Covers. Just covers. Ya know?
The Activity #11
Cover by Mitch Gerads
Butterflies and heavy weaponry? That’s how I like my dissonance served. In series like The Activity and The Sixth Gun (also featured this week) with uniform cover treatments month in and month out, I often find the repeated design elements distract from or even hinder any new imagery in display. There’s just a smaller window for newness. This month, the snapshot is so unusual, so striking, that I couldn’t help but stare. It’s an invitation to story.
X-Men Legacy #5
Cover by Mike Del Mundo & Jorge Molina
So, disclaimer. I’m writing the AR recaps for this series. You can actually fire up Marvel’s app and hold your smartphone up to this image for a quick refresher on issue #4. Anyways, each time I sit down to write the little script, I’m tasked with explaining David Haller’s astonishing psionic power set and his equally fascinating methods of keeping it all in check. See, Legion has a noggin full of alternate personalities, each with their own mental ability. But they’re pretty loud and unhappy to be up there. So he’s constructed a prison for them in his imagination. It’s an elegant solution to a fairly heady problem. This cover does an excellent job of visualizing it in a really playful fashion.
Nowhere Men #3
Cover by Nate Bellegarde, Jordie Bellaire, Fonografiks
Squeaky-clean design juxtaposed with an admittedly gross monster limb makes for a perfect science fiction cover. A great argument for white space in a market that frequently abuses it. The texture, lighting and hues on that damp, glimmering arm demand that great full-body squirm. Yeck! And on the back? Best bean-bag chair design ever.
The Sixth Gun
Cover by Brian Hurtt & Bill Crabtree
The Sixth Gun is a wonderful series, but as I alluded to above, I rarely end up spotlighting its covers. Much as I like the concept of vignettes on the cover, the two or three scenes depicted aren’t always presented cohesively. It’s a lot of information, and its commonly a ways too disjointed to make an aesthetically pleasing whole. Now, this one. It’s an elegant design presenting two different sequences, divided cleanly by the title logo and united by the color palette. I love just how striking that gold typography is against the muted winter backdrop.
Spawn #227
Cover by Todd McFarlane
Waitaminute. This looks suspiciously like another famous McFarlane cover for times past! It’s an exquisite homage with all the authentic trimmings. And the choice to make a semi-tesselated pattern out of the issue number is even more visually interesting now that it’s not a milestone number like, say, 300.
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Love the Spawn cover, and you nailed it “special 227th anniversary issue!” Comedy. Legacy has had nothing but GREAT covers. Perfect placement of the Walrus.
The Sixth Gun and The Activity smell like VICTORY. SNIFFFFFF. The spawn cover looks like a dull homage done by the same guy that did the original…(sic) … Now get your boards, this is our beach, Charlie doesn’t own this beach!
Yup. Our beach. Charlie dont surf.
nowhere men cover: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s a vagina.
Hmmm you got some serious issues with women if you see a monstrous vagina in there buddy! 😉
It’s okay to be afraid, but help is definitely out there for you!
notice that only one of us used the “monstrous,” though 🙂
*used the term “monstrous,” that is.
seriously, can we get an edit button? RON!
Hehe touché mate, touché! 😉
Ya know what… I think it’s a vag too. And now I feel ashamed…
The 2nd print of Spider-Man #700 also parodies #300. Thought it was interesting that both parodies are coming out around the same time. I always loved McFarlane’s little UPC-box sketches for his Amazing and Marvel Tales covers.
The Spawn covers have been incredible lately. If only Todd were doing interiors again!!!
McFarlane making an homage to himself. Nuff Said.
these spawn homage covers have been amazing. i almost buy those issues just for the covers. i would buy them if McFarlane would do interiors again.
The Spawn homage covers have been spot on and the interior art has been good with or without Todd, I thought he did some of these interiors but know he did writing and drawing on the Endgame and New Beginnings arcs, which was cool seeing how pivotal they are to the legacy of his creation. That arm on Nowhere Men made me wanna read this, 2nd issue had a crisp magnetism to it too, haven’t read em yet but gonna soon. I don’t read Legacy but I know Legions story and that cover is awesome!!!
Nice to see more indie covers than usual, wish you guys would pick a few more to gaze upon though, seems like there are more panels of the week than usual and its great.
I honestly don’t think in terms of indie vs. big two in choosing the covers. At least at not until the final choices are all there on screen at once. Just looking for the best images.
Right on, I’m just saying it’d be nice to have a longer list of best covers as best panels seemed to have more than usual. Absolutely though, good art is good art, doesn’t matter on publisher. There’s obviously gonna be more big 2 coverage on this site cause there’s more of it out there but definitely think some more indie stuff should be spotlighted somewhere, there are some great titles I never see anything about : Transfusion, Fashion Beast, Non-Humans, Witch Doctor, Stitched…just to name a few.