Mitch Brown
Feb 1, 2005, 04:41 pm
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/top10dccovers.jpg" align=left alt="TOP 10 DC COVERS OF ALL-TIME">THE TOP 10 DC COVERS OF ALL-TIME
By: Raul Grau, Alex Groff, James Groves, Matt Lazorwitz, Jordan T. Maxwell, Ann Nichols, Omar A. Safi
We've all heard the phrase before - a picture is worth a thousand words. As comic book readers I'm sure we are all aware of this fact - hundreds..thousands of hours of our lives have no doubt been spent pouring over our "funnybooks" and the artwork within. But how often do we spend thinking about the exterior artwork - the comic book cover? The cover is the first point of contact between a comic book and its reader and is a factor that can quite literally make or break a book's sales. While a great many of us scan the comic book shelves for familiar logos of our favourite ongoings, I'm sure we can all relate to spotting a particularly eye-catching and appealing cover, one that draws our eye to a neglected section of the comic book racks, enticing us to look inside. How many of us have then taken the book up to the counter, breaking our budget to devour the secrets of this beautifully wrapped novelty?
When it comes to covers, DC Comics is undoubtedly one the masters. From the Julie Schwartz-inspired covers of the Silver Age, to the dazzling and challenging designs found on its Vertigo and Wildstorm lines, DC Comics has produced some of the most striking and memorable covers in comicdom. As part of our ongoing celebration of DC's auspicious seventieth anniversary, the ComiX-Fan staff cast their eyes over seven decades worth of material to bring you the cream of the DC Covers crop.
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#10 THE FILTH #10
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Filth10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Filth10t.jpg" alt="The Filth #10 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Carlos Segura
Grant Morrison had some psychedelic ideas in The Filth and the covers often produced images reflecting those ideas. The maxi-series’ covers were some of the best ever produced in the comic book medium. Carlos Segura utilizes extremely simple graphics and colors to convey the ideas of Grant Morrison’s brain trip. The Filth #10 stands out as one of the best from the series and from DC Comics' plethora of covers because of that simplicity and bizarre imagery. The cover pictures an insane contraption linked to a conveyor belt, mass-producing gods through digestion. The figure turning the screws of the mechanism excellently conveys the title, "Man Made God". Segura’s The Filth covers usually use the generic symbol for the male, expressing the ideas of a collective mundane nameless people. Also, the ideas of fighting authority, man raising people to the level of gods, and being outnumbered are brilliantly communicated. The Filth’s covers are a unique experiment in comic book covers. Go to your local comic shop and take a glance at the shelves. You will definitely not see anything like or near the quality of Segura’s The Filth covers. Hopefully, we’ll see his work still around, perhaps even on some mainstream books.
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#9 THE SANDMAN #1
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1t.jpg" alt="The Sandman #1 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Dave McKean
When a pair of young, naive and enthusiastic Brits were invited to reinvent an old pulp crime character as the goth god of dreams, it was clear that something new was beginning-- something that would in the end become Vertigo. This required not only a new style of storytelling-- based on expansive arcs and a mixture of minor and major characters-- but also a new kind of cover art. Until this point, most cover art is similar to that of our #1 selection, Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85, complete with word bubbles, characters in shocked, dramatic poses, and an attempt to look action-packed. For the subtler style of storytelling that Gaiman was providing, Dave McKean set about to present a subtler kind of cover. Morpheus is still present-- but he is enshrouded in mystery, surrounded by artifacts that fit the gothic take on the Sandman. More than just leading to Vertigo, The Sandman #1 led to a new paradigm for DC cover art, where graphic design and an emphasis on mood mattered just as much as the overwrought poses of overexposed heroes.
