More than nine months after an original splash page from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns sold for a record $448,125, Heritage Auctions is offering two more original pieces of Frank Miller art, expected to bring in more than $50,000 each.

Consigned by Miller himself, the pieces are the cover to 2006′s Absolute Dark Knight and the frontispiece from the 1997 10th-anniversary edition of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

“It took me years to define, in my own mind, Batman as less a creature of vengeance than of vigor,” Miller said of the Absolute Dark Knight cover. “This piece is one of my personal favorites. To me, it sums the man up.” And on the Batman and Robin splash: “Like any hero, Batman is complex. Here we see him as a father figure, instructing one of my favorite creations, dear Carrie Kelly.”

The two pieces will be auctioned Feb. 23 by Heritage, which notes that while Miller worked with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley on The Dark Knight Returns, “these images are rare examples of 100 percent Frank Miller pencils and inks on his most popular character.”

In a clever bit of product placement and cross-promotion, DC Comics is offering “Evolve or Die” T-shirts featuring Travel Foreman’s cover for Animal Man #1 just ahead of the shirt’s debut in the seventh issue of the series. It certainly makes sense within the context of the relaunched title, which opened with a Believer interview in which Buddy Baker was asked how it felt “to have your face plastered on kids’ dorm rooms and T-shirts all over the country.”

The shirts will be available in direct market stores, and at GraffitiDesigns.com, at the end of the month (prices range from $18.95 to $24.95, depending on size). There’s no word yet as to when we should expect that “World’s Best Grandpa” design.

Animal Man #7, by Jeff Lemire and Steve Pugh, arrives March 7.

Adam Hughes has revealed his cover for the third issue of Fairest, Vertigo’s upcoming Fables spinoff series that will spotlight such female characters as Thumbelina, Rapunzel, Snow White and Rose Red. While the six-issue initial arc, by Fables creator Bill Willingham and artists Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning, centers on Briar Rose, Hughes puts Lumi, the Snow Queen (previously seen in the background of his cover for Fairest #1) front and center.

Check out the full image below. Fairest debuts from Vertigo in March; the third issue arrives in May.

Okay, almost seven, as USA Today has only offered a detail of one of Lee Bermejo’s covers for Rorschach (at right), his four-issue miniseries with Luthor and Joker collaborator Brian Azzarello. To make up for it, though, there’s a cover by original Watchmen colorist John Higgins for a Crimson Corsair story by he and original Watchmen editor Len Wein.

We also have a Dr. Manhattan cover by Adam Hughes (courtesy of CBR), Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke (Hero Complex), Nite Owl by Andy Kubert and Joe Kubert (Heat Vision), Ozymandias by Jae Lee (Underwire), and Silk Spectre by Amanda Conner (Entertainment Weekly). UPDATE: Now, thanks to The New York Times, we also have one of J.G. Jones’ Comedian covers.

Check out the covers below. We’ll update if more, and in some cases larger, images become available.

UPDATE: DC Comics has released hi-res versions of each of the covers, which we’ve added below.

DC Comics’ new logo was officially unveiled this morning, followed by the release of mockups showing how the “peel” design would appear on digital devices, collected editions and single issues. However, a closer look at the latter reveals a comics conundrum: a New 52 cover for Batman, with the current creative team of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, is labeled as Issue 708, while George Perez’s Superman #1 cover is numbered somewhere between #700 and #709 (it’s partially obscured, making it difficult to tell). Here’s the thing — despite the New 52 covers, both of those issues were published before the New 52 was announced in July 2011.

Batman #708 was printed in March 2011 during David Hine and Guillem March’s run on the book. Any issue of Superman that begins with “#70_” would had to have been somewhere between June 2010 and March 2011, spanning J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Roberson’s runs. Assuming these are the numberings from March 2011, that would mean the final two issues should be Green Lantern #64 and Wonder Woman #609. Could this be a sign of the New 52 numbering being a last-minute change for DC? Or maybe DC wasn’t letting the outside firm in on its relaunch plans, which could indicate this logo has been in development since well before March.

