And he deserves all the praise he’s getting for these covers.

Yes, I think so too. As I said so, ahem, two posts before yours.

PS Are you the writer and Word columnist Andrew Collins?

Before I go into top five, anyone else notice that Lemmy from Motorhead is hiding out at the back of the Three Musketeers cover?

My top five

5 Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft 1 – so detailed and so eerily beautiful

4 Secret Invasion 3 – I’m with you, Brian, great to see a nonSkrull cover. Great idea, but isn’t it sickening to see Jess fall for the billionaire playboy. Doesn’t she know where he’s been?

3 Amazing Spider-man 561 – extreme close up plus chaotic confetti equals brilliant cover

2 Punisher War Journal – cheesy? Nah, come on, It’s crafty and sumptuous. Mr Maleev, I salute you.

1 Immortal Iron Fist 15 – I hate boxy covers, which is why I’m so knocked out by how brilliant I think this David Aja cover is. The smallest of details tell you so much about the characters.

So glad to have these back by the way. Really wasn’t feeling all the various “Alphabets” and “Everyone is someone’s favorite” posts.

[i]“See those cool YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS covers…? The ones with the Young Avengers hero standing in front of a montage of classic artwork of the character who inspired them?

That’s not classic artwork. Jim Cheung didn’t just scan those from the printed books. He painstakingly repenciled them all, in the style of the original artists. This seemingly maniacal dedication to quality is one of the things that makes Jim’s work stand head-and-shoulders above the average–he doesn’t cut any corners,and in fact may be looking for extra corners to stick onto the page.”[/i]

Found here:
http://www.marvel.com/blogs/Tom_Brevoort/entry/996.Brand_New_Blog

He also showed a sample of one of the actual pencilled covers in progress.

If this IS indeed truth and not just the usual Marvel “B.S. answer instead of the truth”…, then I am AWED!
AWED, I say.

At the artistic dedication and sheer ABILITY of the Jim Cheung.
(I mean, I think he’s really good ANYWAY, but this… THIS would put him over the top!

~P~
PTOR

2) Yes, Cheung is actually redrawing every image on those covers and is putting in teh extra time to make them look like artists of the past. God bless him!

You have been making this comment and I honestly thought youare kidding.

Those seem to be clearly art samples and not original drawings.

If, if fact, Cheung IS meticulously re-drawing all those old comic images (instead of just pasting together a collage), then it’s amazingly well-done (although, besides th obvious exercise in artistic training and stretching of his abilities, it’s rather pointless).

However, you sound adamantly SURE that he’s drawing these.
Do you have any proof or reference (an interview perhaps) to confirm this?

Because, we’ve all seen these types of covers before, and they’re 99.999% just new art superimposed over old art.
Heck, I’m a professional illustrator, and a LONG-time comic fan (who can probably tell which issues (and definitely which artists) he’s getting these images from (whether he’s just using them as reference or not), and again, except for the “challenge” of seeing if I could stretch my “aping” abilities, I wouldn’t bother.
Especially, if I’m working in the hectic-deadline-crunch filled world of comics (where he has other projects that would require his time as well).

So, if you’ve got some goods (and I’d LOVE to find out that he is in fact DRAWING these. That would be amazing!)… please share.

ThanX!

~P~
PTOR

Arnim Zola ? The Captain America villain ?

I would have thought by now that someone would have mentioned that Cheung isn’t “aping” anything.

I thought I just did in comment #3

Hopefully this isn’t coming across as snarky or anything.
I just thought that someone would have mentioned it by now.

I did! In comment #3.

They haven’t because he is.

Dammit, am I invisible or something!!

Hey Brian, cover design for Immortal Iron Fist always has been by Aja, Kaare Andrews just draw last covers and using the design Aja did in first issues of this arc

Well, considering FF is one week late for the second consecutive month…

I would have thought by now that someone would have mentioned that Cheung isn’t “aping” anything.

They haven’t because he is.

The acknowledgments are to the people that he is meticulously aping.

It’s quite amazing, really, the amount of extra work he is putting into each cover.

I think Abnett & Lanning made it ambiguous at the end of Annihaltion: Conquest, with Rocket sounding worried as he coaxed the twig in it’s pot.

They had someone (Mantis?) say explicitly that the same trick would not work this time – but Rocket tried it anyways (because, well, why wouldn’t he?) – but then it did.

It was just odd to add in a bit like that, then again, now that you point out…

I remember them saying in interviews that he was dead, but they must have had too much fun writing him.

It makes more sense as a plot change.

I like Groot, too, so I’m glad he’s back – it’s still odd!