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#8 BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/BatmanTheKillingJoke.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/BatmanTheKillingJoket.jpg" alt="Batman: The Killing Joke Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland is one of the best artists this industry has to offer, particularly when it comes to covers (heck, he and Dave McKean are the only artists to show up on this list twice). His covers for Animal Man and The Invisibles are total gems. But it's his work on the cover for Batman: The Killing Joke (for which he also provided the interiors) that stands out as one of the most definitive images, both of his artwork in general and one of DC's most iconic villains, the Joker. The extreme close-up brings into full view the grotesque and twisted nature of the Joker's gruesome visage, the sharp elongated angles of his face enhanced by the wrinkle lines as he's squinting his exposed eye, the classic jackal grin of the character pulled back to reveal his jagged yellowing teeth. At the same time, the fourth wall is broken with a camera pointed right at the reader, a hint of the perverted voyeurism he engages in within the book but also a reflection of the reader's own voyeurism. After all, we are the ones sitting back and looking in on his cruelties for our own entertainment. The visual of the image would be enough to make this a top cover, but the grace note (or punchline) is the simple and ironic use of the word "smile," subverting the practice of "mature" graphic novels to not include speech balloons and hearkening back to the earlier and more innocent days of comic books that this volume both references and corrupts. The image is at once subversive and iconic, beautiful and grotesque, horrifying and amusing.
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#7 100 BULLETS #25
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/100Bullets25.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/100Bullets25t.jpg" alt="100 Bullets #25 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Dave Johnson
Let's face it. Every 100 Bullets cover is a miniature masterpiece. Every month, Johnson produces an image of stark and striking symbolism that tantalizes and teases the reader to find out what is happening within, to see what manipulations and machinations Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are putting their noir-ish ensemble through this time. But no cover so far has so perfectly captured the overall attitude or expressed so clearly the central plot of the book than that which graces its quarter mark issue. The simple but dynamic palate of colors serve to enhance the image itself, the red of Graves' looming figure against a black background standing out in clear contrast to the explosion of white that frames the symbol of the Trust with an accent of electric blue. Graves holds the gun (probably the most potent and consistent symbol in the book itself, as the gun represents power, justice or vengeance to those who wield it and as the puppet strings of control to Graves himself as he moves the pieces in his game) above the Trust's symbol which has fractured. We don't see the gunshot. We just witness the impact. Graves is manipulating those granted the gun and hundred bullets (or those targeted) in a byzantine game to eliminate his former employers. The shots fired don't matter. Only the end result.
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#6 HELLBLAZER #72
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Hellblazer72.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Hellblazer72t.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #72 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Glenn Fabry
John Constantine, Hellblazer is a hard-smoking, trench-coat wearing magus-cum-cockney con artist, who drinks fast, and talks even faster. Master manipulator and all-round British bastard, Constantine is an everyman of sorts, who fights for the betterment of mankind after cheating Hell out of his soul. However, this heroism is rather questionable; we often see John sacrifice other souls for his own needs and desires, as he looks for survival first and anything else, second. Ennis's run on Hellblazer continued the dark and often horrific supernatural elements of the series, but focused upon deconstructing Constantine both physically (terminal lung cancer) and emotionally (the loss of Kit, his lover) as well as both mentally (questions his morality) and spiritually (his soul drifts through hell). The theme of 'deconstruction' is put to the fore here in this particular issue, but rather than focus on the deconstruction of Constantine, Ennis concentrates on the deconstruction of 'Uncle Sam' and the corruption of the American dream instead. Which leads me onto the cover itself; a perfect image for the content of the storyline within. Fabry takes one recognisable image; the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty--a universal symbol of hope, freedom, friendship, democracy, opportunity and the desire for liberation--and combines it with another image; a skeleton, or more specifically, Death's-head--a symbol of death, decay, mortality and loss. The result is a hollow, empty gesture of the grim-reaper holding up a broken torch of freedom--complete with dying embers--rather than a woman holding a torch aloft alight. Dressed in grimy, dirty brown regalia, holding a tombstone rather than a tablet and set in a smoggy blue skyline devoid of any warm colors, we see an image that strips the american myth to its bare essentials and an image more indicative of what the American dream has been twisted to become, rather than its often glamourised portrayal seen previously. It is for this symbolism and aesthetic impact, as well as its strong reference to the comic's content within, that we believe it should sit as one of DC's top 10 comic covers.
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#5 THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/DarkKnightReturns1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/DarkKnightReturns1t.jpg" alt="Dark Knight Returns #1" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Frank Miller
Batman is not a character that lends himself well to bright light. He lives in the darkness, and feeds on it. Frank Miller got this, and it is something that he makes very clear throughout all his Batman work. And the cover to his first major work with the character makes this so clear. It is a cover that contrasts light and dark, and is brilliant in its simplicity. Lightning is the key source of light, and all you get of the Dark Knight himself is a silhouette. The lighting source draws the eye to the image of Batman, which is a brilliant visual device. And the picture of Batman simply makes you wonder. There is nothing hinting at the story content, and that serves this tale well. It makes you want to open it and see if Batman is flying or falling. You wonder what is going to happen when he lands. But what you really know is that this is not going to be like any Batman story you’ve read before.
