Marvel Comics Cover Gallery - 1959

AS 1959 HOVE INTO VIEW, we would see fewer covers by Joe Maneely, as the last of his work filtered through the system, and more by Jack Kirby, as he bedded in as Stan Lee's go-to artist.

Publisher Martin Goodman continued to fiddle with the line-up, cancelling romance and kiddie titles to make way for science fiction and fantasy books that he thought would sell better.

JANUARY 1959

Marvel's eight titles cover-dated for the first month of 1959 were on sale between 2 Sept and 2 Oct 1958.

Fans of Homer the Happy Ghost and of Patsy Walker Miss America were due to be disappointed by the lineup. Both of those titles were deep-sixed to make space for two new fantasy books - Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish - forging a new look for the company's output that would shape it for the next eight or nine years.

Unusually, the cover art for Suspense was by Don Heck, who drew few covers during this era. The cover for Astonish was by the Kirby/Rule team.

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These two new books would last a hundred issues before Marvel next big transformation in 1968. The rest of the month's titles were stalwart sellers and would, for the most part, survive Goodman's incessant tinkering.

Interestingly, the newer additions to the line didn't sport the vestigial Atlas corner-flash on their covers, an anachronism that would cling on to the older titles until well into 1960.

FEBRUARY 1959

The lineup for the second month of 1959, on sale between 2 Oct and 4 Nov 1958, looked exactly like the Dec 1958 roster. Not a single change, which seems odd given the non-stop tinkering that Goodman was inflicting on the lineup during this unstable time for his company.

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Once again, the western covers were by EC stalwart Jack Davis, who also drew all three stories in Two-Gun Kid 46, but no interior art for Wyatt Earp 21. Davis had started drawing for Martin Goodman's company after the failure of Harvey Kurtzman's Humbug magazine, in which several of the former EC artists were also part-owners. Davis wasn't an investor but did hold the post of Assistant Editor. The sudden loss of income meant that Davis had to find work wherever he could and even Goodman's miserly rates were better than no money at all.

Joe Sinnott drew the covers for Battle and Strange Tales. Steve Ditko supplied art for the Strange Worlds cover and Carl Burgos contributed the cover art for World of Fantasy. As usual, Al Hartley was in charge of art chores on the two Patsy books.

MARCH 1959

The first March cover-dated comics on sale from Goodman's Magazine Management, on 4th November, were Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. The last one was Journey into Mystery which was available on 2nd December. The remainder would have been released between those two dates, though I've not been able to find reliable data on those.

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Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule supplied art for both the Gunsmoke Western cover and the Kid Colt Outlaw one. It was a bumper month for Steve Ditko as he supplied covers for another pair of second issues, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. Dan de Carlo did the Millie the Model cover and Vince Colletta (studio?) provided the cover for My Own Romance. The remaining two covers - Journey into Mystery and Love Romances - were drawn by Russ Heath, making a rare return to Stan Lee's bullpen. 

Heath had been a fixture at the company from 1948 till about 1955, when he added DC Comics as a client and also provided to odd job to EC's fledgling Mad magazine. During 1957, his output for Stan Lee dwindled and by the end of that year he was working almost exclusively for DC. Those two covers, plus a four pager for Love Romances and another for Tales of Suspense, were Heath's sole output for Stan in 1958 ... after that Heath was pretty much exclusively a DC artist until, in the early 1960s, he began to acquire other clients, like Harvey and Dell. And let's not forget his unforgettable "204 Revolutionary War Soldiers" ad artwork ...

Who didn't want to have a 204-piece Revolutionary War set?

APRIL 1959

Strange Tales 68 was one of the first April cover-dated Magazine Management comic books on sale, hitting the stands on 2nd December 1958. The last would have been Patsy Walker, on sale 2nd January 1959. The others would have been scattered between these two days, but the only other confirmed on sale I could find was for Patsy and Hedy on 29 December.

