G.I. Joe issue 19 corner box

 In my re-read of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics, I found something weird about issue 19.

I discovered that the first ninety-nine issues of G.I. Joe had the same exact corner box differing only in color schemes. Issue 100 broke the tradition and going forward the corner box would cycle through various artworks of several of the main characters. 

The only exception to that first ninety-nine issues was issue 19.

What are we even talking about? Long time fans of Marvel Comics will know exactly what we're referring to. The corner box in almost all classic Marvel comics was a traditional part of the comic cover art. This is the rectangle that has the Marvel logo and below it is a picture of a character or often just the head of the characters of the relevant book. Below the image was the issue number, the month and the US $ price and in tiny print the UK and CAN(ada) prices. Earlier publications had these at the very top. At some point the issue number and prices moved to the bottom of the box. In G.I. Joe's run, this happened between issues 15 and 16. 

 

That artwork in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero's corner box was one of the franchise's very first characters named Grunt. The image was drawn by Herb Trimpe and is truly iconic. He did some cover art work for the IDW relaunched/continuation of G.I. Joe ARAH.

So what is going on with the corner box of issue 19? 

I managed to find a reference to what this is on Option38.com. This was part of an event called Assistant Editor's Month. Apparently there was a whole lot of mischief happening all across the Marvel continuity relating to the event. Here's what Option38 said:

This was released in Marvel’s infamous “assistant editors’ month”. A lot of Marvel titles had cheeky shenanigans that month, like running “Aunt May & Franklin Richards vs. Galactus” in Marvel Team-up or having the Avengers appear on Late Night with David Letterman. No chicanery present in this title, except for the cover’s corner box: instead of the usual shot of Grunt, it’s a shot of assistant editor Linda Grant in a helmet, with explosions about. I didn’t know it was Grant until recently–I had always assumed it was Scarlett.

According to this CBR article, Linda also published an unapproved file about Snake-Eyes in issue 19.

Linda Grant was once an assistant editor at Marvel Comics. Her name is in the credits of several titles, including Alpha Flight, Amazing Spider-Man, Dazzler, Moon Knight, The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, and of course G.I. Joe.

It was Linda Grant all along. One of the few real life people to be featured in the Marvel corner box.