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)