Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Lois Lane Comic: Two in-house covers



The cover to Lois Lane Comic #124 is reprinted, with some modifications, from the splash page to the story Death Rides The Wheels!:


This story was originally published in Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #125:


One might think, given the proximate issue numbers, that these two issues were issued contemporaneously, but they weren't. In fact, the cover and lead story appeared earlier under the original Planet Comics logo in All Favourites Comic #102: 


To the best of my knowledge (ie: a quick check on GCD) Death Rides The Wheels! wasn't reprinted by DC, so the reprint by K.G. Murray in Lois Lane Comic #124 was a conscious decision to recycle material - and hence the splash page as front cover.

Lois Lane Comic was the new title for the All Favourites Comic series, picking up the numbering from #112 onwards with the new Planet Comics logo. This change from a generic, all purpose title to a character-based title occurred for many series at this time - for example, Tip Top Comic Monthly converted to Batman with #128. But, whilst Batman continued presenting new Batman stories and covers based on the US series, without missing a beat from the Tip Top series, the Lois Lane issues had more instances of such in-house production decisions.

For example, the cover to Lois Lane Comic #125:


This image is a composite of art appearing in the first two pages:



The story, Superman Marry Me, originally appeared in Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #131:


To the best of my knowledge, this cover didn't appear on a previous Planet Comics issue.

However, Superman Marry Me did appear as a support feature in an earlier Planet comics issue - All Favourites Comic #107:


As you can see, this cover is not based on Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #131 (it's from Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #130).

So what happened to the local cover print of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #131? Was it misplaced? Was it not offered to K.G. Murray?

Obviously there were so many US covers which did not appear in Australia, due to discrepant page counts which resulted in  many headline cover stories appearing as backups in the local editions. But were they offered and necessarily ignored? Or did the local publishers only receive the requisite amount of material for the local productions? The latter theory doesn't seem likely - but based on the sample of Superman Marry Me, it does appear possible.

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