Tagged: covers

Comic Cover of the Week: Wisconsin’s Forgotten 1980s Superhero!

Here’s a flashback to late 1980s indie comics who’s covers pack a punch (or more so a KICK)! Wisconsin superhero Badger was always a favorite of mine, for one reason because the cheese state, from which I hail, never got much attention in the superhero spectrum. Mike Baron’s ‘First Comics’ creation was a truly unique spin on the genre. This incredible cover was one as a Wisconsinite always stuck in my mind! Badger was truly reppin’ the Midwest! A dynamic cover from 1988 by Steve Rude is one of my faves hands DOWN!

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Comic Cover of the Week: Iron Man Gets Seriously Bullied!

I loved the old Marvel Fanfare, back in the day it worked as a unique little anthology book. Featuring some lesser known, as well as big name superheroes in their own little self contained unique adventures. Printed on glossy paper and featuring often times more unconventional stories in the way they were presented. They also of course had some knockout covers, this one, from Marvel Fanfare #22 from 1982 features a  unique moment where we see Doctor Octopus and unlikely villain for Iron Man completely intimidating him with a gang of dangerous supervillains all getting ready to gang up on Tony Stark! I’ve always loved to see comic books where superheroes face off against villains who they might not normally be associated with. This one is a great representation of that as we see Iron Man truly vulnerable, in a deadly situation beautifully illustrated by Ken Steacy in this iconic fold out cover!  Oh how I miss the 1980s…

Top 10 Rock Album Covers by Comic Book Artists?!

There are some epic comic book artists out there in the world, true legends who produced some of the most iconic artwork of all time. I’ve always wondered if any big name comic book artists were employed by rock bands to make album covers? Let’s face it, one of the most important things as a musician is having an unforgettable album cover. So I did a little research of my own to see who, if any, throughout time had actually enlisted these talents! Here’s what I found!

Mark Texiera: Public Enemy, Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994)

Texiera takes a break from the pages of comic books to spice up Public Enemy’s 1994 release with an awesome LP cover. This is a great example of how wise it is to hire a comic book artist to craft a freakin’ masterpiece cover for your band.

 

Barry Windsor Smith: The Byrds, Preflyte (1973)

Barry is easily one of the greatest comic book artists of all time, who the hell wouldn’t ask the guy to do the art work for their record? This one though was a real surprise I had no idea he dabbled in the music genre with his skills!

 

Bob Camp: Newcleus Jam On Revenge (1984)

Bob Camp did some great work with Marvel Comics in the eighties on titles like The ‘Nam, Conan the Barbarian and G.I. Joe. But what a lot of people forget is that he actually did this iconic cover art for rap supergroup Newcleus!

 

John Byrne: Joe Satriani, Surfing With The Alien  (1987)

Superstar comic book artist John Byrne’s rendering of the Silver Surfer was used for Joe Satriani’s most famous guitar rock album. Apparently no one talked to him about using the artwork and apparently he remains uncredited in the album liner notes!

 

Todd Mcfarlane: Korn, Follow the Leader (1998)

I’ve gotta say I’ve never liked Korn, at all.  In fact I can admit that I actually hate their music. But when I found out they hired Todd McFarlane to do the cover art for their album they won me over just a little bit..

 

Bill Sienkiewicz: RZA, Bobby Digital in Stereo (1998)

Getting Bill to do your cover artwork Is probably about the wisest thing you could do for your damn musical career. The guy is a living legend and one of the best cover artists in all comic book history!  He nails it for RZA!

 

Richard Corben: Meatloaf, Bat Out of Hell (1977)

Corben is responsible for some of the grittiest comic book art out there! He hits a home run here with Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’. Recently I had to come to my own conclusion about Meatloaf, and I find myself in the same frame of mind as I did with Korn. NOT A FAN! But still Meatloaf wins me over employing Corben to make this iconic album cover…

 

Vincent Locke: Cannibal Corpse, Butchered at Birth (1991)

Legendary gore artist extraordinaire, Vincent Locke is best know for his crazy artwork for 80s horror comic Deadworld. With his unforgettable awesome LP cover for Cannibal Corpse he essentially just drew a cover for Deadworld and slapped on their logo and somehow created a truly gore-tas-tic metal massacre masterpiece!