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As Jack Kirby's assignments began to ramp up, he had four cover assignments for April - Strange Tales, Strange Worlds 2, World of Fantasy 17 and Wyatt Earp 22 - all inked by Christopher Rule. 

Al Hartley drew covers for the two Patsy books and the Battle cover was credited to Carl Burgos, though you could be forgiven for thinking it looks like a Russ Heath DC cover. Jack Davis did the cover for Two-Gun Kid, though the interior stories were all drawn by legendary "good-girl" artist Matt Baker.

MAY 1959

The first May cover-dated comics on sale from Goodman's company - Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish - were on the stands on 2nd January 1959. A month later, the May Journey into Mystery went on sale. The remaining titles were, presumably, on sale between those two dates. I'm not sure what the logic was here. I could understand if the titles were on sale a week or two apart, but a full month does seem excessive.

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Jack Kirby drew three covers for this month - Gunsmoke Western, Journey into Mystery and Tales to Astonish - all inked by Christopher Rule. The Kid Colt cover was by John Severin, and the Tales of Suspense art was by John Buscema, making a rare early appearance at the fledgling Marvel. The Millie cover was by Dan De Carlo, the Love Romances was drawn by Jay Scott Pike and the cover for My Own Romance was by the Vince Colletta studio, with possible pencils by Dick Giordano.

JUNE 1959

The June issues of the Magazine Management comics line hit the stands between 3rd February and 3rd March 1959. There was no change in the lineup from the February and April issues, so Marty must have been happy with the spread of genres, at least in these even-month titles.

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Month by month, Jack Kirby's share of the cover chores was increasing. This month, he drew five of the eight covers published - Battle (his first on that title), Strange Tales, Strange Worlds, Two-Gun Kid and World of Fantasy. Only the two Patsy covers (by Al Hartley) and the Wyatt Earp cover (by John Severin) were assigned to different artists.

JULY 1959

Most of the July dated issues were on the news-stands on 3rd March. For whatever reason, Journey into Mystery went on sale pretty much a whole month later.

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It was another bumper month for Jack Kirby. All but three of this month's covers were by Jack (with his inker de jour Christopher Rule). Millie the Model was a cover-to-cover Dan de Carlo fest, while the two romance books had cover art from the Vince Colletta studio.

AUGUST 1959

The earliest title on sale for this month was the Strange Tales, hitting gthe stands on 3rd April. The latest was the August cover-dated issue of Patsy Walker, going on sale on 5th May. The others would have scattered between those two dates, but I wasn't able to confirm any of the other release dates.

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Jack Kirby seemed to settling in as Stan's go-to cover artist, contributing, once again, five of the eight covers for this month. The Patsy titles sported covers by regular artist Al Hartley, and the Two-Gun Kid cover appears to be a re-purposed Joe Maneely inventory cover, originally drawn for Kid Colt - Outlaw, and likely fished out of a drawer and redrawn by production man Sol Brodsky.

Kirby's Strange Tales cover is probably the first to qualify as a Giant-Monster cover. There had been other Kirby-drawn monsters on previous anthology covers, but these were distinctly science fiction aliens. Here, we see the accent on the main fantasy titles moving away from sf towards a more Kaiju-style take on the genre.

SEPTEMBER 1959

The still-not-Marvel comics cover-dated September started going on sale on 5th May. Confirmed books on the stands on that day were Gunsmoke Western, Millie the Model, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. I can't vouch for any of the others, though I can tell you that Journey into Mystery arrived, stylishly late as usual, on 5 June.

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Jack Kirby was still knocking out covers at a rate of knots, pencilling Journey into Mystery, Love Romances, My Own Romance, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. The two western comic covers were by a pair of EC alumni - Jack Davis and John Severin. Can you tell which is which? And Dan De Carlo was still making Millie look like an Archie book.

