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Covers: Then, Now, Whenever
UnbrokenEva
HIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered User regular
HIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered User regular
The previous comic covers thread was titled "Always Judge a Comic By One" which was both a wry twist on the old adage and true in a lot of ways. Comic covers may be notoriously dishonest, portraying events that almost never actually happen within the comic itself, but they are also how comics on a shelf stand out from competing titles, and how a company chooses to market a book matters, as it shows what they think of the title, or what they want customers to think of it.
I started thinking about this as I've been diving through Marvel Unlimited. I only started reading comics regularly about 4 years ago, jumping in with Journey Into Mystery, so I missed a lot of stuff from the decades before that. One of the things I missed, and was kinda grossed out to see when I looked up Ms. Marvel on Unlimited was the Greg Horn cheesecake covers of the 2000s. Good Lord. As I looked with sick fascination I noticed that he primarily drew covers for 3 series, and I thought it was really interesting that all 3 of those characters also had solo series in 2014. The contrast between the covers is dramatic, and I feel it does as good a job of anything I've seen to show how much the industry has changed in just 10 years.
(The top-middle She-Hulk is by Mike Deodato instead of Horn, as Horn's work on Shulkie wasn't quite as bad as the rest for the most part, playful/silly cheesecake instead of straight up gross objectification)
So lets talk about covers. Favourite covers, covers you hate, whatever.
I started thinking about this as I've been diving through Marvel Unlimited. I only started reading comics regularly about 4 years ago, jumping in with Journey Into Mystery, so I missed a lot of stuff from the decades before that. One of the things I missed, and was kinda grossed out to see when I looked up Ms. Marvel on Unlimited was the Greg Horn cheesecake covers of the 2000s. Good Lord. As I looked with sick fascination I noticed that he primarily drew covers for 3 series, and I thought it was really interesting that all 3 of those characters also had solo series in 2014. The contrast between the covers is dramatic, and I feel it does as good a job of anything I've seen to show how much the industry has changed in just 10 years.
(The top-middle She-Hulk is by Mike Deodato instead of Horn, as Horn's work on Shulkie wasn't quite as bad as the rest for the most part, playful/silly cheesecake instead of straight up gross objectification)
So lets talk about covers. Favourite covers, covers you hate, whatever.
UnbrokenEva on
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I also think that the direct market has, to a large extant, changed the possibilities inherent in covers. Most comics have gone very far away from the formatting that used to mark comics - title bar, framing, issue number, price, all that sort of stuff which made sense on a comic rack at a grocery store, so that casual readers could quickly identify series, characters, and other vital information.
That's not to say it's gone - just look at the covers you posted, with the Marvel NOW banner at the bottom, or the Elektra title - or even necessarily a bad thing; but I think it does underscore some of the visual rhetoric of the comic cover.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
In fact, I love it so much I decided to make my own version with pen and ink stipple
and then there's Sex Criminals, with one of my favourite covers in recent years:
I was like, Damn, that's a classy looking Joker, with a really weird chin and almost invisible smile, but classy nonetheless.
Then I saw the Mignola and it all made sense.
Anyway favourite covers:
Wildcats 3.0 (this is the first, but the whole series had amazing covers. Covers which especially at the time were standing out from the other comics on the stand):
Spoilered for big.
Damn, how did I never notice he did that cover?!
I'd just assumed it was Aparo
The shop near me has this thing he did with Howard Charykin called Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser which seems to be of a similar vintage. I'm probably gonna get it soon. But the layout and stylization is unmistakable and still in use in his current Hellboy in Hell stuff:
Looking back, it's kind of impressive how reigned in he was on that Joker. Although that chin freaks me out. Probably has a skull that looks like Mac Tonight.
I also like Joe Kubert's art. Not just his comic art, I have a book he put out of his life drawing and it's great.
I'm probably in the minority on the internet but I like Rob Liefeld's art as well. It's really not just Liefeld, but the art of a lot of the Image guys like Lee, Silvestri, and McFarlane I find enjoyable. For Liefeld specifically, I just find the ridiculous pouches, huge pauldrons, and muscular builds that would make an IFBB pro feel like a skinny nerd fun. And it actually gave me an idea for a "parody" of sorts of Liefeld's design idea of "more pouches, bigger muscles, EXTREME RADICAL" but playing it straight.
that's not Wolfbane on that cover is it? Tell me it's not.
Nah, that's Feral.
I can see where the confusion was, one version of Wolfsbane seems to be almost identical to Feral.
Edit: When you scroll down you can see both characters art next to each other.
Pretty much anything by David Mack or Bill Sienkiewicz.
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