CGC FORUM TOP BRONZE AGE COVERS - #4

[bigfiver69]

Just a footnote, if you look at some of the Jerry Robinson & Sprang Detective covers of the 1940s, you'll see they did the huge-villain-tiny-hero trick all the time.

 

That's what is so weird about this - whenever anyone mentions that DC covers are just too prevalent in the Top10, the DC fanboys chirp in with "DC covers were just so much more innovative", etc. but WTF is so ground-breaking about this one?

 

One of the ways I try an evaluate covers is to try and imagine being at the spinner rack and seeing the cover in question amongst its contemporaries. I'm not knocking Marvel, but in the BA there was a definite sameness about them. Marvel knew what worked and let the presses run and the cash roll in. This cover would have stood out.

 

This is not DC fanboy talk, but covers like this (and the Jones covers, and the Wrightson covers, and many of Kubert's) demonstrated striking leaps in illustration and graphic design over any other publisher (not just Marvel) at this time. Was the 'big villain-little city' thing done before? Sure! It's all been done before. But Adams gets everything right here - the proportion of large vs small; keeping the perspective just right, even though the rest of the imagery is crazily off-kilter; the rich colour palette. He makes it his own.

 

Did any of this matter to an 11 year old in 1973? The flip answer is 'of course not'. But after 15 years in the advertising business, I know that nothing affects a consumer like something that is effortlessly perfect, something which you don't even think about liking - you just do. This cover does that.

 

Let's take off our DC or Marvel hats for a moment, and look at this cover - and the others on this list - for what they are: innovative examples of post-war art direction, graphic deisgn and illustration. I hate to say it, but Marvel's covers of this era rarely pushed the limits like DC's - and that is not a 'taste' call. That's a matter of basic design evaluation.

 

Shep

[Norrin_Radd]

but WTF is so ground-breaking about this one?

 

Covers don't have to be ground-breaking to be great. It's just THE iconic Batman/Joker cover of the era from THE BA Batman artist.

[joe_collector]

Covers don't have to be ground-breaking to be great.

 

Exactly my point.