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#4 KINGDOM COME #4
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/KingdomCome4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/KingdomCome4t.jpg" alt="Kingdome Come #4 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Alex Ross
After only three issues, Kingdom Come had already created a standard look for its cover art- a group shot of several characters, joined together by a common theme, all staring forward while being lit from below. Any minor variation from that norm was instantly apparent. The downward tilt and closed eyes of Captain Atom on the cover of #1 foreshadowed his enclosed fate. Characters lit from above were said to have heavenly connections, while a downward glance indicated your key role in the coming judgment (depending on which philosophy you subscribed to). Then came #4, as beautifully painted as the previous three had been, but decidedly different. Stark. Barren. Desolate. The other heroes are gone, now there is only Superman, standing alone amid a field of crimson smoke. Superman, lit from above but staring below. Superman, his costume torn, his cape missing, with clenched fist. The text of Kingdom Come needed one hundred and eighty-three pages to push the characters to the point of ultimate devastation... the cover of #4 managed to evoke that feeling with just one wraparound image.
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#3 THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNights.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNightst.jpg" align=left border=0 alt="The Sandman: Endless Nights Cover"></a>Cover Artist: Dave McKean
With so many artists working in the comics industry, it has always amazed me how poorly designed many early graphic novels were. While pencillers, inkers and colorists labored over each page with a grand attention to detail, many times, layout and design were treated as if we were still reading the pulp magazines of the 1940's. However, over the past 5-10 years we've seen a shift where books like Orbiter, It's A Bird and, yes, The Sandman: Endless Nights show the stunning quality of production that the comics industry can produce. Dave McKean has held a unique position in comics by being one of the few artists to approach the comic page with the eyes of a studio artist, and not that of a cartoonist. His name-- along with those of Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood and David Mack-- has come to represent innovation and experimentation. Certainly, the brilliant storytelling and artwork of The Sandman: Endless Nights could stand on its own, but a fine cover and sense of design made its place on the New York Times Bestseller List that much sweeter.
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#2 ANIMAL MAN #5
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/AnimalMan5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/AnimalMan5t.jpg" alt="Animal Man #5 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Brian Bolland
You can usually find the hand of an artist in the work he creates, but how often do you literally get to see that hand? Animal Man began as a title making a statement about the rights of our animal friends, clothed in familiar superhero garb, but slowly transformed into a treatise on the thin line between creator and the created, as filtered through the mind of Grant Morrison. This issue was the turning point where four-color fiction met metafiction, and the cover encapsulates that transition as a work in progress. Animal Man lies prostrate, suffering the fate that so many of his four-legged brethren have faced... the finality of being desert roadkill. However, the image is eternally unfinished, with the all-powerful creator still hard at work. Inside, Wile E... err, I mean Crafty endures animated horrors made real (well, realer) after offending his god, but Buddy Baker, the Animal Man, was just beginning his dialogue with his maker. Like all comic book characters, Buddy is a collection of lines, filled with a splash of color, and this cover reminds us of that reality, prefacing the metaphysical mindtrip to come.
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#1 GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #85
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/GreenLanternGreenArrow85.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/GreenLanternGreenArrow85t.jpg" alt="Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Neal Adams
To do this cover justice, let me turn the clock back more than 30 years, when I was still in high school (Class of '72), and had been collecting comics since 1968. Most of the titles I was buying were from Marvel, except for Jack Kirby's then-new titles such as The New Gods. I even wrote a school paper comparing the cool Marvel heroes with their real problems to those corny DC heroes. Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 was so fresh and daring in 1971. Good Lord -- a superhero with a drug problem???? And....and...Speedy's father-figure, the Green Arrow, hadn't even noticed anything was wrong???? Today's fans may laugh, but the idea really was shocking back then. Our background is a seedy room, sparsely furnished, a hole in the window shade, all of it a uniform, dull, dingy color; the better to strip any glamour or excitement from taking drugs. It also makes our three characters stand out. There's Speedy, in his bright costume, his quiver lying, useless, on the same table as the drug paraphernalia. Speedy is trembling, his gloved hand pressed to stop the bleeding/covering the tell-tale needle mark(s). His young face is haunted and filled with shame. He hasn't turned around to face his guardian and former hero. Green Arrow's face is full of a horror emphasized by the spiky yellow aura around his head. His pose is helpless. He can't believe what he's seeing. His shock carries over to his word balloon, with its dramatic spikes at the bottom and the dreaded noun, "JUNKIE", in fat red letters three times the size of his other words. This time Green Lantern gets to be the righteous one, his words stern -- for Green Arrow has failed as a guardian because his ward has turned to DRUGS -- but his face showing concern as he gestures toward the stricken boy. I bought over 7,000 comics between 1968 and 1983 -1984, when I dropped out for 20 years. These days I can stare at the cover of a back issue at the comics shop and ask myself, "don't I have this one buried in the garage"? Not this cover! I recognized it instantly. For its impact then and its signaling that DC's classic heroes could be worth the fans' notice, this cover has earned our number one spot.
