Comic Book Resources

I definitely agree with the top two, but I would’ve thrown Mack and Canete’s covers into the top five, at numbers three and four, with Brooks’ Ultimate Fantastic Four cover in the fifth position.

Brooks’ art looks so damn good when he handles the coloring.

Keep on judging.

Graham Nolan has been drawing NEWSPAPER strips for awhile.

He’s been drawing (pencils, inks, letters and colors) for THE PHANTOM & REX MORGAN, M.D.

He even filled in as artist on JUDGE PARKER for artist Eduardo Barreto for a short stint in late 2006 when Barreto was ALMOST killed in a car accident.

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And for a bit of “snark”, it’s OK if the BIRDS on the Ghost Rider annual cover should look like Dinosaurs, since Birds are directly descended from Dinos.

~P~
P-TOR

I think that the CAMPBELL-drawn THOR-variant looks cool because he seems to obviously (to ME at least) be going for a SIMONSON riff.

If there was no signature, I’d think it was a Simonson Thor rough.

~P~
P-TOR

“Chandler! Joey! Help! Monica is strangling the Invisible Woman!”

That House of M: Avengers cover is like they took a list of my favorite characters and started drawing. And in their best costumes, too! I want a poster!

“I like how Brubaker has enjoyed working on Black Tarantula.”

Huh? I’m a little lost with thist statement. Where has Brubaker written the Black Tarantula?

“And finally, when I realize that the covers all interlock, they have to pick a cover that actually works pretty well on its own!!”

I’ve been saying this for the past three months and you’re just now getting it?

How could the original Human Torch become a zombie? He’s an android. Synthetic. Just a thought.

I thought the same thing about the Campbell Thor, P-Tor. I think he’s even styled his signature after Walt. Nice job, and the first time I can think of that I’ve seen a cover by him that doesn’t feature Spidey or belly shirts.

Cap’s shield probably shouldn’t get dinged up, at least not easily. Isn’t it vibranium (or whatever Wakanda’s #1 resource is called)? I guess they buff out easily…

I spit coffee on my monitor when I read the “dancing Wolverines” comment. Thanks. Seriously.

Cronin’s 3-5 do nothing for me. I really dislike Perkins’ work - he seems to have a Gulacy-like problem with faces and the figures always look stiff to me. Anyway, in their place I’d go with Mack, Canete and Deodato’s She-Hulk. The great design on the last one (love how you can see her reflection in the water that forms the logo) totally makes up for the standard, hyper-superhero Deodato figure, and even that is one of his better ones.

Loving the Punisher 52 cover - great to see Bradstreet doing something other than moody Frank shots.

Ultimate Fantastic Four and She-Hulk are fantastic too.

And what exactly is your problem with Ms Marvel’s breasts? Look perfectly amazing to me.

am I the only one who thinks of scud when i see skottie youngs deadpool?

Brubaker wrote the Tarantula in Daredevil.

I must be missing something. In what issue did the Tarantula appear?

He didn’t appear in costume. He is in the Prison issues. He’s also in the upcoming annual.

I think it’s been established (maybe in the Gruenwald years) that the red-white-blue paint on Cap’s shield can be scratched, just not the metal itself.

That said, it has been very inconsistent whether or not it is or can.

I picture Jarvis with his three bottle of Testors Model Paint touching the thing up on the weekends. “Don’t handle it just yet, Master Cap…let it dry.”

I’m excited about seeing more Nolan, too. He’s been killing it on The Phantom.

What the little stuffed bull said - Gruenwald did establish that Cap’s shield is painted, and that he touches it up occasionally.

It does beg the (unanswered) question of what the heck he paints it *with*, and given all that it goes through, you’d think the paint would be blasted clean off the shield on a regular basis….

The DAREDEVIL cover might be the first part of a diptytch or quadriptytch, which might explain the odd break…

“He didn’t appear in costume. He is in the Prison issues. He’s also in the upcoming annual. ”

NOW I remember. Thank you.

I just had to point out the tiny wrists and ankles in both Patrick Scherberger’s M.A. Spider-Man and Skottie Young’s M.A. Iron Man. I think they would benefit from Steven Colbert’s work with wrist charities.

