75 Years Ago, a DC Cover Changed the Company For Decades

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Each month, I revisit a comic book issue from either 10, 25, or 50 years in the past. We also throw in a surprise issue when there’s a fifth week in a month. This time, a little behind schedule, I’m looking back at April 1951 to feature the very first comic book cover starring a gorilla!

Comic book covers have always been important, and they still are – I even wrote about this a while back. However, they were significantly more crucial to the comic book market in previous years.

For many years, comic books were primarily sold in places like newsstands and drug stores. This meant people usually bought them on a whim, rather than going to the store specifically to find a particular comic. Because of this, the cover art became incredibly important – it was what ultimately convinced someone to make an impulse purchase.

Because of this popularity, comic book companies really focused on their cover art. In fact, a well-known Superman editor, Mort Weisinger, frequently asked young readers for their opinions on different covers. This is actually how Cary Bates began his career at DC Comics – he started as a teenager!

A truly significant comic book cover from the 1950s is the April 1951 issue of Strange Adventures #8. Created by veteran DC artist Win Mortimer, this cover was so influential that it shaped DC’s cover designs for decades to come!

What was Strange Adventures #8’s cover feature about?

This story takes a really unexpected turn! Writer Gardner Fox and artist Bob Oksner steer it in a completely different direction than you might anticipate. It begins with a woman passing the zoo and noticing a crowd gathered around a talking ape. She initially assumes it’s a publicity gimmick – something that Stan Lee would later become famous for, but it’s amusing to see this idea used so early on. However, she’s stunned to discover the gorilla is actually her own brother!

This is where the story takes a surprising turn. It turns out the man isn’t her brother at all, but Johnny, a friend of her brothers. Johnny discovered that a scientist friend had invented a device that could evolve living things, and he planned to use it to assist in criminal activities. Ralph protested, and Johnny unintentionally killed him during a struggle over the device. To avoid being arrested, Johnny then used the machine to alter his appearance.

Johnny goes through many surprising transformations, but eventually changes so much that he loses control and restarts the evolutionary process, finding himself as a gorilla! He attempts to blend in by disguising himself, but is ultimately found out and ends up at the zoo.

By pretending to be Ralph – using details about Ralph’s sister that only a friend would know – he manages to escape the zoo. However, he lacks Ralph’s scientific expertise, and gradually begins to lose his human qualities, ultimately becoming more and more like a gorilla.

Wow, what a bleak ending!

How did this comic book affect DC Comics’ covers for many years?

Irwin Donenfeld, the son of DC Comics’ founder and a DC executive in the 1950s and 60s, understood the importance of compelling comic book covers. He told Jon B. Cooke that he kept a record of cover art alongside sales figures to see what resonated with readers. By tracking this data, he learned that certain images boosted sales – famously, he discovered that covers featuring gorillas were particularly successful.

Although Donenfeld didn’t officially become a DC executive until after this comic was released, he clearly followed cover designs and sales figures even before joining the company – which makes sense, considering he was the son of DC’s founder. In a 1991 interview with Comics Interview, Julius Schwartz shared his thoughts on the gorilla trend in comics:

Sales for Strange Adventures were a little better than most comics at the time. The editor, Irwin Donenfeld – Harry Donenfeld’s son – noticed a significant jump in sales. He wondered what caused it, because back then, magazines and comics were only sold in stores – there were no subscriptions or direct sales. A good cover was what caught people’s attention. We examined the cover that had caused the increase: it showed a gorilla in a zoo cage, looking out at the people, but the gorilla was holding a slate and had written a message in chalk: ‘Please help me, I am the victim of a horrible scientific experiment…’ After thinking about it, I realized the issue likely resonated with readers because the gorilla was portrayed as human-like. From then on, I made sure all my gorilla covers showed the gorilla acting like a person, rather than just being a gorilla.

Regardless of how it started, DC Comics began using gorilla-themed covers very frequently throughout the 1950s and 60s! It’s worth noting that gorillas had appeared on comic covers before Strange Adventures #8, but not ones that could talk.

And it all started with Strange Adventures #8!

I’m looking for suggestions of comic books with cover dates for May (or any month) of 1951, 1976, 2001, and 2016 to feature in a spotlight. If you have any ideas, please email me at brianc@cbr.com! Just a quick note about cover dates: comics usually hit stores about two months after the date printed on the cover (sometimes three, but not in these cases). For example, a comic with an October cover date likely came out in August. It’s easier to pinpoint release dates for more recent books, as there’s more online information available.

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2026-05-11 13:41