Cover to Cover is a new feature I started last week. The nuts and bolts of the column is to take the covers from the various books released this week and give general thoughts and comments on them. I'll pick a Cover of the Week for the best cover, try and look for any homages a cover may be alluding to and generally discuss what I liked or didn't like about any that stand out to me. As always, feel free to let me and everyone else know what your favourite cover was this week or point out anything I might have missed.
Cover of the Week - X-Force #2 Cover by Clayton CrainThe covers this week weren't anything really to write home about, but this X-Force cover is probably my favourite of the bunch. My only complaint is that the colours all bleed into each other. It's basically one big grey and black smudge. It's like a lot of new video games with their brown and dingy colours. Think Gears of War or even Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' colour pallette. While they, and this cover, look great, they would really benefit from some contrast. Still, I like the cover and it's my favourite from this week.
Green Lantern #28 Cover by Mike McKoneThis cover has all the makings of a good cover, but falls just short in my opinion. I dislike the overly flashy 'Green Lantern effects' used for the chain, the Alpha Lanterns and the platform. They seem out of place to me for some reason. Even the lantern-shaped chain links in her handcuffs seem like they are only there for the sake of having pretty green colouring effects. Then we have Hal Jordan, the main character, thrown off in a corner with a face that looks like it was beat in with a pan shovel. Just about everyone in the outer circle has awkward looking faces. Finally, we have the center character looking like she's in a different room than everyone else with her hair blowing in the wind for dramatic effect, I assume.
Don't let the overly negative criticism give you the wrong impression, it's not a bad cover, but there's so many little things that just annoy me about it that it keeps it from being elevated to a great cover in my eyes.
Don't let the overly negative criticism give you the wrong impression, it's not a bad cover, but there's so many little things that just annoy me about it that it keeps it from being elevated to a great cover in my eyes.
Raven #1 Cover by Damion ScottWho is responsible for , "Finally in her own EMO series!"? Seriously, her own "emo" series? Is that something to be proud about? Was the series going to be "her own unicorns and rainbow series" until they changed it at the last minute? I don't know what world they live in, but emo is generally considered a bad thing by most people and typically used to ridicule most things on just about every internet forum I've ever gone to.
Also, from what I understand, the book had nothing to do with Raven acting emo. She was attending high school, getting hit on by a boy and making a couple friends while dressed something like how Layla in X-Factor would dressed. The conflict in the book dealt with someone doing emotion experiements that were interferring with Raven's empath powers or something.
That one line detracts from an otherwise fairly nice looking cover and marketing or Wolfman or whoever is responsible for putting that tagline there should get a kick in the arse for this one.
Also, from what I understand, the book had nothing to do with Raven acting emo. She was attending high school, getting hit on by a boy and making a couple friends while dressed something like how Layla in X-Factor would dressed. The conflict in the book dealt with someone doing emotion experiements that were interferring with Raven's empath powers or something.
That one line detracts from an otherwise fairly nice looking cover and marketing or Wolfman or whoever is responsible for putting that tagline there should get a kick in the arse for this one.
Amazing Spider-Man #552 Cover by Phil JimenezSpider-Man is a pretty iconic character. His power set and numerous high profile and visual engaging villains allow just about any cover to look good. This just begs the question, how did Jimenez produce this hideous monstrosity? Spidey's head looks like it was squished on both sides into that elipitcal / egg shape it's in and I can't tell if his arms are going straight back or are on an angle or if there extending straight up from his head as he falls in this belly flop pose towards the reader / ground. The entire perspective and proportions are terrible and I don't see how this even got approved by an editor.
Countdown to Final Crisis #8 Cover (left) by Scott Kolins & Cover (right) by UnknownDoes anyone know what happened with this week's issue's cover? The ugly and overly busy cover with the corny tagline on the left is what we were given, but the visually striking cover on the right is was what solicited for the longest time. Did the story change from several weeks back when the right cover was solicited? I don't recognize the extended hand with the belt strapped wrist. Was it pushed back and will be seen as an upcoming issue's cover? It's an excellent cover and would have been my cover of the week if it had actually be used, so I'm genuinely interested in this.
Countdown Homage Source
Countdown Homage SourceReader nu informed me about the above cover being the homage source for the new Countdown cover. It's quite obvious after seeing this that it is, indeed, what inspired the new cover. I don't know if this New Gods issue relates to Countdown or if that story is similar in anyway or if it's just a cool cover that the artist decided to reference.
Justice League The New Frontier Special #1 Cover by Darwyn CookeThe JL:TNFS cover reminded me of the cover to New Frontier #6 from the original mini-series, pictured above on the right. Where they're reaching for the stars / victory / Hal to his ring in that picture, in the new one, they are all reaching for answers from the classified film reel. I would have liked something more akin to the Absolute New Frontier cover, which featured dozens of heroes posing, but this isn't a bad cover and does fit the style and tone of the book.
Nightwing #142 Cover by Rags MoralesDespite being a great book, Nightwing gets the award for most misleading cover. There is no battle at 2000 ft, there is no battle in the air and this villain shows up for all of maybe 5 pages in a rather grounded fight that ends as quickly as it started. They don't even fight in the city. At least is looks good, I guess.
Teen Titans: Year One #3 Cover by Karl KerschlI like this cover, but it seems quite generic and cliched to have the kids in the mentor's costumes. That said, I could not, for the life of me, find a single cover that this could be an homage to. I went through a couple Teen Titans cover archives, but not one turned up something remotely similar to this. So, props to Kerschl for an actual original cover that should have been used long ago, but apparently wasn't?
Another thing I found amusing is they've all pretty much grown up to wear these costumes at one point or another. Well, poor Aqualad didn't, but the rest have graduated to bigger and better things or taken over for their mentors at one point or another.
This was just a fun, light hearted cover that really fits the tone of the book.
Another thing I found amusing is they've all pretty much grown up to wear these costumes at one point or another. Well, poor Aqualad didn't, but the rest have graduated to bigger and better things or taken over for their mentors at one point or another.
This was just a fun, light hearted cover that really fits the tone of the book.
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5 comments:
on the cover that wasnt used for countdown, i believe that the hand reaching up is supposed to be karate kid's because he is supposed to be/trigger the great disaster and it is happening in the newt couple of issues. --- the cover that was used is in homage to an older cover with darkseid playing chess against orion. you should look it up for comparison.
Hmm, it could be Karate Kid. I tried getting a clear picture of his armbands, but I'm not sure if they are like the belt buckles on the unused Countdown cover above. Your explanation would make sense though.
I couldn't find the chess game cover against Orion, but the one I did find looks like a possible inspiration as well. You can view it at the link below:
New Gods Cover
If it's the one you were referring to, I'll add it to the Cover to Cover post with a credit to you.
yeah that is the cover i was talking about. in my mind i combined that cover with the one of darkseid and despero playing cosmic chess
That red cover looks might it would fit better with Final Crisis, having the entire major DCU cast and all...
look at kk here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate_Kid_(comics)
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