The World's Greatest Pin-Up Magazine!

I was quite pleased that several of my trusty commenters (thanks, guys!) picked up on the unspoken "moral of the story" I was trying to get across in yesterday's "Ten of a Kind"—that you can have a comic book cover sans dialogues, blurbs, and captions, but which is still dynamic, compelling, and which gives you a tease of the story within. In other words, a comic book that inspires the reaction "I gotta read that!" instead of "Have I read this one already?":


Or, to quote my friend Snuckles, the poetry-writing pig:

Pretty to look at
Delightful to hold
If I can't 'member I bought it
That's one more copy sold.

What's interestin' to me is that the trend at Marvel seemed to start with the Ultimate line, but those books have now moved to more representational covers. While the first couple years more often than not featured generic pin-up covers, the recent runs give us a taste of the contents right up front. Here's the first issue next to the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Fantastic Four:
I fully admit the generic pin-up covers are often lovely and impressive, but I've always felt they should be the exception, not the rule. While I realize that comics are now a self-selling medium and no longer rely on catching kids' eyes on the news rack in order to make a sale, I'd certainly love to see more Marvels moving to memorable imagery tying into the story rather than just some dramatic posing. Save the dramatic stances for anniversary issues or variant covers, why doncha?

But Bully, you ask, is there any place where pin-up imagery is appropriate all the time? Why, of course there is! In the contents of the book itself. I say bring back the Mighty Marvel Pin-Up Pages of old, like this treasury of fantastic...er, Fantastic Four mini-posters that I handily clipped out of my mint copies of early Kirby comics and taped on my wall. Let's all take a big wondrous gaze at 'em, shall we?









All of the above examples are from the great FF age of Lee and Kirby, and the pin-up pages mostly fell into disuse after that era, but John Byrne resurrected them for his "Back to the Basics" FF run:




Some may complain that pin-up pages take one page of the story away, but I say, bring 'em back! They're interesting, colorful, inventive and best of all, fun.

Also, with all my pin-up pages, I totally don't have to buy wallpaper now.