Then again, it could just be a coincidence, but it is an odd oversight to present a new logo with numberings from issues that hit stores 10 months ago.

Whatever the case, it brings us to the question why the company didn’t roll out its new brand identity in late August, when it relaunched its entire line, or even last month, when it published a mammoth hardcover collecting all 52 first issues – one that now rests on shelves sporting the nearly seven-year-old “swoosh.”

DC’s “peel” logo will make its comics debut in March, when most of the covers presumably will bear the number 7.

If you’re still a little deflated by the absence of Community from NBC’s midseason lineup — it will return … sometime — then this may pick you up: Megan Lara’s adorable Calvin & Hobbes-inspired illustration “Troy and Abed’s Dope Adventures” is available as a T-shirt from RedBubble.

(via Vulture)

Jake Parker (Missile Mouse) posted this drawing on his blog and I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to see him draw more like it. If DC Comics ever does another Bizarro Comics anthology, I hope someone gives Parker a call.

(via The Comics Reporter)

On the Dark Horse blog, editor Dave Marshall shares the cover process for Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Promise Part 1, from writer Gene Luen Yang’s rough ideas to art duo Gurihiru’s cover sketches to Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko’s notes to the final product.

The 80-page graphic novel, the first in a series of digests continuing the adventures of Aang and his friends, arrives Jan. 25.

That content, unfortunately, is very much a product of its time.  Krigstein did his best work during some of comics’ leanest years: the early and mid 1950s, during which the stories were stupefying at worst and immaturely gruesome at best, editors portioned out pages to artists like feudal lords to serfs, and the specter of censorship loomed before eventually railroading comics into total aesthetic irrelevance — and forcing Krigstein out of the medium entirely.  The great tragedy of Krigstein’s career is that he was born too soon to do what he wanted: the most accomplished formalist of his generation, he dreamed about creating what would today be called graphic novels, but was never allowed to illustrate even a feature-length pamphlet comic.  It’s anyone’s guess as to what marvels Krigstein would have produced if he had been allowed free rein, but as the situation stood he batted out six-pagers, five-pagers, eight-pagers, and packed rows or single pages of panels with enough brilliance to power entire books, not so much enhancing as forcibly elevating the workaday genre material he was stuck drawing.  A few such elevations follow.

From "The Catacombs", Vault of Horror #38, 1954

Above is a prime example of Krigstein’s masterful facility for negotiating the small amounts of space he was allowed to work within.  Originally scripted as a single “opening splash” panel, Krigstein renders five panels from one sentence, planing the single moment described open and dissecting it part by component part.  Panels two through five are especially worthy of note, with the camera observing the action from above in the first frame, catching the figures  straight on in the next, moving down to floor level to finish off the tier, and then stretching a sweeping panoramic shot across the next one, the characters’ feet all that we can see anymore.  Any one of these shots would be dramatic enough to function as an opening splash image, but Krigstein simply sees more potential for drama in the material he’s been given than can fit in one image.  Not to mention, the sequence he comes up with here manages to show readers both the interior and exterior of the story environment: where the characters have come from and where they’re going.

From "The Catacombs"

On the same story’s final page, Krigstein engages in more of his trademark subdivision, hammering in the claustrophobia of the cave its lead actors are trapped in beautifully.  But what’s really impressive is the artist’s virtuosic use of screentoned dot matrices to control the page’s pace.  Each panel is slapped with a little more gray, until it covers panel eleven almost entirely, and then gives way to the only logical conclusion for the process Krigstein has set in motion, papering over panel twelve with pure and total black.  This page is full of herky-jerky movement and fractured blow-by-blow storytelling, but it’s also one massive, sweeping artistic gesture.

