A pretty brilliant Jack Kirby cover to FANTASTIC FOUR. Rather than simply showing Galactus on this first appearance cover, Kirby instead chooses to focus on the reactions of the public, the FF, and most ominously, the Watch. Galactus himself isn’t seen until the final page of this issue.
Here’s something of a rarity: this John Buscema FANTASTIC FOUR cover was printed with its magenta and cyan plates reverse, resulting in a wildly strange color scheme. Since all of the colors in the image were composed of percentages of magenta, cyan, yellow and black, the result of this change is a bit of a … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #110
Great conceptual FANTASTIC FOUR cover by John Byrne. What really works about this one is that all of the elements of the trade dress cast shadows as well.
A precursor to the super-packed covers of George Perez, this Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL cover promises an unending stream of colorful heroes and villains within the issue, practically every character that had been devised for the relatively-new Marvel line to date. The blurb at the center works like the target of a bullseye–you can’t … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3
Covers in the 1970s tended to lean towards the cluttered, with tons of characters and blurbs all crammed into a relatively tiny space–a more-is-less approach that kept most of them from being truly memorable images. But this Ed Hannigan FANTASTIC FOUR cover isn’t too bad in this regard. Still, it requires a burst, two captions … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #170
This Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR cover similarly uses knock-outs and a limited palate, but it’s way more successful. By any stretch of the imagination, this is an odd image for the cover of a super hero comic book–Stan pretty much makes it work by calling it out as the most off-beat ending of the year … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #87
DC weren’t the only ones who could louse up a perfectly good Jack Kirby cover in color, Marvel did it occasionally as well, as on this FANTASTIC FOUR cover. Knocking all of the other elements back to browns and reds definitely helps Crystal to pop as the center of the composition, but it’s actively unattractive. … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #81
A very simple FANTASTIC FOUR cover by John Byrne that focuses on arch-nemesis Doctor Doom, who’d be the focus of the issue. Especially fun here is the fact that the splash page glimpsed through the crumpled, torn cover is indeed the splash the reader will see when he opens the book.
A very basic but very dramatic FANTASTIC FOUR cover by Jack Kirby, emphasizing the scope of the cast and implying the energy and excitement of the story within. In rare restraint, this cover features no copy whatsoever, allowing the image itself to do the work of selling it. A white background here was almost a … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #82
It doesn’t completely work, but this Jack Kirby cover to FANTASTIC FOUR combines a photographic collage with hand-drawn figures. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s, Kirby experimented with incorporating collages into his comics work–he apparently produced them often, to relax. But the printing technology of the time, especially on the interior pages, wasn’t really … Continue reading Great Covers – FANTASTIC FOUR #33
The Tom Brevoort Experience 