I like that Chueng Illuminati cover, and I think the negative space is well-chosen to direct our attention to the dead Skrull at the bottom of the cover, which is the point of much mystery right now. (In Marvel land, I mean, not in our world. Does anyone care in our world?) Also, I dig how he dovetails Reed’s stretchy bod with Strange’s funky collar.

The Omega the Unknown cover looks like somebody’s readying a mock-up for a movie ad featuring Adrian Brody.

That She-Hulk cover rocks for a buncha reasons. (And I don’t normally care for Deodato!) Her right hand’s a bit wonky, but I can overlook that because it’s otherwise super well-done. Easily belongs in the Top Five (especially compared to the bone-headed choice of Avengers Classic).

I do love the Franklin Richards cover though. Nice call there.

Moon Knight’s been having anatomy malfunctions on his covers for a while now, but that just looks like someone took a big bite out of him.

“It does beg the (unanswered) question of what the heck he paints it *with*,”

Probably easier to figure out how to paint it, than to figure out how it would have been colored through-and-through with a fairly elaborate design when it was being accidentally invented.

These days, i suppose the easiest thing to do would be to use a printed plastic decal, like the stuff they put on transit buses. Jarvis could just slap a new one on every day.

You think Reed doesn’t give Cap some unstable molecular paint when he’s in need?

“And what exactly is your problem with Ms Marvel’s breasts? Look perfectly amazing to me.”

Amazingly inexpensive!

Baffled by the top five this time. Djurdjevic’s covers, even the weaker ones, and most of the “Honorable Mentions” blow those away.

“Are Namor’s arms as thick as his legs?”

Heck, his wrist is thicker than his knee if the leg width continues as it appears to…

“Having Katie in the mask is super precious. But what the heck is Lou Diamond Phillips doing wearing Iron Man’s armor?!?”

It is a cute cover. But I have to wonder, did Marvel do anything with the PowerPack kids re: Civil War? I almost hope they didn’t, and completely ignored that. Seven-year-old federal agents seems really, really wrong.

A bit of a heavy-handed cover there by Marc Silvestri.

Are you just bashing that cover because you don’t like Silvestri? Because while it’s not revolutionary or anything, it’s not bad either. It’s just a standard, by the book, group cover shot. Don’t exactly see what’s so heavy-handed about it.

I suspect the “heavy-handed” element is the flag-raising iconography, which is typically seen in political propaganda. It also recalls, in some deisgn elements, the positioning in the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising memorial. Not really what I expect from an X-Men cover unless it’s being deliberately ironic.

Is it just me, or is the She-Hulk cover a riff on a splash page from an Avengers issue by Neal Adams? I seem to recall Triton coming out of the water, and the water spelling the name of the story in front of him…. and I’m just too tired to go look it up.

Still a great cover, though.

Agree wholeheartedly with your #1, and #3 is beautiful too, also. The rest of the top picks seem fairly meh.

Never has anyone been more irked that we have not discovered alien life forms than Greg Horn.

[giggle]

The Venom virus is a most excellent concept. I especially [heart] how the virus replicates the little spider-symbol across the symbiont’s chest. So everybody in the whole world hates Spidey, now? And wouldn’t it be funny if Peter was all ‘Or, as I like to call it, Tuesday?’

I’m thinking the cowl strangeness on that CA: Chosen cover is more a symptom of a generalised lack-of-heroic strangeness. He looks like a guy posing off before the costume party.

I would be enjoying that Iron Bond cover more if I wasn’t still all bitter and stuff about Civil War. Can’t argue with the execution, though.

Much love for the X-Men: First Class cover. The artist has a brilliant touch with action sequences, all the more so for being understated.

No, that is not an ‘imposing’ Turner image of Namor. It’s way too silly-looking (as even the Prince of Atlantis himself seems to agree). This is something the artists who drew those hypermuscled 90’s freaks never realised; once the human anatomy goes past plausible, it becomes not more awesome but flatly ridiculous.

Like a big Electric Slide, only with corpses!

[giggle]

The Paquette cover is all kinds of lovely. Yay, Psylocke finally gets a cool and functional costume! Except for the little finny things on the boots, don’t know what’s going on with those. Have decided I don’t want to know.

Joining in on the love for the Deodata She-Hulk cover. The logo seems a bit over-the-top, but the image as a whole is pure gold.