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Well there we have it, top of the best DC covers of all-time, as voted by the ComiX-Fan staff, celebrating seventy years of comic book history. A very big thankyou is in order for all of the writers and contributors to this event, and an even bigger display of gratitude to DC Comics themselves for providing us readers with such a stunning array of high-quality comic book art. Here's to seventy more years!
Watch for more great lists and features all this month! (http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=32203)
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Animal Man #5, Kingdom Come #4: Raul Grau
The Sandman #1, The Sandman: Endless Nights: Alex Groff
100 Bullets #25, Batman: The Killing Joke: Jordan T. Maxwell
Hellblazer #72: James Groves
The Dark Knight Returns #1): Matt Lazorwitz
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85: Ann Nichols
The Filth #10: Omar A. Safi
Contributors: Jesse Baer, Martin Dudek, Jon Hancock, Al Harahap, Dylan McKay
Editor: Mitch Brown
Columns Editor: Joel Phillips
Editor in Chief: Al Harahap
Co-Publisher: Brian Wilkinson
Publisher: Eric J. Moreels
<center>All characters, titles, and likenesses thereof ™ © DC Comics (http://www.dccomics.com) or its licensors,
and are used without permission, not for profit. All other content © original author and ComiX-Fan (http://www.comixfan.com/xfan).</center>
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By: Raul Grau, Alex Groff, James Groves, Matt Lazorwitz, Jordan T. Maxwell, Ann Nichols, Omar A. Safi
We've all heard the phrase before - a picture is worth a thousand words. As comic book readers I'm sure we are all aware of this fact - hundreds..thousands of hours of our lives have no doubt been spent pouring over our "funnybooks" and the artwork within. But how often do we spend thinking about the exterior artwork - the comic book cover? The cover is the first point of contact between a comic book and its reader and is a factor that can quite literally make or break a book's sales. While a great many of us scan the comic book shelves for familiar logos of our favourite ongoings, I'm sure we can all relate to spotting a particularly eye-catching and appealing cover, one that draws our eye to a neglected section of the comic book racks, enticing us to look inside. How many of us have then taken the book up to the counter, breaking our budget to devour the secrets of this beautifully wrapped novelty?
When it comes to covers, DC Comics is undoubtedly one the masters. From the Julie Schwartz-inspired covers of the Silver Age, to the dazzling and challenging designs found on its Vertigo and Wildstorm lines, DC Comics has produced some of the most striking and memorable covers in comicdom. As part of our ongoing celebration of DC's auspicious seventieth anniversary, the ComiX-Fan staff cast their eyes over seven decades worth of material to bring you the cream of the DC Covers crop.
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#10 THE FILTH #10
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Filth10.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Filth10t.jpg" alt="The Filth #10 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Carlos Segura
Grant Morrison had some psychedelic ideas in The Filth and the covers often produced images reflecting those ideas. The maxi-series’ covers were some of the best ever produced in the comic book medium. Carlos Segura utilizes extremely simple graphics and colors to convey the ideas of Grant Morrison’s brain trip. The Filth #10 stands out as one of the best from the series and from DC Comics' plethora of covers because of that simplicity and bizarre imagery. The cover pictures an insane contraption linked to a conveyor belt, mass-producing gods through digestion. The figure turning the screws of the mechanism excellently conveys the title, "Man Made God". Segura’s The Filth covers usually use the generic symbol for the male, expressing the ideas of a collective mundane nameless people. Also, the ideas of fighting authority, man raising people to the level of gods, and being outnumbered are brilliantly communicated. The Filth’s covers are a unique experiment in comic book covers. Go to your local comic shop and take a glance at the shelves. You will definitely not see anything like or near the quality of Segura’s The Filth covers. Hopefully, we’ll see his work still around, perhaps even on some mainstream books.
