Comic Book Resources

Having read the prose version of “The Facts In The Case of the Disappearance of Miss Finch,” I’m somewhat interested to see how Gaiman and Zulli adapt it into comics form.

If you can promote the Groo into the Top Five because you’re so excited to see it, then surely Zulli’s wonderful cover deserves the same. It’s a much better cover than the Aragones, and it’s not fair to penalize the book because you think the names Zulli and Gaiman might tip the balance.

In any regard, Jean’s super-striking Umbrella Academy is certainly enough to interest me in the first issue. And to put it into the Top Five.

Cheers!

I’m more excited about a new Groo comic than a new work from Zulli, as great as Zulli is!

If I was being totally fair, Umbrella Academy would have been #5 instead of Groo.

The Fear Agent cover is a homage to Jack Davis’ Two-Fisted Tales 30.

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/two-fisted-tales/30-1.jpg

BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL: Nice art, just to look at. But it looks like the logo design and trade dress is going to cover up the right figure (unless they photoshop it to put it behind the figure). If they don’t cover up the figure, it definitely will the cloud effects in the sky, which totally undermines the power of the art. So while the image is nice, it’s not cover worthy material, in my opinion.

BPRD: Standard cover design for this series. Upper level open for the trade dress, a primary scene depicting the background, character or specific scene from the book, With the members of the BPRD who will be featured on the bottom third of the image. That’s been the standard design, Brian. So why do you feel this image is any less effective than others Guy has done for the series?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer(Georges Jeanty version): Boring, uninspired, and completely innapropriate. I’m so sure that since Buffy and her Slayer pals are supposedly now considered international terrorists, she’s gonna have a poster ala Uncle Sam saying “I want you…” plastered on a wall somewhere. Who thought this was a good conceptual piece?

Good comics covers reflect the story content. They aren’t merely pinups. Let alone one as unoriginal as this.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Paul Lee version): While this looks like it might actually service the story, the execution is horrible here, too. Why are we getting a bird’s eye view of Buffy diving down on her foes with an axe where we can’t hardly see who or what they are? PATHETIC! We can’t see her (she has her back to us) and we can’t see the monsters (they’re too small to make out clearly). What we should have is a ground view as one of the combatants on the ground, looking up at Buffy in the center or slightly off center top third of the page, with the BUFFY Logo above / behind her, as she is swooping down upon the crowd, with the main demon (I’m guessing the horned guy on the right, because he looks the baddest) in immediate foreground pointing upwards, and the other demons’ heads or uppber bodies along the bottom third looking up also, maybe with weapons being thrown / shot at her as well.

CITY OF OTHERS by Bernie Wrightson: Bad composition again, depending on how the trade dress is going to be. You could be covering up the guy in the background with the hammer, which totally detracts from the scene. There’s plenty of room to put the cover across the bottom of the page, and I suppose you can put the DH logo and price point in the top right corner, but now you’re covering up the woman’s arm and the ledge, most likely, which will also make the image more confusing to look at. It’s a nice, solid image as per usual from Bernie, but it’s not an effective cover image at all. More like trading card art.

EMILY THE STRANGE: Does it’s job the way it’s supposed to. It may not be drool worthy, but in terms of proper commercial design, this is one of the top five covers easily.

CONAN (Cary Nord): Ugly as hell faces (particualarly the eyes), and the background is making no sense to me whatsoever. It looks like some lame attempt at pseudo-steampunk or something in that top right corner. It certainly doesn’t look like anything that belongs in a Conan book. Thank god the trade dress will be covering that mess up, but all in all, this cover sucks.

MISS FINCH (Michael Zulli): The image is nice, the cover design is more old school pulp fiction paperback or diary than comics cover, but that’s what they’re going for. Perfectly acceptable commercial design, and one of the most effective this month, regardless of whose name is on it, Brian.

GEAR SCHOOL (Peris cover): Solid cover design. Depicts a key character, shows us her fighter jet / ship, leaves plenty of space for the trade dress both above and below without covering the art. It doesn’t necessarily give us much insight to the story, but it is a perfectly functional cover.

STAR WARS- REBELLION (Sook): I don’t think this is “sketchy” at all. It’s got a nice painterly look to it and is actually stronger in composition than much of the work I’ve seen from Sook (who seems to have gotten past his Mignola wannabe phase). That all being said, no, it’s nothing special. I don’t like the ‘wind in the hair effect’ on the female as they are clearly indoors, and the dual lighting effects might look cool, but since I cannot tell what the light sources are, it diminishes the intent. And, again, the trade dress will have to be photoshopped in behind the man’s arm and gun, potentially obscuring the logo. It’s not unusable, obviously, but it’s no prize, either.

STAR WARS - LEGACY (Charest): Meh. That’s about all you can say for this. It invokes some interesting memories / thoughts (the tech lights remind me of the carbon chamber room of Cloud City from EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), but because the rest of the image is solid black, and the figure is more or less suspended in the ether of blackness, one has no idea where exactly the character is or what the immediate threat may be, other than he’s handcuffed (which assuming his a jedi / sith, means diddly squat - just use the Force and undo the damn things).

Plenty of room for trade dress, certainly, but give me something worth looking at. Blah.

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY: This is more like a movie poster than it is a comics cover, but it’s also the most effective image posted, Brian. There’s nothing to be skeptical about. The Eiffel Tower centers the piece, and the logo and credit dress is centered well. There’s room for the DH logo and price point without covering up any of the art. The Eiffel Tower suggests where the story takes place, and you have a nice visual presentation of the main cast of characters both as young and adult students / adventurers. The color scheme also gives you a sense of the era in which the story takes place.

