Wow, I really thought it would be some kind of ratio of 50/50 good and bad, but those covers were actually overwhelmingly great. Only a few bad ones in the bunch. They should make that an annual stunt.

I agree. A few that didn’t work so well. but great overall.

Some of those are really cool.

Does anyone know who drew the Birds of Prey cover? I really dig that one.

And what book was the manga Superman?

Agree, lots to like here.

Amused by how the Batman cover kinda looks like he has Dark Claw‘s… claws. I’m assuming those are just batarangs.

The BIRDS OF PREY cover was by Phil Noto. I miss when he used to do that’s book’s covers — all good stuff.

And the manga-esque Superman was SUPERMAN — I think that’s the issue where Loeb introducesd the current boy Toyman.

I had no idea DeZago and ‘Ringo had done a Batman: Black and White story.

I really like the Supergirl one, where the title is in ASL.

quite a lot of really clever ones there, but for some reason i find myself most intrigued by the sign language on the Supergirl cover and the Interlac on the Legion.

i’d definitely love to see more stuff like this in the future.

I love the Darwyn Cooke Batman Adventures cover!

That Batman cover gets serious bonus points for using one of the best Batman logos ever as well as working it into the cover in a cool fashion. Really, though, there are a lot of great, clever ones to choose from here. Excellent choice of snark blocker.

I like those cover events – they don’t impact the interiors in the slightest!

I actually laughed out loud at that last wonder woman one. CHEATERS!

Actually I take it back, I wouldn’t want this to be an annual gimmicky. Frequency would probably make the quality go down as people started running out of good ideas. But still, a lot of inspired work here.

Did Marvel ever do this?
If so, will we get to see this in another snark blocker coverage?

That was really cool. I’d love to see more of this. Not necessarily as a company-wide mandate, but here & there. Free up the cover artists a bit and encourage their creativity. Letting it be at the artist’s inspiration, subject to editorial approval, would be likely to increase the number of ones that “worked”.

JLA was jaw-dropping. My favorite cover ever (stated without looking at other favorite covers).

The only other ‘cover’ event I can remember from DC was the one where it was the “All Closeup” month. All the covers featured a head shot of a cast member from the book.

I really like the Supergirl one, where the title is in ASL.

Yeah, that one’s definitely my favorite. Very clever.

I thought the Legion one was rather clever, and then I got to the Supergirl one — wow. I wonder if it still works if you don’t know how to finger-spell?

All of the Batman covers!
The ’60s logo!
Two “Spirit” homages!
Bolland!
Cassaday (right?)!

A lot of other good ones in there, but the Batbooks are killing me.

And McCrea! I had to look that one up – it almost felt a little like Breyfogle to me.

Did Marvel ever do this?

last time i remember Marvel doing anything like this was that month that all the titles were silent… that was pretty cool.

The Detective Comics cover is the best of the bunch, I think.

Ok, the Nightwing cover was totally awesome.

What a great idea! Wish more comics would try something like this. Some very creative covers here, really loved the Detective Comics especially.

I love Impulse’s take on the Flash cover.

Does anybody find it scary how many of DC’s titles back then were Super or Bat related? (I realize it probably hasn’t gotten much better, but geez.)

You know, I remember that silent month of Marvel.
Not every book did that, but most did.

I love the Legion cover in Interlac and the sign language Supergirl cover.

I actually find it interesting how many of the characters with their own titles in 2001 are dead or changed:

Superboy – Dead
Impulse – Dead
Supergirl – Replaced & possibly retconned out
Spectre – Hal back as GL, Crispus Allen is the new host
Azrael – presumed dead. May be replaced by Mark Shaw
Doom Patrol – Rebooted & then un-rebooted
Legion – Rebooted

As to the other titles:
Superman – Cancelled
Adventures of Superman – Retitled back to Superman
Superman Man of Steel – Cancelled
Batgirl – Cancelled
Batman: Gotham Knights – Cancelled
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight – Cancelled
Flash – Temporarilay Cancelled and replaced with Flash:FMA
Green Arrow – Cancelled and replaced with Green Arrow/Black Canary
Green Lantern – Cancelled and replaced with new #1 starring Hal Jordan
Harley Quinn – Cancelled
JLA – Cancelled and replaced with Justice League of America (essentially a new #1
JSA – Cancelled and replaced with Justice Society of America (essentially a new #1)
Orion – Cancelled and New Gods currently being killed off
Spectre – Cancelled
Suicide Squad – Cancelled, currently a mini-series
The Titans – Cancelled.
Wonder Woman – New #1
Young Justice – Cancelled to make way for Teen Titans

I think only Action, Detective, Batman, Nightwing, and Birds of Prey are the only titles that haven’t been cancelled/interrupted/renumbered.

People were wondering if the Sook “Death of the Flash” cover was an homage. I’d completely forgotten about that Suicide Squad cover! Thanks for clearing it up!

“All Closeup” did not always feature a cast member of the book. Case in point? Skornn (sp?) in the Superman titles.

There are apparently much more than two Spirit homages. Azrael, Batgirl, Superboy, JLA, and ‘Tec are the clearest examples of cover homages, but some of the others, such as Harley for example, are possibly close enough for consideration.

And yes, Nightwing is teh awesome.

As I recall, Marvel’s silent month and DC’s Full Coverage month were the same month.

” thought the Legion one was rather clever, and then I got to the Supergirl one — wow. I wonder if it still works if you don’t know how to finger-spell?”