From "More Blessed To Give...", Crime SuspenStories #24, 1954

A prime example of how Krigstein was able to enliven the fairly maudlin content he was often saddled with: here he brings an immense consideration to the blocking and acting of a typical EC Comics suburban penny dreadful.  The page, divided neatly in half, sets up a husband and wife’s twin attempts to do away with one another on the night of their anniversary with a downright mathematical symmetry.  Act is matched to act, and even gesture to gesture, but it goes past that into the content of the pictures themselves.  On the second tier the wife places her object inside something while the husband removes his from one (holy Freud, Batman), and on the third the wife puts on an outer garment as the husband takes one off.  Even when a male presence enters the female’s side of the page in panel one, the wife remains on the left, just as the husband remains on the right when his side of the page is trespassed onto in the final frame.  Of course, the two panels rhyme wonderfully, unifying the entire grid as a single unit.

It brings the material a depth that simply isn’t there in the words, getting at just how fundamentally disconnected the story’s two characters are with images — and not just images, but the way they’re put together.  Krigstein wasn’t a writer, but he possessed a colossal understanding of what made the material he was drawing work, and how to go about making it work as well as possible.  No, not a writer, and more even than an artist.  Krigstein was exactly what comics needed at the repressive, quagmired time he was drawing them, even if they ended up not having enough to give him.  He was the form’s first great melodramatist, and the work he made still outshines even the brightest subsequent entries comics has seen in that particular field.

Continued next week!  There’s a lot more to be said here…

Titled “Proof of Heroes,” the exhibit at Bear & Bird Boutique + Gallery will feature nearly 300 comic book cover printer’s proofs from 1964 to 1974. These printer’s proofs were sent to Schwartz for final approval before going to press, and features artwork from such comics legends as Nick Cardy, Neal Adams, Mike Kaluta and Carmine Infantino. The exhibit is set to run from Jan. 20 to March 3 at Bear & Bird’s Lauderhill, Florida, location, just above the comic store Tate’s. On Jan. 21, DC icons Paul Levitz, George Perez and Alex Saviuk will be on hand from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. for a signing, followed by a reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The printer’s proofs will be available for just $100 each (certificate of authenticity included). All proceeds benefit The Hero Initiative.

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

“It seems that in today’s desperate-for-sales comic book market, nothing is sacred. In the midst of world-saving adventures, today’s modern heroine breast feeds her child with zero modesty. Talk about work-life balance! It hearkens back to those Enjoli fragrance TV ads of the ’70s — I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, never let you forget you’re a man…”  I’m just so impressed with this I-can-have-it-all super heroine. I had to wonder, did La Leche League (or as my wife took to calling them after she delivered our son,  ‘The Breast Milk Mafia’) pay big-time sponsorship money for this cover? What a wholesome, family-friendly image!

I find this image offensive, not only for promotion of a comic book, but specifically for a comic that Brian clearly states that he would like to see today’s younger generation pick up and read as he did when he was kid. Rather than a family-friendly heroic saga, this promo art is telegraphing to the world that it’s a series I cannot share with my 7-year-old son. Is the comics industry really so dead that they have to stretch to these desperate, shock value measures to incur readers? Really?”

– artist David Dorman, attempting to explain “Why Dave Dorman Finds New Image Comic Saga Offensive,” but not exactly succeeding. While he has insisted on Twitter (three times now) that he isn’t offended by breastfeeding, nor it turns out by “boobs” — “I paint boobs on canvas for a living” — Dorman has yet to elaborate on what makes the above promotional image for Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ mature readers sci-fi/fantasy epic offensive, unwholesome, or emblematic of “desperate, shock value measures” used to rope in readers.

There’s nothing titillating about Staples’ image; for all its fantasy trappings, it’s incredibly understated … casual, even. To be honest, it didn’t even register with me that it depicted breastfeeding until I read Dorman’s rant. Heck, ram’s horns and gossamer wings aside, I’ve encountered virtually identical scenes in cafes, movie theaters and public parks — all with minimal offense.

Menace

Last summer, right before DC relaunched their New 52 titles, a group of creators launched DC Fifty-TOO! and gave various creators the chance to go wild and create covers and concepts for comics they thought should be part of the New 52. And then in October, the blog shifted from DC to Marvel, as creators asked themselves “What if?” and dreamed up relaunched Marvel titles.

