Ten random things: Reader Request Month, day 17

Ten comic books featuring real people on their covers:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow and Tara: Wannablessedbe -- Amber Benson and Allyson Hannigan
   
    
2. Avengers no. 239 -- David Letterman
   
    
3. Veronica no. 9 -- Mikhail Gorbachev
   
    
4. Heroes vs. Hitler no. 1 -- Adolph Hitler
   
    
5. Smallville no. 1 -- Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, and Tom Welling
   
    
6. Jackie Jokers no. 2 -- Richard Nixon
   
    
7. Prince: Alter Ego -- Prince
   
    
8. The Life of Pope John Paul II -- Pope John Paul II
   
    
9. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen no. 411 -- Don Rickles
   
    
10. Football Thrills no. 1 -- Red Grange
    

It's a tradition this time of year to fulfill a reader request by posting a bunch of comic book covers. And for the second year running it's amandajane5 whose request is so honored. She wanted to see -- and this will come as a shock to many of you -- Tom Welling in a list. Just like last year. And see him she shall! If she clicks through the lj-cuts.

This list allowed me the opportunity to indulge in one of the stupid semantic arguments I have with myself from time to time while composing lists. This time around the question was whether photo covers were pictures of the actors or of the characters they play. Because clearly if a comic showed Clark Kent as played by Tom Welling, I couldn't include it. Ultimately, it came down to a judgment call as to whether the photo was a promotional photo or a production still. That Smallville cover looks like a promotional photo to me, as did the Buffy cover. I ultimately rejected this My Favorite Martian cover because it seemed to me more like a production still of Uncle Martin than a promotional photo of Ray Walston. (Though the presence of Ray Walston's name right on the cover may indicate that the publisher thought otherwise. But who cares what they think?)

One other note of "interest" -- I featured the first comic above in last year's comic book covers list, only then I used the far superior art cover by Terry Moore. And as always, the covers came from the Grand Comic Book Database, though I owe a debt of gratitude to Chris Sims of the Invincible Super-Blog for letting me know about the Prince comic, Mag of The Comic Treadmill for bringing Football Thrills to my attention, and Mister Kitty of Stupid Comics for featuring the Jackie Jokers cover.