The best of the week in covers had a sudden, carnal craving for a Riesen candy. Just out of nowhere. When does that happen? Breakfast time on a Friday as it turns out.
American Vampire #33
By Rafael Albuquerque
Again, so many artists attempt the stark white covers, but so few of them arrive at the right balance of negative space. Some don’t even warrant the use of so much negative space, contextually. Albuquerque makes an opus of this one though, with a stark portrait of despair. The arc of those blood-red musical notes makes all the difference.
Morning Glories #23
By Rodin Esquejo
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! ::Breathe:: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! You can see up his nostrils!
Thor: God of Thunder #2
By Esad Ribic
Does Gorr the God Butcher look a little like Voldemort? Sure. But he’s at least 300 times scarier. Meanwhile we’ve got stirring portraits of both young Thor and Old King Thor (with his good eye). A fittingly dramatic collage for a bombastic saga.
Justice League Dark #14
By Ryan Sook
Kind of an Escher meets Monsters Inc. thing going on here. I dig Sook’s art nouveau approach to color and line. The deep background begs for a little something though.
Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity #2
By Brandon Graham
When I got home with this one I considered rolling it up like a scroll and tucking it through the loop on the railing like a proper menu. Instead I just hurried inside and read the thing. Impossible not to smile ear-to-ear at Graham’s playful sensibility.
Ultimate Comics X-Men #19
By Dave Johnson
Remember when I was griping about white space earlier? This is what I think should be happening instead. Just an evocative depiction of isolation and the scope of loss, or of possibility, or of conflict, or of all of the above.
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They’re all great but Dave Johnson edges it for me, he has always been an excellent cover artist…….shame he doesn’t do much interior work anymore?!
Yeah, Johnson’s is a great rendition overall – but what sells it for me & really sells the emotion of the piece is that angle of the viewer’s perspective coupled with the tilted angle of the canvas. That really is brilliant and so unexpected.
Totally agree on Dave Johnson.
I still have the mid-90’s Chain Gang War series holding a prized place in my longboxes thanks to the Dave Johnson interior art!
I haven’t read Thor #2 yet, but is that old King Thor in the top right corner or is that Odin? Just reminds me so much of Anthony Hopkins’ Odin that it’s skewing my perception a bit I think.
If you put it next to the cover for #1, it forms one large image with all three Thors, Old King Thor positioned in the center background. I think he’s intentionally designed to resemble Odin. You can tell them apart, weirdly enough, because Odin has a patch on his right eye while Thor has a patch over his left.
These are all great but i still wish the cover to batman inc #5 was here. Mainly because It had so much going for it, the subtle placement of the batman inc logo, the auburn sky paletette, and the feeling that it mixes a lone gunman feel with a 28 days later apocalypse. I mean its burned into my mind this image of one guy holding back a flood of crazy at the gates of an asylum. Still, art is subjective and to each their own.
I just noticed on the Ultimate X-Men cover, there are empty beer cans at Kitty’s feet. Apparently the drinking age on Reservation X is 17.
Albuquerque nailed that AV cover. Captures so much emotion with such a simple design. Kinda reminded me of his awesome Batman cover from a few months back. I find white covers very striking. Great picks this week!
I’m really loving these Dave Johnson “Ultimate X-Men” covers, I’ve been game to try out something from Wood’s return to Marvel, and Andrade taking on the art chores sweetens the deal.
How is his Ultimate X-Men in relation to Spencer’s run before it, the book as a whole, and Brian Wood’s recent work (DMZ, Northlanders, DV8)?
***SPOILER WARNING***
Basically, Ultimate X-Men is going through it’s own version of Decimation and Utopia. I’d be cynical about it, but this is the first time in a while that Ultimate X-Men feels like an X-Men book and, personally, I could not be more jazzed about it.
Never read Brian Wood’s stuff, can’t say how this compares.