And now the site has shifted a second time:

The response and reaction to the DC FIFTY-TOO and MARVEL UNIVERSE TOO:WHAT IF projects has been immense – thousands of folks have found the site, blogged about it, discussed it in their message boards. More than anything else, the blog has attracted dozens and dozens of artists who have expressed interest in submitting their own new covers and story concepts.

Well, they need not wait any longer – beginning in 2012, the DC FIFTY-TOO blog will change its name to RELAUNCHED and will become OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS. You do not need to wrangle an invite or wait for the next themed event, nor do you have to limit yourself to Marvel or DC – you can simply create your own cover and series concept whenever you’d like for whatever property you’d like, and send it directly to us.

Yep, now anyone can submit something to the blog, which is now called Relaunched, just like Charles Guthrie did with Dennis the Menace above. So go check it out and if you have an idea and the artistic chops to bring it to life, submit something for consideration.

Detective Comics #8

To celebrate the 2 millionth “like” of its Batman Facebook page, DC Comics has debuted the cover for April’s Detective Comics #8, by Tony S. Daniel and Sandu Florea.

“More than 2 million people have signaled that they are fans of the Caped Crusader, a sentiment we whole-heartedly agree with,” Brandy Phillips, DC Entertainment’s director of publicity, wrote this morning on The Source. “It’s no surprise that so many people feel this way. Batman continues to be one of the most popular comic characters ever created, with top-selling and popular books Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman and Robin leading the way. And with Catwoman, Batwing, Batgirl and Batwoman rounding out the Batman family – the whole line is really on a tear, backed by some of the best creative talent in the industry including Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Tony Daniel, and David Finch, among many others.”

Check out the full cover below.

Returning creators like Jo Chen, Dave Johnson, Paolo Rivera and J.H. Williams III are joined on the list by such “newcomers” as Francesco Francavilla, Viktor Kalvachev, Tradd Moore and Steve Morris.

As with previous installments, I’ve attempted to explain the appeal of each entry; some covers get just a sentence, while others receive entire paragraphs. That doesn’t reflect the quality of the image, but merely what I have to say about it.

For those interested in the lists from previous years, they can be found here: the best covers of 2010; the best covers of 2009; and the best covers of 2008.

With that out of the way, I present, in alphabetical order, the 50 best covers of 2011:

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #1, by Francesco Francavilla
Perhaps best known for his recent work on Detective Comics and Black Panther, Francesco Francavilla has a pulp-influenced style that lends itself well to the world of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. Reminiscent of some of the old Gold Key comics, this cover wonderfully relates what’s in store for Abe Sapien as he investigates the “deep, dark family secret” buried in the basement of a demonologist’s home.

Action Comics #2, by Rags Morales
While Rags Morales’ style is contemporary, the concept is a throwback to the heyday of the newsstand or maybe the movie serial: It’s a classic cliffhanger image, leading the reader to wonder how Superman ended up in this predicament — the shadowy yet easily identifiable face of Lex Luthor provides a clue — and how he might escape.

Angel & Faith #4, by Steve Morris
Using a limited color palette and symbols of death and immortality (the skeletons and the peacock), Steve Morris creates an image that’s eerie, beautiful and sinister. I love how the haunting “eyes” of the feathers are echoed in those of the people, and on the woman’s bracelet, and how the two figures are themselves sinewy and skeletal.

The Amazing Spider-Man #665, by Paolo Rivera
I’m a sucker for logos that interact with the cover illustration, rather than simply rest on top of it. So I have to give Paolo Rivera and his editors credit for not only swapping the trademark Amazing Spider-Man font for marquee letters — and then dropping four of those letters as the wall-crawler takes a spill. It’s a nice touch, too, that the M, A and N stick to Spidey’s feet and hand.

The Amazing Spider-Man #666, by Mike Del Mundo
For the start of the “Spider-Island” storyline, in which hundreds of New Yorkers manifest spider-powers, Mike Del Mundo could’ve opted for another landmark — I don’t know, maybe a web-encased Brooklyn Bridge or Chrysler Building — or gone in another direction completely. Instead, he chose the Statue of Liberty, adding a “human” if slightly alien element, and he absolutely nailed it (so well that the webbed skyline isn’t even necessary to convey the Spider-Island idea).

