The Cool Kids Table: paolo rivera

Friday, April 12, 2013

Art Attack: June 2013's Coolest Covers

-Working in comics, one of the downsides is I don't get surprised a lot, but I had no idea 100 Bullets was coming back and I was thrilled to be taken off guard by the news. Dave Johnson's cover takes you right back.

-That's a really different kind of cover for Astonishing X-Men by Phil Noto. Iceman is hardly the type of character who typically gets placed in a fantasy setting, but the unique juxtaposition here coupled with beautiful colors and the cool array of past and present love interests works really nicely (and makes you realize what a weird romantic history Bobby Drake has had). Noto is the consummate pro.

-Paolo Rivera really first got on the map beyond being the painter of Mythos when he drew that Punisher team-up issue of Amazing Spider-Man, so it's cool to see him back on both characters (after a fashion) with this month's Avenging Spider-Man cover, as he's got a great grasp for them. I'd love to see some regular Paolo Punisher.

-Jae Lee is a master of taking the familiar and making it striking, as he does on Batman/Superman #1. Two iconic figures, not a lot of busy scenery, just beautiful fine art.

-Great use of blacks on Georges Jeanty's cover for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I wonder how long he tinkered before settling on that approach?

-If that Daredevil cover by Chris Samnee doesn't fill you with a tingly excitement, this blog may not be for you (wait! Come back!).

-These Skullkickers homage covers have yet to miss for me.

-Nobody in comics is doing covers any more inventive than Mark Brooks on Fearless Defenders right now. I'd love to know where he gets his ideas from. Hey wait, I run a web site that could probably look into just that...

-Juan Doe on G.I. Joe! It just feels right.

-Was talking with Impact Wrestling's Samoa Joe about Paolo Rivera's Indestructible Hulk cover the other day when he visited the Marvel offices and it caught his eye. We both dug beyond the humor aspect that the style is very old school in a lot of ways, but has a slick modern polish. Paolo is really on fire.

-I didn't put that Mind the Gap cover on just to try and avoid Jim McCann whining in the comments section again, I really like the idea and Rodin Esquejo executes it perfectly (it could have come off really sloppy in the wrong hands).

-Enlarge that Superior Spider-Man cover by Giuseppe Camuncoli and then scroll up and down your screen for a bit. It's trippy.

-Thor: God of Thunder #9 is currently the desktop wallpaper of my work computer.

-With Ultimate Comics X-Men, B.P.R.D. and the aforementioned 100 Bullets, Dave Johnson makes my list three times this month. He's still the master.

-Declan Shalvey may be the most underrated artist in mainstream comics. He has a knack for dropping the fantastic (like an alien symbiote) into a world that looks more mundane and realistic than a lot of others depict with very compelling results.

100 BULLETS: BROTHER LONO #1 by Dave Johnson

ABE SAPIEN #3 by Sebastian Fiumara

ASTONISHING X-MEN #63 by Phil Noto

AVENGERS ARENA #11 by Mike Del Mundo

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #22 by Paolo Rivera

BATMAN: LIL GOTHAM #3 by Dustin Nguyen

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #1 by Jae Lee

BATWING #21 by Ken Lashley

B.P.R.D.: HELL ON EARTH #108 by Dave Johnson

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 9 # 22 by George Jeanty

CABLE AND X-FORCE #9 by John Tyler Christopher

DAREDEVIL #27 by Chris Samnee

DARK SKULLKICKERS DARK #1 by Edwin Huang

DIAL H #13 by Brian Bolland

FEARLESS DEFENDERS #5 by Mark Brooks

FF #9 by Mike Allred

G.I. JOE #5 by Juan Doe

GREEN ARROW #21 by Andrea Sorrentino

INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #9 by Paolo Rivera

IT GIRL AND THE ATOMICS #11 by Mike Allred

JUPITER'S LEGACY #2 by Frank Quitely

JUSTICE LEAGUE #21 by Gary Frank

LAZARUS #1 by Michael Lark

MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #15 by Ty Templeton

MIND MGMT #12 by Matt Kindt

MIND THE GAP #12 by Rodin Esquejo

NOVA #5 by Ed McGuinness

SAVAGE WOLVERINE #6 by Mike Perkins

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #11 by Giuseppe Camuncoli

SUPERMAN #21 by Tyler Kirkham

SWAMP THING #21 by Jock

THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS #1 by Gerard Way

THOR: GOD OF THUNDER #9 by Esad Ribic

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #25 by Michael Komarck

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #27 by Dave Johnson

VENOM #36 by Declan Shalvey

WINTER SOLDIER #19 by Declan Shalvey

WOLVERINE #4 by Pascal Campion

YOUNG AVENGERS #6 by Jamie McKelvie

Friday, December 23, 2011

Art Attack: March 2012's Coolest Covers

-I was not at all familiar with the Extreme characters in the 90's (only one X-Treme character), but the covers for Avengelyne and Glory are so far askew from what I remember that I'm instantly intrigued. Absolutely what covers are supposed to do. Kudos to Owen Gieni and Ross Campbell, if I pick up these books it will be because of you.

-It feels sometimes like a lot of homage covers are drawing from the same pool of a dozen or so source images, but Avengers #150 certainly isn't one of them, yet there it is on Art Adams' variant for Avengers Assemble #1. Cool.

-Echoing what has already been said elsewhere, but Frank Cho's wood-etching-esque background for Avengers VS X-Men #0 is breathtaking.

-I haven't read Blue Estate, but Viktor Kalvachev's covers draw my interest just about every month. I love what he does with design, with message and visual metaphors.

-Daredevil #10 by Paolo Rivera. GUH. It's like he gets bored with being merely amazing and has to look around and see what isn't already being done so he can do it. I remember being blown away by his paintings and then being shocked when he did that Amazing Spider-Man issue with Punisher and I was like, "Holy crap, he can DRAW too!" Now I don't even know what he's doing with the surroundings of DD here, but it's incredible. I'm not sure if his dad inked this, but if he did, even more astounding; they both get better by the second (and are swell guys too).

-Few have knocked more covers out of the park in the last few years than J.G. Jones, but it's always nice to see him pull out his toolbox, whether it's doing Frankenstein like a movie poster or the layering on Mister Terrific. His old tricks still work and he's always trying new ones as well.

-Love the claustrophobic portrait of Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America by Alex Maleev for Moon Knight; a touch of Travis Charest almost, but distinctly Maleev.

-The Punisher is so casual pulling his gun out while driving a cab in that Bryan Hitch cover. It's an absurd set-up that Hitch manages to make deadly serious.

-Jock's Scalped cover creeps me out. I mean that as a compliment.

-Kalman Andrasofsky saved the best for last on X-23. I'd buy a poster of that.

AGE OF APOCALYPSE #1 by Humberto Ramos