DC’s Variant month themes this year have ranged from the intriguing—Steampunk—to the inevitable—BOmbshells—to the eye-rilling —selfies— but’s they’ve finally come up with an idea that should be hailed coast to coast: a month of Variant covers by the great Darwyn Cooke, whose design and conceptual skills are second to none. Kate Willaert come back! Set the “Has DC Done Something Smart Today?” Clock to 0!
The covers, as revealed at CBR, will be landscape. While the whole list of issues with variants can be read below, here’s what we have so far (Check back for updates.)
IF only all superhero comics looked this confident and likable. Our favess? Batman becuase it’s so damned cool and SUpergirl because Streaky and Krypto.
Action Comics #34
Grayson #5
Justice League United #37
Supergirl #37
Via IGN
“Batman & Robin” #37
“Catwoman” #37
“Green Lantern” #37
“Sinestro” #8
“Wonder Woman” #37
Via Hitfix
“Aquaman” #37
“Batgirl” #37
“Detective Comics” #37
“Justice League Dark” #37
“Superman/Wonder Woman” #14
And via Yahoo:
Batman #37
Batman /Superman #17
Green Lantern Corp. #37
Justice League #37
Flash #37
OH and from Newsarama:
HE-MAN: ETERNITY WAR #1
HARLEY QUINN #12
SUPERMAN #37
TEEN TITANS #5 — me NEW FAVORITE.
Wow. Amazing stuff.
These are all quite fabulous. I’d love to see the insides of DC’s comics reflect this attitude as well…
Yes, DC characters almost always look better when drawn by Darwyn Cooke.
But wouldn’t it have been even better if DC had instead commissioned Cooke to produce 22 pages of sequential art–you know, something fans of his art might actually buy?
Or if they think these Cooke covers are so great (which they should), just make them the regular covers of those books.
Variant covers are a plague. Spend this talent elsewhere.
Cooke drew this month’s All Star Western, and it was great.
I’m aware. I’d still rather see him draw another book than all these variant covers. But I understand current market conditions may make it in DC’s short term interests to assign top artists to sales stunts like this. I’ll leave that question to this site’s sales analysts, and to commenters like Brian Hibbs.
If DC is clever, they will issue these covers enlarged, on nice paper, as a limited edition portfolio.
I personally think there’s little question it makes more financial sense for them to put him on this than a random book. Now, a book with a sustained push that can be made into an evergreen trade?? That’s worth it, but simetimes that’s a crap shoot. Variants are a much surer coffer-filler.
Man, I wish Vertigo books coulda got in on this too — !
kdb
Looks very awesome.
Kurt – can’t you ask Cooke to draw one for you, or is there an extra layer due to it being with DC?
Landscape is just the new fancy word for wraparound correct? And I wouldn’t give the selfies covers the eye roll. I thought they were surprisingly inventive. Something about seeing Wonder Woman doing both the atypical selfie poses seemed really cool.
Now the Lego variants……that’s worth an eye roll. But Darwyn month MORE than makes up for it.
C’mon Marvel, do a month of variant covers by Milo Manara.
Hehe.
I hope DC collects all of these in one place. Definite must buy!
>> can’t you ask Cooke to draw one for you, or is there an extra layer due to it being with DC?>>
I suppose I could, but it’d have been more fun to do it as part of the month-long event, and it’s a little late for that.
Also, the last two times we’ve done variant covers, Alex chose to do both of them. Which I didn’t remotely complain about!
kdb
@Evan: I don’t think they’re wraparound, just rotated 90°.
Mr. Busiek:
Here’s my idea:
An entire issue of variant covers.
No word balloons.
Some text.
Splash pages, with logos and trade dress. (The logos do not have to read “Astro City”.)
The pages are interchangeable. (Either a “22 Pages about Astro City”, or truly random storytelling, where the pages can be reshuffled.)
Two 1:1 variants, where the issue is just folded over so that the interior gutter becomes the spine for the other issue. (Page 22? becomes the cover, the cover becomes page 22.)
One polybagged variant (10:1?), where the pages are loose.
One “sketch cover” variant, where the loose pages are packaged in a plain white portfolio, with one extra blank white page.
If DC had put Cooke in charge of the New 52 I’d probably be reading every issue.
All of these are perfect. They also are so UN-Nu 52 in their brightness, boldness and red supershortsness. Why can’t the regular comics be fun like this?
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