OCTOBER 1959

Finally, as the end of the 1950s peeped above the horizon, Magazine Management publisher Martin Goodman decided to shake things up a bit. Strange Worlds and World of Fantasy were both dropped. An odd move, because the new fantasy titles, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish by all accounts were doing quite well. In their place were an all-new teenage character book, Kathy (the Teenage Tornado) and, in another odd decision by Goodman, a new Millie title, A Date with Millie, making Millie effectively a monthly. So why not just make Millie a monthly title and save himself the cost of revving up a new title?

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For anyone keeping score the line was now: five teen titles, four westerns, four fantasy/monster books, two romance comics and a war book.

Kirby's cover output took a bit of a hit as a result. Down from his usual five covers, Jack only contributed two for the October issues - Battle and Wyatt Earp. The remaining 75% of the cover art was supplied by Al Hartley (Patsy Walker and Patsy and Hedy), Jack Davis (Strange Tales), John Severin (Two-Gun Kid), Dan De Carlo (A Date With Millie) and Stan Goldberg (Kathy).

NOVEMBER 1959

The comics for the penultimate month of 1959 maintained the status quo. No more dispatching and hatching - at least for the time being. The earliest on sale date for this batch was 1st July (Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish). Journey into Mystery followed a full month later on 31st July.

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The Gunsmoke Western cover was patched together from two old Joe Maneely covers (Wyatt Earp 18, Aug 1958 and Kid Colt 75, Nov 1957). Jack Kirby pencilled Journey into Mystery, Kid Colt, Love Romances, My Own Romance, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. Stan Goldberg was left with the Millie cover, as Dan De Carlo was pretty much exclusive with Archie Comics from the November cover dates onwards.

DECEMBER 1959

The last Magazine Management comics cover dated for 1959 were on sale during September of that year. Except for Strange Tales which was on the stands for the end of July. Go figure. The even months were now down to just one fantasy book, and overloaded with teen titles, but I guess Marty must've known what he was doing.

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Kirby contributed pencil art for the Battle, Strange Tales and Wyatt Earp covers. Stan Goldberg stepped into Dan De Carlo's shoes for the Date with Millie and Kathy titles and Al Hartley continued to soldier on with the Patsy titles. That left John Severin to pick up the art chores on the Two-Gun Kid cover.

Here's a bit of wild speculation. What if Martin Goodman launched A Date with Millie and Kathy, thinking that Stan Lee would get De Carlo to draw them. Of course, that would have meant De Carlo giving up his Archie work, as he wouldn't have time to do it all. If I'm right, then the plan backfired mightily when Dan packed up his pencils and moved over to Riverdale, leaving Goodman without his star teen-book cartoonist.

Next: Teenage Mutant Marvel All-Stars

Marvel Comics Cover Gallery - 1958

COMPARED TO 1957, MARVEL'S OUTPUT FOR 1958 was a pretty sorry-looking affair. From a high of 45 titles in April 1957, their output had plummeted to just eight comics a month, a consequence of Martin Goodman's attempt to chisel a few extra dollars by folding his own Atlas Distribution and signing a contract with the doomed American News Company (ANC). It didn't end well.

JANUARY 1958

Although cover-dated for the first month on 1958, this batch of titles - no longer Atlas, but not yet Marvels - went on sale during September 1957.

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The lineup consisted of two romance books, two teen humour titles, two westerns, a war book and a kiddie comic, Homer the Happy Casper ripoff. This would remain the lineup for most of the year.

Though Stan had been made to let most of the Bullpen go, Joe Maneely was still one of his go-to artists, providing the cover art for Gunsmoke Western and Kid Colt. The romance titles continued with covers by the Vince Colletta studio. Dan De Carlo, not yet completely departed for Archie, drew covers for Homer and Millie and the war comic cover was by Bill Everett. These may have been inventory pieces, but as the year wore on, Stan would have to start commissioning again.

FEBRUARY 1958

Similarly, the even-numbered months in 1958 carried on with the same lineup that Goodman had instigated at the end of 1957, when his comic line was up and running again. Of these February-dated books the earliest on sale was Strange Tales 61 on 27 Sep 1957 and the latest was Patsy Walker 75 on 28 Oct 1957.