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #5, by Mike Mignola
Mike Mignola is a master at relating mood — eldritch, haunting mood — using a heavy dose of black and minimal detail. Here that ability shines with the blood-dripping bells, the creepy trio of undead nuns and flaming cross.

Batman Beyond #6, by Dustin Nguyen
DC Comics and Warner Bros. did the August-dated covers no favor by slapping a banner for the Green Lantern movie across the top. Still, Dustin Nguyen manages to stand out with his nearly DayGlo image of the irradiated Blight’s translucent hand crushing a batarang in front of a radiation sign.

Batwoman #1, by J.H. Williams III
For Kate Kane’s solo series, J.H. Williams has replaced the Art Deco touches of the acclaimed Detective Comics arc with water and death elements for the “Hydrology” story arc, which sends Batwoman up against the Weeping Woman.

Blue Estate #1, by Viktor Kalvachev
For an Elmore Leonard-style crime story, I can think of few better covers than this: whiskey poured from a gun barrel into a glass containing the ghostly, caramel-colored image of a woman. The comic’s logo is even modeled after the label of a whiskey bottle.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Russia #2, by Dave Johnson
For the latest B.P.R.D. series, which sends Kate and Johann across the Atlantic to meet their Russian counterparts, Dave Johnson turns to the bold graphic imagery of classic Soviet posters for inspiration.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 #1, by Jo Chen
With the world cut off from all supernatural influences, Buffy Summers makes a fresh start in a new city, San Francisco — beautifully established by Jo Chen with this cover for the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9. I like, too, how the title of the story arc, “Freefall,” seems to in with Buffy’s dizzying perch atop the Golden Gate Bridge.

Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker #4, by Mike Huddleston
Mike Huddleston’s smoking star-spangled semi roars through the air like an impossible stunt from a cocaine- and diesel-fueled 1970s road movie. You can almost smell the fumes.

Casanova: Avaritia #2, by Gabriel Bá
Honestly, how can you not love this beautifully illustrated and colored Kung Fu Panda-inspired image that pits Casanova Quinn against two Ailuropoda melanoleuca?

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser #8, by Timothy Bradstreet
Humor isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Hellraiser franchise, but Timothy Bradstreet delivers the subtle laughs as Pinhead falls victim to his own pins.

Criminal: The Last of the Innocent #1, by Sean Phillips
Sean Phillips so wonderfully captures That Moment, fleeting as it often is, at a party or a club where someone (in this case a young woman) loses herself in the music, seemingly oblivious to everyone else — making it virtually impossible to take your eyes off of her.

Daredevil #1, by Paolo Rivera
Setting the tone for the relaunch, Paolo Rivera depicts a smiling Matt Murdock against an imaginative cityscape that offers a glimpse of how Daredevil perceives the world around him — already a visual hallmark of the new series. (You can see a time-lapse video of the cover’s creation here.)

Daredevil #4, by Marcos Martin
Gargantuan gun barrels stand in for skyscrapers in this Marcos Martin image, in which smoke rises from the two gun muzzles like steam from exhaust vents.

Daredevil #7, by Paolo Rivera
Last year The Amazing Spider-Man landed three covers on the list, and this year it’s Daredevil, a testament perhaps to how well the team of Mark Waid, Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera, under the editorial guidance of Stephen Wacker, gels (Comic Book Resources chose Daredevil as the top comic of the year). Rivera’s depiction of Matt Murdock, who hasn’t had a reason to be cheery in years, grinning as he makes a snow angel atop a water tower is surprising and heartwarming. If this cover doesn’t bring a little smile to your face, I don’t know what will.

