For their first few decades, Marvel Comics intermittently offered a small figure of the titular hero(ine) of a book on the upper left hand corner of their covers. I assume it was meant to strengthen brand recognition in the days of spinner racks, where only the upper third (or less) of a cover would be visible, unless a prospective reader was enticed to pick it up and have a proper look. DC dabbled in this practice at times, and had George Pérez do one for Wonder Woman in 1989, beginning with #40. It only appeared on about half of the covers through until Pérez's acrimonious departure from the series a couple of years later with #62. The title disappeared for a few months, and then this new figure from replacement cover artist Brian Bolland debuted on Wonder Woman Special #1 (although the actual cover was by Jill Thompson, with Bolland taking over on the next regular issue.)
1 comment:
I remember this, and all the other left-hand corner pics DC comics used to do back in the day. They were very prevalent in the late Sixties/early Seventies to mark DC out from Marvel, tho iirc they also began putting little pics [they pretentiously called them 'vignettes'!] on their covers. I used to love them; going thru the old spinner-racks [who remembers spinner-racks? *wistful childhood sigh*] and one glance at the corner pics would tell you what year almost you were looking at, without even having to see the date.
I recall the Curt Swan superman one breaking his chains, the three Legionnaires [Saturn Girl being one of them] on the covers of Superboy and the Legion and of course my personal fave being during the Diana Prince Wonder Woman de-powered era when we had a pic of Diana in her all-while outfit, all mini-skirt and knee-high boots. Then during the Seventies we had WW running while holding her lasso which I think started on her 100-page super-spectaculars...just splendid!
Many many happy menories.
The above pic is just fine, I even forgive the slightly sexy right leg crossing over, which isnt necessary. But WW here looks cute and friendly and very capable as a hero, and holds her lasso well. Bolland does have a tendency to draw his female heroes [not that he draws many] with some sexual overtures, but this is remarkably restrained here; I rather like it!
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