Funny, I thought Skottie Young was just blatantly ripping off Sam Kieth’s style for those CABLE/DEADPOOL covers. Maybe I’m just too cynical …

(Mighty Avengers) Is it just me, or does the Sentry look about four times the size of Ms. Marvel in the foreground there? I suppose I oughtn’t complain since the Venom-virus victims (V3’s) are roughly the size of a city garbage truck looming over them both anyway.

(Marvel Adv. Iron Man) Is that the MA Titanium Man? Cool!

Moon Knight’s crescent-darts always now look to me like they’re coming at me with the blunt edge forward. I can force myself to see the tips first, but it takes an act of will for me to believe they could puncture anything.

Regarding the Enforcers: Does Fancy Dan not use his superlative martial arts skills anymore? Looks to me like Montana’s put the lariat aside to use a couple of six-shooters, so it’s disappointing that Dan’s also going guns akimbo. I’d actually think a fight between the Enforcers and DD would be awesome if only because of the three-layered attack they could put on him. Spidey I always thought had the spider-sense and -strength to put him way out of their weight class, but c’mon…DD trying to stay out of the way of a shooter, a massively strong bruiser who’s just trying to grab and hold, and a smaller-than-usual, very fast, very skilled fighter who’s striking and ducking all the time? It’d be great!
…all right, I’ve perhaps spent too much time thinking about that particular match-up. *small voice* I like the Enforcers and also want to see them go up against Heroes for Hire.

I am surprised it didn’t occur to me that Simon Garth would be making a comeback around this time.

Am I wrong in thinking that Longshot and Dazzler had been resolved *almost* off-panel some years ago? Ricochet Rita had been turned into Spiral, right? Didn’t Dazzler and Longshot get married and lead an unsuccessful resistance that their son Shatterstar picked up years later? Or did I dream that? The Shattershot annuals are deliberately vague to me.

(X-Men: Emperor Vulcan) Is the sword-guy Raza? I mean, that is Ch’od and Corsair behind him, right? And it almost looks like his left arm is metallic…or maybe it’s just my monitor. If it is, whatever happened to him being cool?

(The Order) I have a serious Kabuki-meets-Poison Ivy vibe coming off that cover. Nice to see serious iajutsu is still being taught at various secret weapons schools across the world in the MU, though.

I don’t actually read Ultimate Fantastic Four, though…is that Ultimate Wingless Wizard holding Sue? It looks like one of the Wonder Gloves to me.

And, yeah, Deadpool looks so much like Scud the Disposable Assassin there I keep expecting metacommentary on it within the comic.

Geez, I’m rambly today. Thanks for the reviewings, though!

Brooks’ art looks so damn good when he handles the coloring.

The difference is staggering.

According to Marvel Universe Deluxe, Cap’s shield is covered with “red, white and blue high-temperature enamel, mixed with titanium nitride to retard ablation.”

Graham Nolan has been drawing NEWSPAPER strips for awhile.

He’s been drawing (pencils, inks, letters and colors) for THE PHANTOM & REX MORGAN, M.D.

He even filled in as artist on JUDGE PARKER for artist Eduardo Barreto for a short stint in late 2006 when Barreto was ALMOST killed in a car accident.

Thanks, I was familiar with his comic strip work, but he hasn’t done a comic book in a long time, right?

I think that the CAMPBELL-drawn THOR-variant looks cool because he seems to obviously (to ME at least) be going for a SIMONSON riff.

If there was no signature, I’d think it was a Simonson Thor rough.

~P~
P-TOR

I can see the Simonson INFLUENCE, but I do not know how much like Simonson I think it looks.

I think J. Scott Campbell drawing like Simonson still looks pretty distinctively Campbell.

“Chandler! Joey! Help! Monica is strangling the Invisible Woman!”

I just happened across the last episode of that show, and it’s hard to believe that was over THREE years ago that it ended!

That House of M: Avengers cover is like they took a list of my favorite characters and started drawing. And in their best costumes, too! I want a poster!

Yeah, it WOULD make a cool poster.

I’ve been saying this for the past three months and you’re just now getting it?

That’s what I was referring to, silly.

How could the original Human Torch become a zombie? He’s an android. Synthetic. Just a thought.

Synthetic zombies are actually the worst kinds of zombies.