Daredevil Reborn #1, by Jock
Of course the Man Without Fear wasn’t all about wide grins and snow angels last year. Before the relaunch there was Daredevil Reborn, which debuted with this arresting image by Jock of the cable of Murdock’s broken batons stretched into an enormous body outline across what I presume is Marvel’s gritty, time-trapped version of Hell’s Kitchen.

Detective Comics #880, by Jock
Jock’s stint on the pre-launch Detective Comics produced some of the strongest work of his career, and this cover is undoubtedly the best of that run. This image of the Clown Prince of Crime is so frenetic, his rapturous gaze unnerving by even Joker standards as his broad smile reveals cracking teeth. That the upper part of his head is composed of countless bats taking flight, as if spooked, gives a sense of schizophrenia, as if the Joker is about to break away from this reality.

DMZ #61, by John Paul Leon
The massive amount of white space and the muted palette — I love the single punch of color with the flag — combine to give this J.P. Leon cover a sense of solemnity as DMZ enters its final year. I also like that series protagonist Matty Roth is made insignificant, dwarfed by the sky and nearly lost amid the clutter outside the Holland Tunnel.

DMZ, Vol. 10, by Brian Wood
I rarely select trade paperbacks as, more often than not, the covers are merely recycled from issues published the previously year. But for the 10th volume of DMZ, “Collective Punishment,” writer Brian Wood brings his bold sense of graphic design to blend photography and illustration to convey the brutal “shock and awe” bombing of Manhattan that marks this storyline.

Drums #2, by Raul Allen
The 2010 list featured two chickens — both from Chew — so it’s only fitting that this year’s installment has at least one, right? I’ve not read this Image Comics horror series, about an FBI agent assigned to investigate sudden, unexplained deaths during a Santeria ceremony, but Raul Allen’s brutal and beautiful cover makes me want to give it a try.

Fables #106, Joao Ruas
For the penultimate issue of the “Super Team” arc, Joao Ruas seems to give a nod to John Romita Sr.’s classic “Spider-Man No More” page as Ozma and Pinocchio casually walk away from what’s presumably a battlefield.

Fear Agent #31, by Tony Moore
Virtually everything about this cover — the colors, the scale, the hovercraft-riding creatures with their leaf-like tentacles — is so perfectly over the top and … well, alien.

Feeding Ground #4, by Michael Lapinski
One of my favorite cover artists to emerge in the past couple of years, Michael Lapinski has a distinctive style that, for Feeding Ground, manifests itself in bright colors — purple, magenta, orange — and woodcut-like lines. I love when humor meets horror, such as in this image, which at first glance appears to be merely the head of a rabbit piñata. But when you notice that the paper “entrails” of the bunny are being swarmed by flies, a much darker element surfaces.

Flashpoint: Deadman and the Flying Graysons #1, by Cliff Chiang and Jared K. Fletcher
That Green Lantern banner rears its ugly head again, distracting from the otherwise terrific take on a classic circus poster by artist Cliff Chiang and letterer Jared K. Fletcher.

The Goon, Vol. 5 (second edition), by Eric Powell
To be honest, I’m not sure what I can say about Eric Powell’s new cover for the second edition of The Goon: Wicked Inclinations. It’s just beautiful.

Green Wake #7, by Riley Rossmo
I find myself drawn into this haunting Riley Rossmo cover for Green Wake, the supernatural murder mystery from Image’s Shadowline imprint. The white silhouettes give the children a ghostly appearance, marred by the blood dripping from their mouths — or where there mouths would be — and down their shirts. Are they all being led to the gallows, or are they executing their sibling or classmate? And what about the man with the creepy white spectacles and impossibly long scarf? There are just so many questions …

Heart #1, by Kevin Mellon
For the first issue of a miniseries set in the world of Mixed Martial Arts, Kevin Mellon zeroes in on the perfect detail, capturing the bloody hand, the “Unbroken” wrist tattoo, the hurricane fence and the flash of lights from the arena crowd.

House of Mystery #38, by Esao Andrews
If the dripping (oozing?) blood that forms the conveniently placed image of rooftops and windows weren’t creepy enough, there’s the orchid in the woman’s hair, with a child-like sleeping skull at its center.

