News & Blog

GREEN ARROW #31 cover

I’ll be posting more about this later.

A few days ago comics scribe extraordinaire (and fast becoming Hollywood darling) Mark Millar held a little ‘design a new logo for my forum’ competition.
Now, before I hear everyone yelling ‘SPEC WORK!’, sometimes you have to give in to your inner geek and have some fun for half an hour or so.

Of course I didn’t win. But now I have the beginnings of a new typeface.

Yes I know its already 2010, but last month’s “Comics…” was postponed because of the holidays. Also, a short trip to the mainland yielded some excellent European BD which I wanted to include in this list.
As with last month’s entry, I’ll highlight and link the comics & books I think you really should be reading.

• Hellblazer #262 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Daytripper #1 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Ultimate Armor Wars #3 (of 4) (Marvel Comics)
• Astonishing X-Men #33 (Marvel Comics)
• Captain America Reborn #5 (of 6) (Marvel Comics)
• Phonogram — The Singles Club #6 (Image Comics)
• Haunt #3 (Image Comics)
• Supergod #2 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• B.P.R.D. War on Frogs #4 (Dark Horse Comics)
• The Perry Bible Fellowship AMANACK (Dark Horse Comics)

And for my Euro BD loot:
• Siegfried books I & II (Dargaud)
• Aigles de Rome (Dargaud)
(NOTE: I bought the Dutch language versions)
• Mœbius: Made in L.A. (Casterman)
• Yume book I & II (Bries)

But don’t take my word for it: Complex Magazine ran down The 50 Best Comic Book Covers of 2009, and VIKING #3 made the grade:

Hell-lo, huge sword. This cover isn’t compensating for anything, though. Great action pose with the wolf and the sword, terrific color palette, and even a killer mustache. The cherry on top is the overall detailing, from the weathered logo to the blood drop behind the issue number. —LEONG

The cover art, of course, is by the German Wonder that is Nic Klein.
Personally I’m quite happy to see this cover has been chosen, as its one of my favourites of the whole series.

You can see all of the VIKING covers I’ve designed at my site, or have a look at the design process of the logo.

Looking forward, next year will see the release of the 1st VIKING collection, and with that, the brand new logo & trade dress of the series. Stay tuned for more!

Another post listing some of my favourite covers from the 80s, and probably my first encounters with the American Graphic Novel format. Looking back at those now I think that the 80s were a very fertile ground for comics, especially with the rise of independent comics — and the Big Two (Marvel and DC) put out a remarkable amount of more left field work (sometimes using company characters) in their range of prestige format books. I was pretty much a Marvel Zombie back then, and the “Marvel Graphic Novel” label in the corner or at the top of their books meant I was going to be in for a treat: psychedelic art & stories by the likes of Rick Veitch and P. Craig Russell — not to mention the incredible graphic storytelling — and Bill Sienkiewicz on pretty much everything, from covers to movie adaptations…
So here are a few of my favourites from, to me at least, a golden era in comics:
Continue reading…

Too many comics, not enough time to read them all.
I’m going to start something new, from now on I’ll highlight and link the comics & books I think you should be reading.

• Hellblazer #261 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Batman & Robin #6 (DC Comics)
• Powers #1 (Marvel/ICON)
• Astonishing X-Men #32 (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Armor Wars #2 (of 4) (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Avengers #3, 4 (Marvel Comics)
• Captain America Reborn #4 (of 5) (Marvel Comics)
• Fantastic Four #572, 573 (Marvel Comics)
• Image United #1 (of 6) (Image Comics)
• Haunt #2 (Image Comics)
• Phonogram — The Singles Club #5 (Image Comics)
• VIKING #4 (Image Comics)
• Hellboy — The Wild Hunt #8 (of 8) (Dark Horse Comics)
• B.P.R.D. 1947 #4 (Dark Horse Comics)
• Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder #5 (of 5) (Dark Horse Comics)
• Abe Sapien: The Haunted Boy (Dark Horse Comics)
• Gravel #15 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #1 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Ignition City #5 (Painted cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Supergod #1 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Scalped Book 5 “High Lonesome” (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Luna Park Graphic Novel (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• The Wintermen TPB Collection (DC/Wildstorm Comics)
• Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 (Fleet Street Scandal)

• Gantz #7 (Dark Horse Comics)
• Hellboy — The Wild Hunt #7 (of 8) (Dark Horse Comics)
• B.P.R.D. 1947 #4 (Dark Horse Comics)
• Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder #4 (of 5) (Dark Horse Comics)
• Fantastic Four #571 (Marvel Comics)
• Astonishing X-Men #31 (Marvel Comics)
• Batman and Robin #5 (DC Comics)
• Hellblazer #260 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Planetary #27 (DC/Wildstorm Comics)
• War Heroes #3 (of 6) (Image Comics)
• Haunt #1 (Image Comics)
• Gravel #14 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #1 (‘Visions of Hell’ wrap cover) (Avatar Press)
• Anna Mercury 2 #2 (Wraparound cover) (Avatar Press)
• Crossed #7 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Wolfskin Volume 1 TPB (Avatar Press)

I just found out that apparently this weekend Comic Book Tattoo (which we designed) picked up another ‘Best Anthology Award‘, this time at the Harvey Awards!

Autumn’s here:

• Hellboy — The Wild Hunt #6 (of 8) (Dark Horse Comics)
• B.P.R.D. 1947 #3 (Dark Horse Comics)
• Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder #3 (of 5) (Dark Horse Comics)
• Fantastic Four #570 (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Armor Wars #1 (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Avengers #2 (Marvel Comics)
• Captain America Reborn #3 (of 5) (Marvel Comics)
• KICK-ASS #7 (Marvel/ICON)
• Giant-Size Wolverine #1 (Marvel Comics)
• Batman and Robin #3, 4 (DC Comics)
• Hellblazer #259 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• No Hero #7 (Avatar Press)
• The Darkness/PITT #2 (Image Comics)
• Hotwire #4 (Radical Publishing)

Published between 1980 and 1986, Epic Illustrated was Marvel Comics’ answer to Heavy Metal Magazine and adult comics. For 34 issues, Epic provided a platform within Marvel Comics for artists and writers to go beyond the usual work-for-hire mainstream boundaries and explore adult-themed genre fiction (mostly fantasy and SF) whilst maintaining the rights to their work. Personally, I’ve always loved Epic slightly more than Heavy Metal. Maybe its because the material published was just slightly different, more US centric than the French legacy that permeated Heavy Metal at that time. The unique thing about Epic was that, because Marvel owned it, you sometimes found the odd super hero story in it — most famously the unfinished Last Galactus Story by John Byrne — where creators were free to explore characters outside continuity. For the most part though, its pages served you some awesome sci-fi stories (never been much of a fantasy guy personally, although P. Graig Russell’s Elric adaptation is beautiful) like the surreal Abraxas and the Earthman by Rick Veitch, The sacred and the Profane by Dean Motter and Ken Steacy, Generation Zero by Pepe Moreno and Archie Goodwin to name just a few of the serialized stories (not to forget Jim Starlin, Kent Williams, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith,…).

Twenty years on, Mam Tor: Event Horizon™ (1 and 2) would recapture that energy that Epic had created — if only for 2 issues.

Here’s a few of my favourite covers (a full list can be seen at Cover Browser)
Continue reading…