I love going barefoot in the summer and wearing shorts. In a way, the fall ritual of wearing pants every day seems like I’ve done a poor job negotiating my terms of surrender to the cruel reality of the change in season. It’s tragic – to be sure – but it’s still a little ways off, isn’t it? Can’t I just enjoy the end of August and still consider it summer?

And along the lines of that whole idea of less is more, can I make a case for the joys of coverless comics? They are so carefree, so fun. When I read an old comic without a cover, I’m not worried about the condition of the comic, and certainly not worried that anything I do will deflate the value. In today’s grade-conscious comics work, it’s invigorating to read a comic like a kid again: to curl the cover back on the spine and maybe even to drip a little ice cream onto it.

(But my wife not set her coffee mug on them, nonetheless!)

I enjoyed a few coverless (and ¾ cover) comics this summer. As many of you know, in the old days, newsstands could return unsold comics to the distributor and get their money back. But after a short while, folks realized that sending the whole comic (or magazine) back was costly and inefficient. What if instead, they just ripped the covers off, sent them into the distributor as “proof” and then destroyed the comic? Or maybe they could just send in the logo of the cover for credit. That was the idea, but thankfully – so many “valiantly unscrupulous” newsstand dealers just didn’t have the heart to destroy the comics. So, they’d re-sell the coverless comics at a discount to other venues. Continue reading “With Further Ado #262: The Joys of Going Coverless” →