My Two All Time Favorite Covers

Someone the other day asked about our personal comic "Holy Grail". The obvious choice would be a high grade Action Comics #1 or Detective Comics #27 and if I could have any comic on sheer value I'd choose one of them. But putting aside price I would love to own a comic with a Jack Burnley cover. For those who don't know Jack Burnley he was a DC artist who died about 5 years ago. He only worked for DC Comics for about a decade but his covers are my all time favorite. Jack used a very minimalist approach with little to no backgrounds. All the emphasis was on the figures and in that he was about as perfect as I've ever seen. For me these covers are more than iconic, they are transcendent. They are, in many ways, the archetype of a Golden Age cover. In my opinion his best work was on Superman and World's Finest and strangely enough my two favorites are both the same issue; Superman #21 and World's Finest #21. Superman #21 was powerful enough that it was used as the cover art for the spectacular "75 years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking" by Paul Levitz which was released last year. It's just an amazing cover and to own a nice copy would be the jewel in my collection.

World's Finest #21 is a wonderful piece by Burnley with Superman and Batman going up for a tip off. Burnley's clean lines and character flow are just gorgeous. I love how Burnley so often has the Superhero's doing everyday things like skiing, biking, riding on a fire truck or in this case playing basketball. It's rare that his covers had anything to do with the interior story.

Just about any Jack Burnley cover is amazing but these two are my favorites.