Zombos Says: Very Good
There's an irresponsible, commercially driven abandon, tawdriness, and pandering to prurience seen in many of the comic book covers of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. How wonderful!
From the crowded magazine racks of the time, these covers must have screamed "Buy Me!" to those young boys holding onto their slippery dimes as they rummaged among the pulp pages to find the baddest issues to spend them on, and share with their friends. (I'm sure girls spent their dimes, too, but I doubt it would have been for any of these testosterone-building wonders.)
Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers aof the Golden Age 1933-1945 boasts, in lurid colors and terrifying situations, long-haired dames in distress and undress, fiendish scientists armed with sharp instruments and drooling ghouls, dashing and brawny heroes rushing to the rescue, and evil villains with guns and hooded figures with sharp knives, and enough sensationalism to fill a book, which in this case would be the whole comic.
The best artists condensed all this action, thrill, and mystery into a one-page visual story that told you everything you needed to know about that issue from it's cover, give or take a little accuracy or so. Looking at these covers you'll see the beginnings of the horror tropes we see to this day.
Greg Sadowski provides capsule comments on each of the covers shown in this collection, citing their artists, but unless you're a diehard golden age comic book fan, the information isn't very satisfying because it assumes you know who he's talking about.
But these covers are completey satisfying. In this less golden age of false propriety and parroting of values without substance, it's refreshing to just go with the flow of all this innocent naughtiness.
Now, if I can just get them in poster size… please?