Enough of her name is visible on the banner to make it decipherable (and having the main character(s) prominently visible on the covers was a good idea in general, since you can make a guess which title it is even if you can’t see the whole thing). I remember that issue had a fair amount of ASL in the interior as well.

Only the Legion cover strikes me as a bad one, since the title is poorly duplicated.

I think my favorite may be the Gotham Adventures one, simply because Bane is holding up a blank sheet of paper for the price and bar code. Detective Comics was good to, with the signature on the comics shop sign.

Wow. That was 7 years ago… At once it seems so close and yet so far away as well.
That was a pretty cool stunt and it reminds me of some of the really beautiful DC covers of the late 1960s. I think that was when Infantino was put in charge of the line’s covers and they all sort of were high-concept for a while. Remember the one with Blockbuster smashing a stone Batman logo with Bats on top of it?
Yeah, it would be nice if DC and Marvel put as much thought into their covers every week/month.

People were wondering if the Sook “Death of the Flash” cover was an homage. I’d completely forgotten about that Suicide Squad cover! Thanks for clearing it up!

Wow… I hadn’t seen that one before. There’d been a lot of talk (including from DC) about it referring back to the Stupendous Triumph of the Seven Super-Villains (Flash #174) cover, but that looks incredibly similar, down to the arm hanging down over the title. I’m going to have to add a note on that to my site.

I think my favorite may be the Gotham Adventures one, simply because Bane is holding up a blank sheet of paper for the price and bar code.

AHHHHHHH, I was wondering why that was blank! Nice catch!

Wow, those are some cool covers. Why don’t they do stuff like that more often?

Damn!

[...] Back in December of 2001, DC Comics came up with an interesting stunt – they would have almost all their superhero titles all have the same cover motif of having the title of the book worked into the cover artwork, so that there would be no logo needed. Some books did a really nice job of doing so, some did not as good of a job. In either event, it is certainly a fun thing to look at, so enjoy! [img][IMG]file:///E:/DOCUME%7E1/Stephen/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-7.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///E:/DOCUME%7E1/Stephen/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-8.jpg[/IMG][IMG]file:///E:/DOCUME%7E1/Stephen/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-9.jpg[/IMG]http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/SupermanCvr177.jpg[/img] Originally from Comics Should be Good, click on the link to see the rest. __________________ It was like tea-bagging a bear cub in front of its mother. The sheer audacity of it is the only thing that saved him. XKCD [...]

[...] [...]

[...] [...]

Marvel originated the full head shot cover during their 25th anniversary. For example, The Avengers had Black Knight’s mug on it and Marvel Age had Ken Connell/Star Brand. The cover was framed by many of the popular characters at the time (including Forbush Man). I think even Marvel’s imprint Star Comics did it too.

Great snark-blocker. Those covers were great and even the bad ones were nice to see.

I had an idea once…
If I were to ever start my own comic company, I would get the readers to pick what format the annuals would be in. For one year, they could be in 3D and the next year, they could all have connecting covers, etc.
I wouldn’t mind seeing some company pick up that idea and use it.

Two Bolland covers, Darwyn Cooke, Olivier Coipel, Ryan Sook, Walt Simonson, Adam Hughes…

Top, top level work by all of these guys. It’s like the freedom of the assignment really sparked some creativity.

I thought the Legion one was rather clever, and then I got to the Supergirl one — wow. I wonder if it still works if you don’t know how to finger-spell?

Yes, it does, because, the name of the comic is also on the banner hanging on the wall, in the background. I didn’t even notice that the kids were signing at first, and it was still one of my favorites for utilizing “real” elements. ( i.e. the banner- as opposed to some of the others just spelling out the name in a different way.)

Funny – I own several of these issues, but I don’t think I ever realized they were part of an official theme month.

“I like those cover events – they don’t impact the interiors in the slightest!”

No, they don’t, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less annoying than any other company mandated event.

Take that beautiful LOTDK cover up there. Sure, it looks great, but when you’re holding all five parts to that storyline in your hands at once, one of them is going to look like it doesn’t belong.

By the by, this event DID affect the interiors of the stories a bit. DC tried to make as many of these comics “one-off” stories as they could, as they wanted the event to also work as a bit of a “jumping on point” thing, as well.

No, they don’t, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less annoying than any other company mandated event.

Take that beautiful LOTDK cover up there. Sure, it looks great, but when you’re holding all five parts to that storyline in your hands at once, one of them is going to look like it doesn’t belong.

Ah who cares!

That was fun! The best was Detective Comics. They should do something like that more often.

“The only other ‘cover’ event I can remember from DC was the one where it was the “All Closeup” month. All the covers featured a head shot of a cast member from the book.”

That was another great concept. My favorite was the Superman: Man of Steel cover with Clark Kent reading an issue of The Daily Planet. Great, sly cover.

Any chance we can see these too, Brian?

I much prefer this kind of creative, thematic linking rather than something like blacking out half the cover and put the words Civil War across it.

And Scorn was a regular cast member of the Superman books during that time period. Not a great member, but a member nonetheless.

[...] In Dezember 2001 hat DC Comics anstelle des traditionellen Cover Artworks den Titel jedes Comics in das Motiv eingebaut, so dass kein Logo nötig war. Und das sieht in fast allen Fällen gut aus! – Link [...]

[...] Check out more at Comics Should Be Good!  [...]

That Batman Adventures cover takes the cake……….it really was hard for me to decide on the best one. The only one i didn’t like that much was the one with Green Arrow