of the simplest tricks around is to "play" with your own cover logo.

This serves the dual purpose of: a.) making for an especially evocative image, and: b.) jackhammering the name of the book directly into the reader's cerebellum. Provided, of course, he has one in the first place. I'm just sayin', here, is all.

... and, remember, kids: when Dame Inspiration has packed up her toothbrush and her bunny slippers, and left you high and dry for some other, nimbler fellah... and your editor keeps ringing you up every five minutes to remind you that the deadline for next issue's cover was yesterday, and you don't have Clue One as to what you image you can possibly wring from the writer's latest lamebrained script that might make even a halfway decent cover image... Remember Thou Always the two cardinal rules of comic book covers:

A.) Whatever it was... Jack "King" Kirby did it first. And probably better than you could have done it, in any event.

... and: b.) Heroes. Hitting. Other. Heroes. In. The. Head. It never fails. Ever.

THE CLASSIC SILVER AGE COMICS COVERS: How They "Worked" (and Why)
PAGE ONE
PAGE TWO

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