Welcome to a new feature. Each month on the ComicTom101 blog I will be posting a new article: The Top 20 Comic Book Covers of the Month. It will highlight the 20 best covers of the month not including store exclusives or incentive exclusives. If you want to see next months List, check out that article HERE.
On to the smaller list! Everyone loves lists. If you asked Santa for a bunch of awesome new titles and covers for Christmas, you are in luck this month! Below I will break down an hand full of these covers from an artistic and design perspective. These covers are in no particular order. Enjoy these works of art as we go into the holiday season. Geek Responsibly!
BATMAN #84 CARD STOCK VAR ED
Cover by Francesco Mattina
"City of Bane" The end is near as one victory leads to another defeat. This cover is amazing. I am a sucker for any Mattina cover as well as any Thomas Wayne Cover. The lay out of this piece uses a Discordant Color Scheme. That means Mattina decided to deliberately deviate from the balanced of the color scheme to make an element of the piece stand out. The examples of that are how he decided to use blue as the background on the right side to highlight Thomas Wayne's red eye. This brings your eyes to his right away and using the lightning (reference to the Flashpoint timeline, Thomas Wayne's Batman originates) he leads us down through the image to the red on the left helping you enjoy the whole piece.
In Shops: Dec 04, 2019
MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS / TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #1
As the Rangers are sent reeling by this betrayal, they 're confronted by another (fr)enemy... the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Can these heroes find a way to work together to defeat the bad guys and save the world from total destruction?!
This is a classic Complementary Color Scheme. These dueling are colors often associated with conflict. In this example, knowing how the TMNT/Batman # 1 started, the Power Rangers will think the Turtles are enemies (mentioned above). The rendering is amazing, the highlights are on point, and the over all layout of Raph's fingers framing the Red Rangers helmet is great.
In Shops: Dec 04, 2019
OCEAN MASTER YOTV #1
Cover by Francesco Mattina
Orm Marius lost nearly everything following the events of "Drowned Earth"-his crown, his love, and his freedom. Now, in the battle between justice and doom, Ocean Master struggles to find his place.
This cover (also by Mattina, I wasn't lying when I said I love his work) is a masterful example of an Analogous Color Scheme. Analogous colors neighbor each other on the color wheel and since there is no conflict from contrast they come off as harmonious. This theme fits this book's theme of Orm trying to reclaim his harmony with the Ocean and his life as Ocean Master.
In Shops: Dec 11, 2019
JUSTICE LEAGUE ODYSSEY #16 VAR ED
Cover by Lucio Parrillo
Jessica Cruz and her new Justice League Odyssey squad are hardly a team...just a bunch of misfits and old rivals thrown together by chance. Only one cause unites them: stopping the newly empowered, godlike Darkseid.
Lucio Parrillo is another artist I really enjoy, He always conveys amazing depth with his highlights, lowlights, and mid-tones. This piece is another example of Complementary Color Scheme. Right away, your eyes are drawn to Jessica Cruz's smokey green eyes. Then, you're lead down the to her hands that feature some green magic or electricity all being framed by a warm red toned background framed by her hair.
In Shops: Dec 11, 2019
VENOM #21 CHEW VARIANT
VENOM ISLAND BEGINS HERE!
Lastly, this Chew Variant of Venom #21 looks amazing. Before we talk about the color, lets talk about the composition. He framed the subject of this piece, Venom, around an explosion originating behind him. All of the neutral colored debris flying towards the views eye really centered your eye to Venoms Eyes. His winding tounge complete the circular pattern started by the debris landing you right in the scares part of the character, his face. The color layout is actually a pretty basic Triadic Color Scheme. The main colors are Red (Tongue), Blue (Venom), and Yellow (some debris and the line to the left). Using three colors is still a version of a Complementary pattern and aways produces a high energy composition matching this story as Venom has (presumably as of 10/18) beat Carnage and is starting the Venom Island Story Arc.
In Shops: Dec 25, 2019
Those are my top of the top covers and why I love them for December 2019. If you want to view the whole list and see the product numbers that you can order these titles with from your Local Comic Book Store, check out the blog post I made on the ComicTom101 site HERE.