Kevin Melrose, writing on the excellent comics blog Robot 6, part of the Comic Book Resources site, at the end of the year presents his list of the 50 best comic book covers of the year.
Comic book covers occupy a particularly fascinating niche in publishing, inheriting some of the lurid, lure you in with promised excitement approach from the old pulp detective and science fiction magazines of the mid-20th century, but moving into the 21st century with more sophisticated graphics and a wide range of design and illustration approaches.
Melrose’s list is always interesting, as is his commentary on the covers. The images in his column are linked to larger versions so you can get a good look at them.
For most, you can appreciate them simply for the illustration and/or design. For some, however, it helps to have a little background. In the case of Paolo Rivera’s wonderful cover for Daredevil #1 (images above, top) it helps to understand that Daredevil is a blind superhero who perceives the world through his other, heightened senses.
For more of my thoughts on the interesting role comic book covers have in modern illustration, see my post from last year on The 50 best comic covers of 2010 on Robot 6.
For artist credits on the other covers above, please see the original post on Robot 6.
Comments
3 responses to “The 50 best comic covers of 2011 on Robot 6”
I’ve been in a funny place with comics lately. Finding them not as interesting and in the case of this blog, unimpressed by the Art. Not because the Art isn’t good, but it seems oh so similar. I think part of it is the delay in how long it takes for the comics I read to come out. RASL, Mouse Guard, Hell Boy… it takes months to go from one issue to the next. Feeling like Hell Boy has run it’s course, at least for me. And just wish RASL and Mouse Guard could come out at a faster pace [yep I’m bitching.. but it’s only because I appreciate the stories and the art, and the artists]. In the end I’ve been struggling finding stories/covers that interest me and that go beyond the typical Super hero, zombie, apocalyptic, bloody, war, vampire, over sexified, bustified, stereo typified stuff that seems to blanket the walls of the local comic store. Oh dear God… maybe, ahh no, no, no________… maybe I’m starting to get old and crotchety…
Maybe it’s time to run up into the attic, try to put on my old jeans, buy some spray on hair, color the chin beard, hit up McDonalds for an old fashion ¼ pounder, fries, apple pie and a large coke, steal my 5 year olds bean bag chair, put Star wars music on my ipod shuffle and hide in the basement with a couple short boxes of comic books, for as long as my wife will let me and get myself back into comic book fandom form…
Cheers,
Mike
Under the covers with a flashlight works too.
That’s reminds my childhood used to read a lot of them. Thanks for recreating such comic characters back in life