Art Attack: September 2013's Coolest Covers

-Alex Ross has done it all in the comics biz at this point, but I'll always remember him first and foremost for Marvels, a series that had such an impact on me in terms of showing what the medium was capable of at a time when super hero books were pretty cut and dry. One of the things that really made the project pop in huge part because of Ross was the juxtaposition of the larger than life Marvel Universe against mundane ordinary folks, exactly what he's doing on this Astro City cover, a book written by his Marvels collaborator Kurt Busiek and taking a lot of what that book did to the next level.

-Leinil Yu is on fire with his Infinity tie-in covers for Avengers. These are posters waiting to happen. His Hulk this month is intense, but this Captain Marvel is a whole other level. It's great seeing more and more artists take to Jame McKelvie's great costume design and making it work in different ways. There's a Travis Charest vibe here in the texture, but the energy crackle is a bit Kirby; the overall composition is totally Yu. Also not to be overlooked, Sunny Gho's colors, which have been dynamite working with Yu, particularly on these washed Infinity covers, as the red lights up the piece here.

-I did not initially recognize that Avengers A.I. cover as being by David Marquez, as the dude's a master but this is something new for him with the cutting elements dissecting Vision. I wonder how long that took?

-Whenever I have tried in vain to draw, from childhood to present, I've found nothing more difficult than the whole "foreshortening" deal. Drawing a straight line telescoping toward "the camera" is hard enough, but a complex shape like, say, a question mark? You have my respect, Guillem March. Nice textures and facial work too.

-Mike Allred can do equal parts boundary-pushing outside the box techie pinball games and throwback vintage portraits; this kid may have a future.

-If you've been reading this blog and these entries for any stretch of time, you may know I have certain guaranteed tics that make me love covers, stuff like good homages or somebody destroying the logo...so well played, Georges Jeanty and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9!

-I highlight Massimo Carnevale's Conan the Barbarian covers a lot because I really like not just his art, but his style of painting. It's similar to other pieces I've shown this month from Dustin Nguyen and Rafael Albuquerque where the shading is such that rather than sections being dark and others being light, it seems like the whole thing is divided into slivers, each with a distinct shade. Gorgeous stuff.

-Does that David Aja cover for Hawkeye feel like him going "Your move, Mark Brooks" to anybody but me?

-Alex Maleev's cover for Secret Avengers feels like a hat tip to lots of stuff I dig. You got some Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D. in there, a bit of Bond Girl, a touch of the water color stuff his buddy Michael Oeming does--like on Mice Templar--and more. Distinctive Maleev too.

-I like seeing Paolo Rivera drawing most things, and aliens feels like something new, right? He's good.

-That Thor cover has me so pumped to see what Ron Garney does on interiors. He and Jason Aaron always seem to bring the best out of each other, this particular approach to this character seems tailored for him to really let loose.

-I'll miss you, David Yardin's X-Factor covers.

-X-Men #5 was my desktop wallpaper at work until this week.

-Also, Aaron Kuder.

ACTION COMICS #23.1: CYBORG SUPERMAN by Aaron Kuder

ASTRO CITY #4 by Alex Ross

AVENGERS #19 by Leinil Francis Yu

AVENGERS A.I. #3 by David Marquez

AVENGERS A.I. #3 by Mike Allred

BATMAN & ROBIN #23.2: THE COURT OF OWLS by Patrick Gleason

BATMAN #23.2: THE RIDDLER by Guillem March

BATMAN '66 #3 by Mike Allred

BATMAN: LIL GOTHAM #6 by Dustin Nguyen

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #23.3: CLAYFACE by Guillem March

BLOOD BROTHERS #3 by Juan Doe

B.P.R.D.: HELL ON EARTH #111 by Rafael Albuquerque

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 9 #25 by Georges Jeanty

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #20 by Massimo Carnevale

FATALE #18 by Sean Phillips

FLASH #23.2: REVERSE FLASH by Francis Manapul

HAWKEYE #15 by David Aja

INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #13 by Mukesh Singh

INFINITY #2 by Skottie Young

INFINITY #3 by Simone Bianchi

JUSTICE LEAGUE #23.2: LOBO by Aaron Kuder

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #23.2: ECLIPSO by Mikel Janin