This should have been in your top five covers in terms of effectiveness.

USAGI YOJIMBO: Stan Sakai should have skipped the three arrows flying past Usagi’s head - there’s no archer depicted from that angle and if there’s an archer behind the guy with the katana, it’s no wonder he missed, seeing as he’s trying to hit Usagi while missing his own guy. And the archer depicted shooting the other arrow upwards between the two swordsmen makes the whole thing look awkward. Stan’s usually better at designing fight scenes than this. A bit disappointing.

The other cover, B&W version is a fine design.

GROO 25th Anniversary (Argones): Enh. Could have been so much more. But in terms of what it is, it’s suitable.

HELLBOY (Mike Mignola): Gee, Brian, I love how you say this is a strong cover when in fact it’s the exact same cover structure as used by Guy Davis on BPRD, which you questioned the quality of. Top third open for trade dress, a middle scene reflecting the opposition for HB, and HB in the bottom third of the cover. How is this any stronger than what Guy did? It isn’t. Not one whit. In fact is far lesser of a cover because the colors are too dark and you can barely make out HB in the bottom, and the skulls on the top that are there are going to be covered up by the Logo and story title dress in all likelihood. So it’s not even close to as strong a cover as what Guy did respectively. Just because you may dig Mike’s art more, doesn’t mean he designed a better cover.

REX MUNDI (Juan Ferreyra): Enh. The text is going to be covered up by trade dress. It’s an interesting image that would look great in a gallery for a art show on battered women or something, but as a comics cover? Blah.

FEAR AGENT (Tony Moore): I agree with what you said, but unfortunately the image is going to be compromised by the trade dress. Still it’s the best cover *image* this month by far.

BUFFY (Jo Chen cover): Ooo. SMG wearing a tank top with the Buffy logo on it because the figure is too big for proper logo design, lifting fake skin off over neck ala Mission Impossible to suggest it’s not who we think it is. Whoodeefriggindoo. This is not a good cover image, Brian. Not even close. It’s poorly thought out (Yes, we all have tank tops that have our names and titles emblazoned across the front, don’t we?). The facial expression makes Buffy look like she’s half stoned. The slice in her shirt is stupid because of course it has to be strategically placed to show she’s wearing no bra underneath the shirt and gives just a hint of under cleavage. Why don’t you just put pasties on her and retitle it Buffy the Slayer Slut, for God’s sakes!

THIS. COVER. IS. CRAP.

Top Five:

#5 - Miss Finch. You may feel it’s the names attached that will make it sell, but the bottom line is the cover design is the best of the lot, and you could take off Gaiman and Zulli’s names entirely and it would still be the best overall commercial design.

#4 - Fear Agent (because of the trade dress issue, otherwise it’d be #1)

#3 - Emily The Strange

#2 - Gear School

#1 - Umbrella School

I should clarify that the MISS FINCH cover would be the best overall commercial BOOK design, not the best overall design.

Glad to see more cover judging! I always look forward to checking these out since I would never see most of them otherwise. That said, I think your top picks here are questionable and some of your comments boggle the mind. That Conan cover is awful.

I think the Umbrella Academy cover is very effective at drawing the eye, even if the secondary impression is one of “What the heck is going on here?”

Dark Horse has more quality stuff coming out this year than nearly any other indie…

New HELLBOY, new GRENDEL, new mini series by Gilbert Hernandez, FEAR AGENT, REX MUNDI (Image’s loss is DH’s gain), FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER, SAMURAI HEAVEN AND EARTH VOL. 2, new MARTHA WASHINGTON

ZERO KILLER, PANTHEON CITY, and UMBRELLA ACADEMY all have potential (I’ll keep my eyes on them).

I’ve heard that STAR WARS: LEGACY is one of the few licensed property comics that’s actually worth reading. I might check that out as well.

That’s quite a lineup. I’d be even more interested if I were a Buffy fan.

Fear Agent and Umbrella Academy are my favorites.

Hey Brian. I had to chuckle at myself when I read back over my comment (and your response) as I invoked the notion of fairness … regarding a post that’s all about subjective assessments of art! Kinda silly. To be more specific, I guess I meant that you weren’t quite applying the same logic to the different covers. Not that that’s the same thing as being unfair, though.

Anyway, here’s my real problem with the Aragones cover. He’s a classic cartoonist, to be sure, but here he is designing a the cover to a 25TH ANNIVERSARY special. But that cover doesn’t look special. There’s nothing about it visually that tells me it’s such a landmark issue. You have to read the text to get any sense of that. (I dunno, it might be a wraparound cover, and we’re only seeing one-half of it, but wouldn’t Dark Horse show us the whole thing in their solicits, if that were the case?) So that’s enough to disqualify from Top Five. Give it an honorable mention if you must.

Umbrella Academy is my favorite of them all. And (to respond to another poster) the secondary impression of “What the heck is going here?!” is a GOOD thing in a cover. Such curiosity makes you want to know more. Maybe even buy and read the book! (As long as that’s the secondary or tertiary impression, and not the initial reaction based on muddled drawing or cluttered design or what-have-you.)

The Umbrella Academy is the clear #1 cover of the lot. That cover conveys a ton of information in its details, and also looks striking on first glance. Just based on the cover, you get the sense that this book is about the development of some super-people from adolescence to adulthood, which is fine. It also raises a bunch of questions that make me want to read the book: What is up with that kid at the bottom corner of the tower that doesn’t age? What happened to the masked blonde girl’s dark-haired sidekick? Whose tentacles are those, underneath the Eiffel? Great cover.