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#9 THE SANDMAN #1
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1t.jpg" alt="The Sandman #1 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Dave McKean
When a pair of young, naive and enthusiastic Brits were invited to reinvent an old pulp crime character as the goth god of dreams, it was clear that something new was beginning-- something that would in the end become Vertigo. This required not only a new style of storytelling-- based on expansive arcs and a mixture of minor and major characters-- but also a new kind of cover art. Until this point, most cover art is similar to that of our #1 selection, Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85, complete with word bubbles, characters in shocked, dramatic poses, and an attempt to look action-packed. For the subtler style of storytelling that Gaiman was providing, Dave McKean set about to present a subtler kind of cover. Morpheus is still present-- but he is enshrouded in mystery, surrounded by artifacts that fit the gothic take on the Sandman. More than just leading to Vertigo, The Sandman #1 led to a new paradigm for DC cover art, where graphic design and an emphasis on mood mattered just as much as the overwrought poses of overexposed heroes.
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#8 BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/BatmanTheKillingJoke.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/BatmanTheKillingJoket.jpg" alt="Batman: The Killing Joke Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland is one of the best artists this industry has to offer, particularly when it comes to covers (heck, he and Dave McKean are the only artists to show up on this list twice). His covers for Animal Man and The Invisibles are total gems. But it's his work on the cover for Batman: The Killing Joke (for which he also provided the interiors) that stands out as one of the most definitive images, both of his artwork in general and one of DC's most iconic villains, the Joker. The extreme close-up brings into full view the grotesque and twisted nature of the Joker's gruesome visage, the sharp elongated angles of his face enhanced by the wrinkle lines as he's squinting his exposed eye, the classic jackal grin of the character pulled back to reveal his jagged yellowing teeth. At the same time, the fourth wall is broken with a camera pointed right at the reader, a hint of the perverted voyeurism he engages in within the book but also a reflection of the reader's own voyeurism. After all, we are the ones sitting back and looking in on his cruelties for our own entertainment. The visual of the image would be enough to make this a top cover, but the grace note (or punchline) is the simple and ironic use of the word "smile," subverting the practice of "mature" graphic novels to not include speech balloons and hearkening back to the earlier and more innocent days of comic books that this volume both references and corrupts. The image is at once subversive and iconic, beautiful and grotesque, horrifying and amusing.
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#7 100 BULLETS #25
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/100Bullets25.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/100Bullets25t.jpg" alt="100 Bullets #25 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Dave Johnson
Let's face it. Every 100 Bullets cover is a miniature masterpiece. Every month, Johnson produces an image of stark and striking symbolism that tantalizes and teases the reader to find out what is happening within, to see what manipulations and machinations Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are putting their noir-ish ensemble through this time. But no cover so far has so perfectly captured the overall attitude or expressed so clearly the central plot of the book than that which graces its quarter mark issue. The simple but dynamic palate of colors serve to enhance the image itself, the red of Graves' looming figure against a black background standing out in clear contrast to the explosion of white that frames the symbol of the Trust with an accent of electric blue. Graves holds the gun (probably the most potent and consistent symbol in the book itself, as the gun represents power, justice or vengeance to those who wield it and as the puppet strings of control to Graves himself as he moves the pieces in his game) above the Trust's symbol which has fractured. We don't see the gunshot. We just witness the impact. Graves is manipulating those granted the gun and hundred bullets (or those targeted) in a byzantine game to eliminate his former employers. The shots fired don't matter. Only the end result.
