Happy February!

I was up for about two hours this morning before I realized it was a new month!  What a nightmare January seems to have been!  It ended nicely though....despite the cancellation of recess, my teaching partner and I threw on our jackets and got our students outside for twenty minutes.  We secured a bus in the afternoon and went to the high school to see a wonderful performance of "Guys and Dolls" (co-directed by The Armchair Squid) with all of the fifth grades.  And I ended the day with Nan, our boy, and a dozen friends at an impromptu gathering at our local Buffalo Wild Wings.

So here are some of my favorite comic book covers with February dates:

February 1963

My oldest February comic.  I found this on my desk last year but with no recollection of where it came from.  I am meticulous with my records and couldn't find any invoice or any indication as to where it came from.  It should probably bug me more than it does...

February 1966

Another issue from "The Riley Collection"...I probably should read it just to find out what's the deal with Susan!

February 1978

One of the best Batman/Joker stories of all time.  The writer, Steve Englehart, once wrote that the comics from this run "define the modern Batman franchise, and from that, the modern superhero film franchise."  

February 1981

One of the last great self-contained stories in the X-Men franchise.  The entire story that will be the basis of the next X-Men film was completed in two issues.  Today it would be a twelve issue mini-series with numerous spin-offs and no lasting repercussions...

February 1983

My comic book collecting software assigns numbers to everything.  If I had been thinking long term when I started using it, this comic would be number 1.  This is the one that started it all.  Not a terribly remarkable cover but this is the one that started my obsessi....hobby!  

I just mentioned to Nan this morning that someday it might be fun to get a piece of original art from this issue!  While looking to see what was out there, I found this image of the original cover choice:

I remember once seeing an image of the two covers combined but I thought it was done purely as a goof...I had no idea they had messed up originally and someone blended the two covers together!