Saturday, December 3, 2011

Cover "Fails from 12/3/11

 This cover is part of a tryptic so I'll refrain from talking about the design, but what bugs me is the cape. I have to blame McFarlane for this trend. Ever since Spawn, it's just gotten ridiculous. My favoring cover was when he drew Spawn crouching on his own cape. Assuring once Spawn tried to stand up, he's choke himself out. Just google Spawn #8. Anyway, back to this cover. Maybe his character is all about bloody vengeance and providing a never ending supply of fabric to wayward clothing designers.
 Hey, look at that. This character and the Cape guy above are almost in the same position. But I digress. There is so many things wrong with this cover. First off, the pose. It's that standard "Image Comics from the 90's, look at me, I'm a bad ass" kind of thing that has been done sooooo many times if I didn't know any better I'd swear this is a parody of those covers. Then there is the design. Why is it off-set? If you're going to do a boring straight on cover with matching elements on each side, at least have them balanced. I don't have OCD, but if I did, this cover would drive me crazy. And now onto color. Besides the airbrush nature of it (which I'm not a fan of, but I'm trying to stay away from those kind of comments. Some people dig this style of art. I get it.) is the green highlights that seem to appear in some places but not others. And the fact that her cloak on her head completely disappears into the BG. And one last note on the design side of things. Her costume is horrible. Throwing a bunch of random elements on a figure is not good design. Maybe the artist should start watching "Project Runway".
 This is another cover with that airbrushy with crazy highlights flavor to it. Once again, not my cup of tea, but what I will talk about the terrible color choices. It offends my eyes. The purples, the pinks, with gold and silver and blues oh my! All together they make this look like mud. Design wise, well, there really isn't any. Once again, it feels like an interior panel. I'm not even sure who the main character is? I think this artist needs a good solid dose of "How to draw comics the Marvel way". John Buscema shows you how to do "2 characters fighting" covers the right way.

And finally we come to this cover depicting the worst jail in the Star Wars universe. That chick is probably yelling, "Damn you for locking me up in this prison cell with only two bars. If only I could figure out how to walk around them!" Also, I'm not really sure what's going on with her dress. It's like two different artists did this piece. One who wants to be a painter and the other who had a bunch of old zip-a-tone laying around.

11 comments:

  1. LOL. Spawn will save the day once he wakes up after choking himself out.

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  2. "Atlas" just screams I didn't want to draw the legs! Which is more than I can say for the third cover here. Seeing that huge on top of those disproportionate legs courtesy of the Rob Leifeld school of anatomy.

    More to the point, what is the story on #3? Pink Man is big and has a sword and has some sort of grievance with Jungle Girl, whose ass gets more cover time than her face!

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  3. I agree with #3 being an assault on my eyes... Dave, what sort of solution do you propose when confined to using characters who are designed with garish coloring elements?

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  4. oh man, How to draw comics the marvel way is brilliant. No one can touch John Buscema! (no offense...)
    The videos are on youtube with the great 70's music.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y6k_vk_Vg

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  5. I'm just confused as to why Carrot Top is in jail in the Star Wars universe.

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  6. What really disturbs me on the last cover is that she is supposed to bein in jail but she already has half her face outside of it and it doesn't seem like a big challenge to go beetween the large space beetween those 2 bars. So why yellling? :p

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  7. Relooking at it again, that's not that the space is big beetween the 2 bars, it's that one seems to be more in front of her than the other, making it possible for her to squeeze asily beetwen the 2.

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  8. I have more comments about the editors that approved these covers. Honestly, its the thing that sells the book...just look at that third cover...what were they thinking. when the editor got the design he should have had a hundred notes. Honest...I think a lot of these are inexperienced editors at work.

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  9. I'll give credit where it's due: it takes a certain amount of skill to distort a woman enough to show her tits AND ass, but not her face.

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  10. 'It's like two different artists did this piece. One who wants to be a painter and the other who had a bunch of old zip-a-tone laying around.'

    ROFL!!

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  11. Drawing the Marvel is the best. I should goo back and read that.

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