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#6 HELLBLAZER #72
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Hellblazer72.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Hellblazer72t.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #72 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Glenn Fabry
John Constantine, Hellblazer is a hard-smoking, trench-coat wearing magus-cum-cockney con artist, who drinks fast, and talks even faster. Master manipulator and all-round British bastard, Constantine is an everyman of sorts, who fights for the betterment of mankind after cheating Hell out of his soul. However, this heroism is rather questionable; we often see John sacrifice other souls for his own needs and desires, as he looks for survival first and anything else, second. Ennis's run on Hellblazer continued the dark and often horrific supernatural elements of the series, but focused upon deconstructing Constantine both physically (terminal lung cancer) and emotionally (the loss of Kit, his lover) as well as both mentally (questions his morality) and spiritually (his soul drifts through hell). The theme of 'deconstruction' is put to the fore here in this particular issue, but rather than focus on the deconstruction of Constantine, Ennis concentrates on the deconstruction of 'Uncle Sam' and the corruption of the American dream instead. Which leads me onto the cover itself; a perfect image for the content of the storyline within. Fabry takes one recognisable image; the iconic image of the Statue of Liberty--a universal symbol of hope, freedom, friendship, democracy, opportunity and the desire for liberation--and combines it with another image; a skeleton, or more specifically, Death's-head--a symbol of death, decay, mortality and loss. The result is a hollow, empty gesture of the grim-reaper holding up a broken torch of freedom--complete with dying embers--rather than a woman holding a torch aloft alight. Dressed in grimy, dirty brown regalia, holding a tombstone rather than a tablet and set in a smoggy blue skyline devoid of any warm colors, we see an image that strips the american myth to its bare essentials and an image more indicative of what the American dream has been twisted to become, rather than its often glamourised portrayal seen previously. It is for this symbolism and aesthetic impact, as well as its strong reference to the comic's content within, that we believe it should sit as one of DC's top 10 comic covers.
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#5 THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/DarkKnightReturns1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/DarkKnightReturns1t.jpg" alt="Dark Knight Returns #1" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Frank Miller
Batman is not a character that lends himself well to bright light. He lives in the darkness, and feeds on it. Frank Miller got this, and it is something that he makes very clear throughout all his Batman work. And the cover to his first major work with the character makes this so clear. It is a cover that contrasts light and dark, and is brilliant in its simplicity. Lightning is the key source of light, and all you get of the Dark Knight himself is a silhouette. The lighting source draws the eye to the image of Batman, which is a brilliant visual device. And the picture of Batman simply makes you wonder. There is nothing hinting at the story content, and that serves this tale well. It makes you want to open it and see if Batman is flying or falling. You wonder what is going to happen when he lands. But what you really know is that this is not going to be like any Batman story you’ve read before.
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#4 KINGDOM COME #4
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/KingdomCome4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/KingdomCome4t.jpg" alt="Kingdome Come #4 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Alex Ross
After only three issues, Kingdom Come had already created a standard look for its cover art- a group shot of several characters, joined together by a common theme, all staring forward while being lit from below. Any minor variation from that norm was instantly apparent. The downward tilt and closed eyes of Captain Atom on the cover of #1 foreshadowed his enclosed fate. Characters lit from above were said to have heavenly connections, while a downward glance indicated your key role in the coming judgment (depending on which philosophy you subscribed to). Then came #4, as beautifully painted as the previous three had been, but decidedly different. Stark. Barren. Desolate. The other heroes are gone, now there is only Superman, standing alone amid a field of crimson smoke. Superman, lit from above but staring below. Superman, his costume torn, his cape missing, with clenched fist. The text of Kingdom Come needed one hundred and eighty-three pages to push the characters to the point of ultimate devastation... the cover of #4 managed to evoke that feeling with just one wraparound image.
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#3 THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNights.jpg"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNightst.jpg" align=left border=0 alt="The Sandman: Endless Nights Cover"></a>Cover Artist: Dave McKean
With so many artists working in the comics industry, it has always amazed me how poorly designed many early graphic novels were. While pencillers, inkers and colorists labored over each page with a grand attention to detail, many times, layout and design were treated as if we were still reading the pulp magazines of the 1940's. However, over the past 5-10 years we've seen a shift where books like Orbiter, It's A Bird and, yes, The Sandman: Endless Nights show the stunning quality of production that the comics industry can produce. Dave McKean has held a unique position in comics by being one of the few artists to approach the comic page with the eyes of a studio artist, and not that of a cartoonist. His name-- along with those of Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood and David Mack-- has come to represent innovation and experimentation. Certainly, the brilliant storytelling and artwork of The Sandman: Endless Nights could stand on its own, but a fine cover and sense of design made its place on the New York Times Bestseller List that much sweeter.
