
Ok, so last friday, while I was mooning over the really nice cover Nick Cardy drew for that issue of Aquaman, I begged DC to put together an Aquaman edition of their super-cool Cover to Cover hardback book series. Aquaman has been the recipient of some astounding covers over the years, moreso than a lot of bigger-selling characters than he.
Anyway, my pal and F.O.A.M. member Craig Wichman had this suggestion:"A talented artiste like you could roll yer own." Illegal-substance references aside, I thought that was such a good idea (and I love it when Dixon does it over at Crimson Lightning) that I decided all this week I'll be presenting seven of my favorite, most striking Aquaman covers that definitely should be part of any Aquaman: Cover to Cover book, imaginary or not.
...so what better cover to start with than this, one of the most famous envelope-busting covers in all of comics? As has been reported many times before, DC was met with much resistence to some of the covers then-head-honcho Carmine Infantino was using. Not having the famous logo on top of the books so they could easily seen and identified was verboten on newsstands. But Carmine pushed some of 'em through, this being my favorite example.
Nick Cardy's design, use of lighting, and the colors are all top-notch--Black Manta looks like he's about to throw Aquaman into Hell itself. Never has a villain looked more certain to defeat the good guy!