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7.3: SHADOW THIEF by Tony Daniel

MICE TEMPLAR IV #7 by Michael Avon Oeming

SECRET AVENGERS #9 by Alex Maleev

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #18 by Ryan Stegman

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM-UP #3 by Paolo Rivera

SUPERMAN #23.1: BIZARRO by Aaron Kuder

SUPERMAN #23.4: PARASITE by Aaron Kuder

THOR: GOD OF THUNDER #13 by Ron Garney

UNCANNY X-MEN #12 by Chris Bachalo

X-FACTOR #262 by David Yardin

X-MEN #5 by Arthur Adams

X-MEN LEGACY #16 by Mike Del Mundo

YOUNG AVENGERS #10 by Jamie McKelvie

6 Things Kiel Got Into This Year

Hey, everyone! As Ben said earlier, today marks two years of the CKT. We thought it'd be fun to open up our own personal pop culture notebooks from the past 12 months to share a little bit about what we've been digging on lately (because really, the whole point of this blog is pretty much to make you like the cool shit we're into as much as we do), and I'm up first because I don't have an office job and Kevin's lost somewhere driving across America. Away we go!


1. "Justified"

I gave this show a shot in the summer because I was sad that the networks didn't seem to be stepping up with anything interesting after "Lost" ended (okay, and because of my man crush on Olyphant...his looks are smoldering), but I stuck with it because it's a smart, subtle crime drama that had an engaging overarching story wrapped around some fantastic one-off mysteries and a cast of inarguably human characters. The dialogue is boss, too.



2. King City By Brandon Graham

I'd honestly been hunting for a copy of the Tokyopop volume 1 of this series for what feels like it must have been two years, and finally got a copy a few weeks before the new Image issues started hitting shops. I swear I told myself I wasn't going to double buy the story in the first six singles, but after seeing two of them hit the stands with the art blown up big in the tabloid format and the extra bits and pieces (not to mention the mind-bending covers and design) Graham had added, I folded like a card table. Phenomenal comics wonderfully packaged. Do you think he'll go back to Multiple Warheads next?


3. iZombie by Chris Roberson and Mike & Laura Allred

The other serial comic that's really been scratching my art and design itch of late, I'm sure you all know that I picked this book up simply for the Allreds as I pick up anything they work on at least for a trial spin. But aside from a much more glossy version of the thick lines and soft tones Mike and Laura started digging into in the last Madman volume, I've been super impressed by the hipstery monster mash-up of newcomer Chris Roberson's story. And I'm not even a horror or hipster hound.


4. Majesty Shredding by Superchunk

Okay yes sure, I've only had this album a week or so (thanks to my local comics shop Challengers opening an account with a record distributor just to stock it). And yes, saying "The new Superchunk album is really, really great" is kind of like saying "Hey, chocolate milk is radical." But what can I say, man? Chocolate milk is fucking radical!


5. "Party Down"

One day this summer, I realized the entire first season of this absurdly brilliant and funny cable sitcom was on Netfix instant just in time to also watch the second season as it initially serialized. Explaining my reaction to the show and its cancelation right after season two ended is kind of hard. Um...it's like...it's like you go to camp, right? And you meet this awesome kid named Pauly Downing, and he hates all the same shit you do and knows how to screw with the dickhead counselors without getting caught, and you become blood brothers and swear to keep in touch in the fall no matter what. And then after six months of writing his address with no response, his mother writes you to tell you Pauly died of cancer.

Fuck you, Starz.


6. "Tosh.0"

This one is my "guilty pleasure" pick of the year. And, I don't know...I'm not really sure why it'd be a guilty pleasure except I have no idea what anyone actually thinks of it beyond a general feeling that a lot of my super hip friends would find Daniel Tosh's mocking of internet videos to be kind of meatheaded and vaguely racist at times. But hey, every week I turn this show on and it does the #1 thing any comedy show should: it makes me laugh a lot.

Jesus, I'm watching way too much TV these days, aren't I?