Iron Man Legacy #10, by Juan Doe
Last seen on the 2009 list, Juan Doe returns with this well-designed cover that places Iron Man at the center of the clock. I particularly like the retro-style dot pattern applied to Tony’s head.

iZombie #20, by Michael Allred
With all of its type and floating heads, this cover would be a disaster in the hands of a lesser artist. But Mike Allred pulls it off, delivering a terrific ode to old-school teen magazines.

Morning Glories #15, by Rodin Esquejo
As I noted last year, early into the series, Rodin Esquejo has found a way to perfectly translate to the covers the feelings of paranoia and claustrophobia the permeate Morning Glories. Here the branches and shadows are perfectly placed, drawing us to the watchful, and slightly menacing, eyes at the heart of the image.

Northlanders #45, by Massimo Carnevale
Ah, how I’ll miss Massimo Carnevale’s beautifully painted covers for Brian Wood’s Viking-era epic. For the cover of Part 4 of “The Icelandic Trilogy,” subtitled “Conversion,” Carnevale cleverly contrasts the cross in the Norseman’s hand with the symbol of the old religion on his helmet.

Ozma of Oz #5, by Skottie Young
There’s an almost-infectious sense of whimsy to Skottie Young’s Oz work, perhaps no more so than in this illustration of pint-sized blue gnomes climbing the book’s logo for the cover of Ozma of Oz #5.

Power Girl #26, by Sami Basri
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this cover, which depicts Kara trying to push her way through a throng of cosplayers at the first Power Girl Convention. It’s one of those rare times we get to see “superheroines” of varying shapes and sizes.

PunisherMAX #12, by Dave Johnson
For my money, Dave Johnson’s covers for PunisherMAX have been every bit as good as his epic, celebrated run on Vertigo’s 100 Bullets. With this cover, everything works — the white space, the shadows, the dripping blood, the skeleton key (har!).

Red Skull: Incarnate #2, by David Aja
A talented artist with an eye for design, David Aja stretched his muscles with this miniseries, approaching the five covers as if they were Nazi newspapers and propaganda posters of the pre-war era. His research paid off, resulting in slick, eye-catching images that look as if they could be found in the dusty archives of a library (at least if you ignore the guy with the rather obvious red skull).

Robert Bloch’s That Hellbound Train #1, by Dave Wachter
For the adaptation of the 1958 deal-with-the-Devil short story, Dave Wachter goes with a looming sinister locomotive — it’s black in the original version but red here — billowing otherwordly steam that takes the form of an ominous skull (unfortunately mostly obscured by the logo).

Rocketeer Adventures #1, by Alex Ross
If you’re looking to have your hero portrayed, well, heroically, you really can’t do much better than Alex Ross. That combination of photorealism, noble pose and Hollywood lighting pushes all the right nostalgia buttons, making him ideal to tackle Dave Stevens’ beloved homage to classic matinee heroes.

Secret Avengers #18, by David Aja
David Aja delivers an atypical cover that displays a surprising feeling of motion as the dual image and purposely out-of-register color evokes an old film reel. We’re seeing a moment in time, rather than a posed snapshot, as Shang Chi’s blurred fist seemingly disappears into his opponent’s face,  like two frames from a Bruce Lee movie.

Spaceman #3, by Dave Johnson
Dave Johnson is nothing if not versatile, recalling 1950s science fiction novels in his covers for Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s series about a hulking man genetically engineered by NASA to live and work on Mars.

Spider-Island: I Love New York City #1, by Mike Del Mundo
While Mike Del Mundo’s cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #666, the start of the “Spider-Island” storyline, was much more somber, for this tie-in he plays up the lighthearted aspect, with New Yorkers enjoying their new-found spider-powers. A cat even gets in on the act.

The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #2, by Tradd Moore
There’s just enough humor in the faces of the onlookers to diffuse the horror of the students’ see-through skins, exposing the musculature beneath. But the neatest aspect of the cover may be in the coloring: amid all the reds, Luther, basked in cool blue, remains the center of attention.