 

Alex Ross: Anthrax, We’ve Come for You All (2003)

Mr. Ross is a true legend and Anthrax made an excellent choice in getting him on deck to craft this beautifully mysterious album cover. Ross is in league of his own and this adds more proof of that bold claim.

 

Jamie Hewlett: Senseless Things, The First of Too Many (1991)

 An amazing power pop punk album from the Senseless Things! This one was in heavy rotation for me when I was in high school. I didn’t make the connection until recently that this artist went on to produce the iconic Tank Girl comic book series!

 

Brian Bolland: Beautiful Happiness (1988) 

Who’d have ever thought that Brian Boland, comic book artist extraordinaire, most well known for Batman: The Killing Joke, was a punk at heart?  Easily one of my favorite comic book artists/cover artists of all time, this shows his true skill in crafting the ultimate punk rock compilation cover!


Holiday Comic Cover of the Week: The THING vs Evil Xmas Toys!

We keep getting closer and closer to Christmas this year So of course we have to check out some groovy holiday comic book covers of years gone by! Today we take a look at ‘Marvel Two In One’ number 74 from 1981. It’s a special Christmas issue that of course features The Thing battling the Puppet Master’s evil toys during the during the holidays! This is a sweet cover as well drawn by Frank Springer and it really harkens back to the Golden Age of comics when they were just a damn good time to read!

 

Comic Cover of the Week: Marvel’s Epic 80’s Rock Fable!

The more that I think about it and revisit these classic comic book covers, it becomes so apparent, that Bill’s Sienkiewicz is quite possibly the greatest comic book cover artist of ALL time! Here with New Mutants annual #1 from 1984, we again get to see Bill’s amazing craftsmanship on display. I’m honestly quite surprised that bands from the 80s didn’t employ him to create their album covers! They would have been truly epic andvutterly unforgettable! Here’s the Proof!

Unpublished HULK #300 Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!

Of Course by now you’ve all realized how much I love the iconic artwork of master Bill Sienkiewicz! Well here’s a little treat, an unpublished cover for the Incredible Hulk #300 from 1984 that he did. The truly epic artwork for a legendary issue that pitted a seemingly mindless Hulk up against some of Marvel’s greatest heroes hell bent on ridding the world once and for all of the monster. Instead though Doctor Strange sends The Hulk into an alternate universe called the “Crossroads” for a truly unforgettable chapter in chapter in The Green Goliath’s history. Check out Bill’s cover:

The original cover by Bret Blevins is equally impressive, but this unfortunately was a time before Marvel cover variants we put out there for fans, Damn how Bill’s cover would have also been perfect…here’s the original: 

 

 

The ‘SHANG CHI’ Trailer From an Old School Fan’s Perspective!

Sometimes I feel like I’m just raining on everyone’s MCU parade! I really don’t want to be THAT guy. However as a fan of the comic book as a kid in the 1980’s I can say if you’d shown me the trailer with no mention of what I was seeing I’d probably wouldn’t have guessed it was Shang Chi “The Master of Kung Fu’ I’d grown up to love!

Comic Book Cover of the Week 1985: Before WandaVision!

WandaVision seems to be the talk of the town, whether you like it or not it’s Disney +’s MCU big kick off series and from what I’ve heard it’s quite daring in it’s storytelling. I still haven’t checked it out, something about it just hasn’t pulled me into setting aside time to give it a try. Maybe when all the episodes are out I’ll dive in. But before all this hype of WandaVision we had this nifty 12 part limed series with the famous superhero couple released waaay back in 1985. Maybe I’ll give this one a spin again before I dave into more Disney + schlock, I’ve got to admit the first issue sure did look promising from the cover alone don’t you think? If this was what had been marketed for the MCU series I’d be 100% down from the very damn start!

  

Comic Cover of the Week: Elvira’s Creepy Christmas Adventures!!!

Who knew everyone’s favorite Mistress of the Dark, Elvira was also down with the Christmas holiday cheer?! Yeah! Well back in 1987 DC comics indeed released her special holiday adventures, ‘Elvira’s Haunted Holidays’ part of her “House of Mystery” series. This however is not only a collection of spooky X-mas tales but they also feature the iconic bombshell as the main character of the creepy adventures! This classic cover, drawn by José Luis García-López kicks off the month here with some true Christmas spirit of this largely forgotten one shot comic book!