Comic Book Covers from the Digital Comic Museum

The Digital Comic Museum is an invaluable online resource that features over 15,000 full-issue scans of comic books from the 1940s and 50s. The scans are uploaded by a wide variety of contributors, and although the quality varies, most are clean and true to the originals (i.e., not too much touch-up). There’s a giant array of genres represented: crime, humor, romance, westerns, war, kids, and an inexplicably large collection of very un-woke jungle-themed books with titles like White Princess of the Jungle. The covers, with their vivid colors, energetic imagery and delightfully graphic typography designed to pop off newsstands and comics racks, are a total visual treat. And the insides will provide any comics nerd hours (and hours and hours) of reading fun.

Here’s a gallery of some of my current favorite covers from their collection. You can see plenty more at the Digital Comic Museum.

(Above): Crimes By Women, 1948

Crack Comics, 1940. Pencils and inks by Gill Fox.

Zoot, 1947. Pencils and inks by Jack Kamen.

Atomic War!, 1952

Guns Against Gangsters, 1948. Pencils and inks by L.B. Cole.

Juke Box, 1948. On the cover: Dinah Shore.

Criminals on the Run, 1949

Slam-Bang Comics, 1940

The Informer, 1954

Slave Girl, 1949. Pencils by Howard Larsen.