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#2 ANIMAL MAN #5
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/AnimalMan5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/AnimalMan5t.jpg" alt="Animal Man #5 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Brian Bolland
You can usually find the hand of an artist in the work he creates, but how often do you literally get to see that hand? Animal Man began as a title making a statement about the rights of our animal friends, clothed in familiar superhero garb, but slowly transformed into a treatise on the thin line between creator and the created, as filtered through the mind of Grant Morrison. This issue was the turning point where four-color fiction met metafiction, and the cover encapsulates that transition as a work in progress. Animal Man lies prostrate, suffering the fate that so many of his four-legged brethren have faced... the finality of being desert roadkill. However, the image is eternally unfinished, with the all-powerful creator still hard at work. Inside, Wile E... err, I mean Crafty endures animated horrors made real (well, realer) after offending his god, but Buddy Baker, the Animal Man, was just beginning his dialogue with his maker. Like all comic book characters, Buddy is a collection of lines, filled with a splash of color, and this cover reminds us of that reality, prefacing the metaphysical mindtrip to come.
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#1 GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #85
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/GreenLanternGreenArrow85.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/GreenLanternGreenArrow85t.jpg" alt="Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 Cover" align=left></a>Cover Artist: Neal Adams
To do this cover justice, let me turn the clock back more than 30 years, when I was still in high school (Class of '72), and had been collecting comics since 1968. Most of the titles I was buying were from Marvel, except for Jack Kirby's then-new titles such as The New Gods. I even wrote a school paper comparing the cool Marvel heroes with their real problems to those corny DC heroes. Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 was so fresh and daring in 1971. Good Lord -- a superhero with a drug problem???? And....and...Speedy's father-figure, the Green Arrow, hadn't even noticed anything was wrong???? Today's fans may laugh, but the idea really was shocking back then. Our background is a seedy room, sparsely furnished, a hole in the window shade, all of it a uniform, dull, dingy color; the better to strip any glamour or excitement from taking drugs. It also makes our three characters stand out. There's Speedy, in his bright costume, his quiver lying, useless, on the same table as the drug paraphernalia. Speedy is trembling, his gloved hand pressed to stop the bleeding/covering the tell-tale needle mark(s). His young face is haunted and filled with shame. He hasn't turned around to face his guardian and former hero. Green Arrow's face is full of a horror emphasized by the spiky yellow aura around his head. His pose is helpless. He can't believe what he's seeing. His shock carries over to his word balloon, with its dramatic spikes at the bottom and the dreaded noun, "JUNKIE", in fat red letters three times the size of his other words. This time Green Lantern gets to be the righteous one, his words stern -- for Green Arrow has failed as a guardian because his ward has turned to DRUGS -- but his face showing concern as he gestures toward the stricken boy. I bought over 7,000 comics between 1968 and 1983 -1984, when I dropped out for 20 years. These days I can stare at the cover of a back issue at the comics shop and ask myself, "don't I have this one buried in the garage"? Not this cover! I recognized it instantly. For its impact then and its signaling that DC's classic heroes could be worth the fans' notice, this cover has earned our number one spot.
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Well there we have it, top of the best DC covers of all-time, as voted by the ComiX-Fan staff, celebrating seventy years of comic book history. A very big thankyou is in order for all of the writers and contributors to this event, and an even bigger display of gratitude to DC Comics themselves for providing us readers with such a stunning array of high-quality comic book art. Here's to seventy more years!
Watch for more great lists and features all this month! (http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=32203)
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Animal Man #5, Kingdom Come #4: Raul Grau
The Sandman #1, The Sandman: Endless Nights: Alex Groff
100 Bullets #25, Batman: The Killing Joke: Jordan T. Maxwell
Hellblazer #72: James Groves
The Dark Knight Returns #1): Matt Lazorwitz
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85: Ann Nichols
The Filth #10: Omar A. Safi
Contributors: Jesse Baer, Martin Dudek, Jon Hancock, Al Harahap, Dylan McKay
Editor: Mitch Brown
Columns Editor: Joel Phillips
Editor in Chief: Al Harahap
Co-Publisher: Brian Wilkinson
Publisher: Eric J. Moreels
<center>All characters, titles, and likenesses thereof ™ © DC Comics (http://www.dccomics.com) or its licensors,
and are used without permission, not for profit. All other content © original author and ComiX-Fan (http://www.comixfan.com/xfan).</center>
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