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That month gave us a pair of war books (covers by Bill Everett) and couple of teen humour titles (art by Patsy regular Al Hartley), two westerns (covers by Joe Maneely) and a brace of mystery books long-time Marvel stalwarts Bill Everett on Strange Tales and Carl Burgos on World of Fantasy.

Looking at the output for these first two months, it dawned on me that there was a reason why, in the early 1960s just as the superhero books were getting started, Stan hired second-string writers to script the superhero stories in Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, while keeping the westerns and the Millie and Patsy books for himself. He must have feared the superhero bubble would burst and that his time was better spent keeping the sales of the non-heroes books on track by writing those himself. Later in the 1960s he would do the opposite, farming out Millie and Sgt Fury to new assistant Roy Thomas while handling all the super-hero books himself.

MARCH 1958

The March-dated Marvels continued in very much the same vein, the lineup matching January's exactly, and on sale late October to early November 1957. I would imagine Goodman would have been very reluctant to change his portfolio this early into the process. He'd be waiting for initial sales figures to come in before doing any tweaking. But he would start tweaking. Any guesses as to what got deep-sixed and what got the old Goodman "match and hatch"? No peeking, though ...

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The western covers were again by Joe Maneely. Dan De Carlo drew the Homer and the Millie covers, and Colletta was responsible for the art on the two romance covers. Patsy Walker artist Al Hartley drew the Miss America cover and the Marines in Battle cover was by another of Stan's close personal friends, Fred Kida.

APRIL 1958

It's not a surprise, then, that the April post-Atlas comics were the same titles as we saw in February. On sale from late November to early December 1957.

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The Battle and World of Fantasy covers were by Bill Everett, the Navy Combat, Two-Gun Kid and Strange Tales were Joe Maneely efforts. The two Patsy covers were, as expected, by Al Hartley. The Wyatt Earp cover was by John Severin.

MAY 1958

With still no change in the lineup, the May cover-dated titles went on sale across the holiday period, from late December 1957 to early January 1958.

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The Gunsmoke Western, Kid Colt Outlaw and Marines in Battle covers were by Joe Maneely. Dan De Carlo did the Homer and the Millie covers. The two romance covers were by Vince Colletta, or his studio. Al Hartley provided the cover for Miss America.

JUNE 1958

The post-Atlas titles cover-dated for June went on sale between 28 Jan 1958 (Strange Tales) and 25 Feb (Patsy Walker). Presumably, the rest fall somewhere in between.

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Bill Everett contributed cover art for the two mystery titles, and Joe Maneely was responsible for the Navy Combat cover and the two western books. The other war cover was by John Severin. The two Patsy covers were, of course, by Al Hartley.

JULY 1958

Of the July cover-dated comics, Kid Colt was on sale earliest on 25 Feb 1958. Almost a month later, readers got to peruse the Gunsmoke Western on 27 Mar 1958. Goodness knows when the rest hit the newsstands, but it'll likely have been between those two dates.

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Vince Colletta provided the pencils and ins for the two romance titles. The western books and the Marines in Battle comic all had cover art by Joe Maneely. The covers for Homer and Millie were drawn by Dan De Carlo and Al Hartley contributed the cover to Miss America.

AUGUST 1958

The only definitive on-sale dates I could find for the August pre-Marvel comics were for Patsy Walker and Strange Tales, both hitting the stands on 27 Mar 1958. My best guess is the remainder would have been before the end of April.

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Joe Maneely was especially busy this month, drawing the covers for Battle, Navy Combat, Strange Tales, Two-Gun Kid and Wyatt Earp. Al Hartley came second, pencilling and inking the two Patsy covers. Limping along in the rear was Bill Everett with his cover for World of Fantasy.

SEPTEMBER 1958

Of all the September cover-dated issues, only Kid Colt - Outlaw is given an on-sale date by GCD - 25 Apr 1958. Judging by some of the above on-sale date ranges, it seems safe to conclude that the remainder of the September titles would have been on sale from end of April to end of May. Unless someone knows differently.