I think it’s been established (maybe in the Gruenwald years) that the red-white-blue paint on Cap’s shield can be scratched, just not the metal itself.

That makes sense, and yeah, it doesn’t exactly make sense, as the paint would be stripped every issue, but it makes more sense than anything else!

Hey, I’m still way back on my question about Luke Cage and his, y’know, unbreakable skin, and all I get is called a spoilsport picky-face.

The DAREDEVIL cover might be the first part of a diptytch or quadriptytch, which might explain the odd break…

Hopefully! That WOULD explain it!

(especially compared to the bone-headed choice of Avengers Classic).

Classy.

Are you just bashing that cover because you don’t like Silvestri? Because while it’s not revolutionary or anything, it’s not bad either. It’s just a standard, by the book, group cover shot. Don’t exactly see what’s so heavy-handed about it.

What Lynxara said, basically.

It looks like a propaganda piece, which is weird.

I’m thinking the cowl strangeness on that CA: Chosen cover is more a symptom of a generalised lack-of-heroic strangeness. He looks like a guy posing off before the costume party.

Yeah, I think that’s spot on.

Regarding the Enforcers: Does Fancy Dan not use his superlative martial arts skills anymore? Looks to me like Montana’s put the lariat aside to use a couple of six-shooters, so it’s disappointing that Dan’s also going guns akimbo

It’d be cool, though, if he used the guns as just blunt objects!!

Now THAT’d be a cool fighting style!

According to Marvel Universe Deluxe, Cap’s shield is covered with “red, white and blue high-temperature enamel, mixed with titanium nitride to retard ablation.”

Thanks!

Wow, that sounds really complicated.

Regarding Fancy Dan’s using the guns as blunt objects: That would be pretty cool, actually. He could just load them with blanks, which would still be perfectly lethal if the barrel is so close to you anyway and could act as a punch-intensifier for when he goes up against Luke Cage, since he’s got no hope of breaking the skin. Sort of a close-quarters-combat-adaptation of the Gun Fu from Equilibrium!

Greg Land’s Hercules looks a little like the WWE’s Chris Masters…

ChuckDaddy, I believe you’re thinking of an issue from the Kree-Skrull War, so it’d be Avengers #90-something.
In terms o Captain America’s shield, I’m only bothered when the shield is shown to be pockmarked or dented. Scratches are fine, so long as they’re not overdone.

I really like the Dorian Gray cover as a picture, but nothing about it actually screams ‘Dorian Gray’.
Nothing on it shows the flip between his angelic looks and his immorality.
Although if they keep his face on the covers, change the surrounding action each issue to get more depraved, and have the face slowly decay, that’d be cool.

I love this column, by the way. I just wish you’d do the “little guys” covers, too; give us some Dark Horse love, some Antarctic Press info, some Oni Press cover stuff. I’d also like to see your spin on the multiple Red Sonja covers (that Dynamite…something. Entertainment?…puts out) from Cho/Turner/Rubi/Lopresti/Mayhew etc.

As far as Marvel’s November covers? How can the Mack piece not be #1?

Did you skip this past month’s worth of this column because of the top characters feature? That was pretty fun, but kinda bummed me out — this is, for whatever reason, my favorite. Commentary _plus_ easy pop-up-less browsing of covers is simple but perfect. Any chance we’ll get a catch-up?

Getting here a little late but I can’t beleve noone mentioned the Penance cover.
How short is Speed… er Penance supposed to be where Wolverine looks like a giant compared to him?
Isn’t Logan like 4 ft. 7 or something?

I also thought the Uncanny X-fasists propaganda poster was a little odd. Perhaps the rising sun (also a staple of propaganda art) represents a new dawn for Mutantkind with that whole Messiah Complex thing?

Of course that would be “X-Fascists” I coulda sworn there was a C in there when I typed it…

This is the first time I’ve come across your blog, and I am overall impressed with it and your personal comments.
I was out looking for old Moon Knight cover-work when I came upon your wierd torso image.
It reminds me of making little playdoh men and then ‘mutating’ them for fun.
Very strange, but perplexing enough to save…

Guess I’ve been a bit out of touch, but what’s up with the Iron Man and Annoying Anime Superkids thing? Is he really teamed up with japanamerican ‘heroes’ now?