Phil those are some sexy covers. I like pre code gals. They reflected the refined sexy (and it help I love 50's women's fashion) that most "sexy" at least in comics, doesn't do anymore. I like the one you posted in Classic comic covers contest too. There's another horror comic someone posted in the cover contest on the "falling" theme of a gal getting thrown off a roller coaster that despite that probably not being the intention was sexy to me. The gal at least not some much her situation. Though I'm not one to lie that gals in peril can work as a sexy cover too.

I think that what I particularly find about 70's and older, especially 50's and older too (not sure the publishing date on a lot of pre code comics) is it seems naturally sexy. Like trying to explain what Bettie Page had that no other gal in my opinion to date can even come close to duplicating much less surpassing. It wasn't gaudy, maybe the word I'm looking for. It just happen to be artists that could duplicate the women on their time with a pencil and paper.

While I like Lady Death, Nira X, Vampirella, and others of the 90's and later there was no doubt they weren't real. Even if there were vampires or female personifications of death I doubt they'd dress like that.

But those gals in covers like those in crime, horror and romance of the old times you could actually believe there was a real woman as a inspiration for the ones that graced the covers of comics like these. And that, inadvertent on the artist part or not, is sexy.

You have great taste IMHO Warlock. It certainly was a rich period for so-called "Good Girl Art." In the context of the late 1940s, these would have been very provocative images being sold alongside Superman, Batman, et al. Nonetheless, not a few Golden Age artists seemed to very adeptly showcase female characters. Here's Timely's Syd Shores doing it (granted, the shoes had to be murder).
 

Blonde Phantom from Marvel


Here's a couple of my favorites







I had a friend, who passed away 5 years ago and he had a nice run of these comics and I remember seeing these two covers from his selection. I always liked this series and I wished I had these books - but his younger brother now have these books and I see them now and then. I'm a sucker for a lovely lady in a red flowing dress.

I'm sure this was purchased by a few purely for the "kinky Boots" aspect.

Superman # 261

I agree with this entirely. I've started to develop an interest in the pin-up art of the mid-20th century, and while some of it is certainly risqué, it still stays on the "good girl" side of the field. The women, while being portrayed in a sexy manner, still maintain a modicum of innocence and an almost playfulness that is absent from what passes for "sexy" now, which, IMO, too often veers to the "slutty" side of the field.   

The covers Phil shared are "sexy", while that Battlechasers one from a couple of days ago is "slutty", designed only to titillate (and not very effectively, if I must say) 

I won't argue Adam Hughes is one of the artist capable of drawing sexy women, that comic never made my 90s comic purchases because I have almost zero interest in the western or cowboy and Indians genre of any entertainment medium. So I was defiantly judging that book by its cover.

I was already reading Airboy but you can tell from one of my early desktops, that cover did make an impression.