The first thing that made me curious about Adventure magazine were the stories, of course. After that, I was drawn to the covers. When I started collecting, I picked up issues and looked through the covers frequently, even though I would not read them immediately.
I was curious to see the top cover themes, and see how that changed over time. Thanks to Galactic Central site, I got a list of covers and started typing in cover themes. Of course, your choice of theme for a picture might be different than mine, so take this list with a pinch of salt.
However, that said, here are the top themes by number of covers. Western and cowboy covers together accounted for more than a hundred issues, and nautical themes another hundred. Together, the top 10 themes accounted for almost 2/3rds of the 753 issues from 1910-1953
| Theme | Number of issues |
| Cowboy | 73 |
| Northwestern | 68 |
| Pirate | 58 |
| Sailor | 56 |
| Ship | 45 |
| WW2 | 42 |
| Explorer | 39 |
| Animal | 37 |
| Western | 34 |
| Warrior | 32 |
Surprisingly for a magazine covering adventures in foreign locations, no one locale dominated covers, though collectively, Arab, China and Africa themed covers added up to 35, taking eighth spot on the list (or they would have if I had added them together).
Themes across the years were almost the same, with the nautical theme showing up repeatedly with at least one cover a year across 33 years. Similarly, a Northwestern themed cover appeared at least once a year for 30 years and Cowboy themed covers for 29 years.
Looking through the covers, it saddens me to see that most of these genres don't have much popularity these days. Perhaps the only genre remaining active on the shelves is western/cowboy fiction and not much of that these days, either. A pity that tastes have changed so much. I know what i'm going to read tonight before going to sleep, and I'm going to have a pleasant time rooting through my collection tonight.
Wish you the same and look to hear from you.