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Of these covers, the westerns were both by Joe Maneely, Homer and Millie were both by Dan De Carlo. The Marines in Battle - which would be the final issue - featured Carl Burgos art and Miss America's cover was by Al Hartley. While the My Own Romance is probably entirely Vince Colletta, or at least his studio, there is some speculation that the Love Romances cover may have been pencilled by Matt Baker. Baker did a fair bit of work for Atlas (and Charlton) after the Comics Code shut down his main customer St John. Ironically, it was Baker's cover for Phantom Lady 17 (Apr 1948) that gave weight to Frederic Wertham's case that comics needed regulating.

OCTOBER 1958

I was only able to find definitive on-sale dates for Patsy Walker (26 Jun 1958) and Strange Tales (24 June1958). The rest of the titles would likely have been on the newsstands earlier in the month. As the sales figures started to come in, Goodman began tweaking his lineup. The war books would have been the lowest sellers, as this month he also cancelled Navy Combat.

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In another bumper month for Joe Maneely, Stan commissioned him to draw covers for Navy Combat, Strange Tales, Two-Gun Kid, World of Fantasy and Wyatt Earp. That same month he also drew 19 interior pages for Two-Gun Kid, 17 interior pages for Charlton's Wyatt Earp title, another five pages for Charlton's Tex Ritter and five pages for Cracked magazine (no surprise as editor Sol Brodsky used many Marvel stalwarts at that time). The other Marvel covers were picked up by Al Hartley on the two Patsy titles, and Fred Kida contributing the cover for Battle.

NOVEMBER 1958

With Marines in Battle out of the way, Goodman was free to replace it with something he thought might sell better. It's a safe bet that the mystery titles were doing well, because Uncle Marty took the opportunity to reinstate a veteran Atlas title, Journey into Mystery, noted by GCD as being on sale 27 Jul 1958. The same source has Kid Colt on the newsstands on 26 Jun 1958. The rest would have fallen between those two dates.

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Stan's go-to guy Joe Maneely drew the covers for Gunsmoke Western, Kid Colt - Outlaw and Journey into Mystery (though I'm really not sure about the face on the guy at bottom right). Matt Baker (with Colletta on inks) was the credited cover artist for the Love Romances, and probably for the My Own Romance, too. As before, Millie and Homer were drawn by Dan De Carlo and Al Hartley provided the Miss America cover.

DECEMBER 1958

The year was rounded out with another substitution. Martin Goodman took Navy Combat off the field and brought on a new mystery title, Strange Worlds. It's an odd decision, because skinflint that he was, Goodman might have saved a few dollars by reviving one of his cancelled mystery titles. Yet he went to the time and trouble to fire up a new comic starting with number 1. Yes, Strange Worlds had more of a science fiction slant (Marty was always late the the party, as the sf movie boom had really gotten underway in the early 1950s), but still ... money is money. I wonder if it might have had something to do with the new artist Stan was welcoming to the Bullpen ... Jack Kirby.

The December pre-Marvels went to the news vendors between Strange Tales' 25 Jul 1958 and Patsy Walker's 2 Sep 1958.

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Naturally enough, the cover for Strange Worlds was pencilled by Kirby and inked by Atlas regular Christopher Rule, as was the cover for World of Fantasy. The production dates for these issue would have been around late May to early June, so it would have been just a couple of weeks before Joe Maneely's terrible fatal accident. 

The covers for Battle, Strange Tales and Wyatt Earp would have been some of the last pieces he drew for Stan. The two Patsy covers were by Al Hartley, as you might expect and EC's Jack Davis was the cover artist for Two-Gun Kid, and drew two interior stories, one of which had a Joe Maneely splash page. It's likely that was Joe's last bit of work for Stan, and that Davis drew the remaining pages of the story. Joe Maneely was just 32.

Next: The Other Best Marvel Comics Annual