Virtual comic book newsstand displays all the comics on the rack for any given month and year

Ruben Bolling alerted me to this cool website. You enter a month and year, and it will return a page of thumbnail images of all the comic books that were available on newsstands for that month. Above, a few of the comic books available in February 1973, the month that I first became seriously interested in comic books, mainly because I discovered Jack Kirby's Kamandi.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Mister44

Wow – that brings back a lot of memories.
http://russelljsmith.co.uk/ Russell James Smith

Wow, checked the month I was born and discovered Marvel published a comic apparently based on “2001: A Space Odyssey”, did everyone know about this already? Looks very interesting: http://www.dcindexes.com/gallery/gallery.php?site=marvel&seriesid=4496
- http://BrianEaston.net/ Brian Easton
  
  It’s where Machine Man came from.
  - http://russelljsmith.co.uk/ Russell James Smith
    
    Huh, I think they ran a Machine Man story once as the backup strip to the Marvel UK Transformers comic in the mid-eighties, don’t remember much about it though. Might have to dig it up and take another look.
- Halloween_Jack
  
  Yep–comics’ best cosmic cartoonist (sorry, Starlin) riffing off of the original cosmic movie (Kirby also did the official adaptation of Kubrick’s movie).
http://www.zazzle.com/InfinitudeTortoises* An Infinitude of Tortoises

This is utterly fanfrakkintastic — many thanks and congratulations to all responsible parties! One may indeed not be able to go home again, but now at least one can lurk outside and peek in the windows….
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1100557977 David Murphy

This is big publisher only stuff. Underground comics are missing.
- http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
  
  Nor does it contain European magazines. Nor Manga. Nor….. anything else not typically found on the average American newsstand from 1935 to now.
  
  WHAT A GYP
http://www.seriouslyspain.com/ Seriously Spain

Checked the year I was born. Had NO idea comic books like that were being sold then. Very cool. Thanks Boing Boing. Looking at that site could become addictive. The artwork is so cool :)
Halloween_Jack

Pretty neat–for mine, many of the Marvel titles are still in single or low double digits, and Kirby seems to be drawing four or five of them, although maybe he’s just doing covers for some of them (Ditko is still on Spider-Man). In the meantime, Curt Swan is drawing Superman about the same way that he would be two decades later.
Vanwall Green

Strange trip…Spiderman wasn’t around until a few more months, the Marvel revolution hadn’t happened yet, really. It was a fun ride for a seven-year old, to see things start and then change so massively in just a few years. Ditko was the only Spidey artist for me for years after. Kirby blew everything away, back then visually, too. DC was left behind in the dust, and never really caught up, I think, altho I had faves of theirs, too. I really loved Herbie Popnecker and Fatman comics.
JPhilipp

Love stuff like this. I also got a search for anything (including years) at Cover Browser, for instance, try http://www.coverbrowser.com/search?q=1977
http://twitter.com/Pogophile Lynn Savage

Now, if only Comixology would package sets of digital comics in this way!
http://profiles.google.com/mhamblen Mick Hamblen

Liked Kirby’s New Gods
Jim Eubanks

I like the 20-cent cover prices. I eventually had to give up comics due to rising prices and I still miss them.
http://twitter.com/peterbebergal Peter Bebergal

The purpose of the internet has been fulfilled.
- xkot
  
  I feel exactly the same way, Peter. A tear lies happily upon my cheek.
http://www.facebook.com/proscriptus David B Traver Adolphus

Kamandi! The postnuclear boy! Dang, I wish I could remember the name of his giant mutant grasshopper.

In retrospect this was probably not what I should have been reading at that age.