52 Covers

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Been a while since I did these. But I’ll be CRAZY biased next year thanks to my work on IDW’s JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS with Ross Campbell so I figured I should get in a final year. I did a comprehensive “Best of 2014” over on CSBG for this week’s SHE HAS NO HEAD! and this is simply an extension of that piece.

As always, you can see my biases in my choices. Title integration is important to me (which is why I’m only showing cover art with the titles on it), so are interesting compositions and great use of positive/negative space. I also tend to love bold colors (and a lot of white is a personal favorite) as well as simple, graphic, iconic images. Creativity is obviously key, but a lot of what makes a cover work for someone is just gut – how it makes you feel – and that it DOES make you feel. All these covers make me feel to some degree or another. This list is also only single issue comics – usually US since that’s what I have access to (no graphic novels or trade covers were considered for the list). As always I’m never quite sure if I got the order right, but it is what it is!

Here we go, counting down from 52 – one for each week of 2014.

52. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 BY MARCOS MARTIN

051 amazing_spider_man_1_cover - marcos martin

51. ALL-NEW ULTIMATES #5 BY DAVID NAKAYAMA

050 All New Ultimates 5

50. ADVENTURE TIME #24 BY MIKE HOLMES

049 Adventure Time 24a - Mike Holmes

49. LUMBERJANES #8 BY NOELLE STEVENSON

048 Lumberjanes 8 - Noelle Stevenson

48. UNCANNY X-MEN #17 BY CHRIS BACHALO

047 Uncanny X-Men 17

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And when I say “the year” I mean since last year’s comic-con in San Diego.  That’s right, in honor of SDCC 2012, which I am, again, not able to attend I thought I’d do a list of my 52 favorite covers* since last year’s comic-con, so essentially July 2011 – July 2012.** Check out previous years as well – here and here.

I’m not going bore you with lengthy descriptions about what I respond to in each image, but if you frequent this blog with any regularity, the choices will not surprise you.  My tastes skew to specific things like anyone, and I reward covers that cater to those personal tastes.  For example, as a woman, I tend to be interested in covers with female characters and at the same time you’re unlikely to see many covers with a lot of objectification and hyper sexualization.  As an artist (but only sorta, and a crappy one at that) I tend to be a bit of a snob about what I think is a good or bad cover – good often involves highly graphic images, lots of great negative space, interesting/solid composition, single figures, white space, and good integration of text into the image.

Whenever possible I’ve included the full cover, with text etc., as I feel that’s part of the whole.  I made a few exceptions if the covers were saddled with particularly horrible “event banners” or some such, or if I didn’t have access to a high enough resolution image including the text.

I’m sure I missed a bunch of great covers anyway and, as always, I never feel great about the order, but I tried my best! I hope you’ll enjoy, even if they’re not the covers you would pick, it’s a beautiful line up of cover gorgeousness.

If you’re new to the blog and haven’t seen my “100 Best Comic Covers” list, you can check it out: here, here, here, and here.  As well as my “already second guessing myself” modified list here.

Next year SDCC, next year!***

* This includes only monthly saddle stapled North American comics since that is what I have access to and did not include graphic novels, trades, etc. 

**Because comics are generally dated a month or two after they are actually released, there’s a bit of a fudging of the numbers/eligibility. It makes for a bit of grey area around the eligibility dates, but I did the best I could.

***Be advised, I say this every year.  Although there is a SLIM chance I’ll be going to NYCC this year – thanks to THIS. :)

52. SECRET AVENGERS #18 – DAVID AJA

51. DAREDEVIL #11 – STEFFI SCHUTZEE (AAA VARIANT – AVENGERS ART APPRECIATION)

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