The Unwritten #29, by Yuko Shimizu
Yuko Shimizu’s entire run on Vertigo’s The Unwritten has been stellar; I can’t think of a single one of her covers that didn’t fire on all cylinders. For the third part of the “On to Genesis” storyline, which takes Tom Taylor to the 1930s, Shimizu channels the pulps of the era. The cover blurbs really clinch the deal.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, by Carl Barks and Jacob Covey
Fantagraphics Books’ lead designer Jacob Covey carries over the color palette from the interior pages — lots of cyans and yellows in those old strips, recolored for the collection by Rich Tommaso — for this sophisticated but playful cover to a volume that includes Carl Barks’ favorite Donald Duck story.

Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island, by Floyd Gottfredson and Jacob Covey
I could’ve just as easily used the cover of Vol. 1, “Race to Death Valley,” to represent designer Jacob Covey’s refreshing and modern-yet-somehow-still-classic packaging for Floyd Gottfredson’s nearly 80-year-old comic strips, but an elated Horace Horsecollar trumps an anguished Mickey Mouse any day.

Wonder Woman #3, by Cliff Chiang
For the issue that demolishes Diana’s decades-old origin — the one in which she was molded from clay by her mother Hippolyta and given life by the gods — Cliff Chiang shatters a statue of the Amazonian princess.

Zatanna #13, by Adam Hughes
Adam Hughes had done his homework, transforming the imagery of early 20th-century magic posters — the Devil, laughing skeleton, numbers, child-like demons — into something thoroughly modern and, given Zatanna’s stage career, apropos.

Jim Steranko's "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." Christmas card

Tom Brevoort, Marvel’s senior vice president of publishing, has begun digging into his archives for The Marvel Age of Comics, his new Tumblr blog devoted to “rarities and original art from the formative days of Marvel.” It launched just yesterday, and there’s already some terrific images, including a page of original art from 1941′s Captain America Comics #6, John Byrne’s character sheet for Kitty Pryde and, above, Jim Steranko’s Christmas card from when he was working on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Any doubts regarding the accuracy of reports about DC Comics’ long-rumored plans for Watchmen prequels may have eroded over the weekend with the emergence of character art by J.G. Jones and Joe Kubert and Andy Kubert.

Bleeding Cool characterizes the illustrations of Nite Owl and The Comedian as cover art for the projects, purportedly being assembled under the code name “Panic Room,” but considering the characters’ names are written on the pages, it seems more likely they’re concept designs.

The four prequels to the seminal 1986 miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are said to also involve Darwyn Cooke, J. Michael Straczynski, John Higgins and even Gibbons himself. Cooke, however, seemed to dismiss reports he was working on one of the miniseries, telling CBR News recently, “Ah, get out, man. That’s like three years old.”

Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | A committee recommended Monday that Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age, an anthology of comics about middle school edited by Ariel Schrag, should remain in the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School library in Dixfield, Maine, after the mother of a student challenged its appropriateness because of “objectionable sexual and language references.” The local school board will make a final ruling in January. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom sent a letter of support for the book prior to the hearing. A school board in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, pulled the graphic novel from middle-school libraries in November 2009, but allowed teachers to continue to use it in class. [Sun Journal]

Digital | Charlie Sorrel looks at the iPad comic reader called, appropriately enough, Comic Reader. [Wired]

From "Foul Play"

Creators | Cartoonist Jack Davis looks back on his lengthy career, the influence of Harvey Kurtzman, and the dislike for his own Tales From the Crypt stories, like “Foul Play,” which became one of Frederic Werthem’s targets in Seduction of the Innocent: “I have a hang-up. I love horror. I love ghost stories, but when it comes to illustrating it for thousands and thousands of young people to see it, I don’t go along with it. I think that happened, and I didn’t know it was happening at the time. I just knew that I would go in and I’d get a check and pick up a script and go home and do it. I sat in a little room and did this horrible baseball story, and it made the Senate [hearings] and everywhere. People liked it but I didn’t. I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ To this day I love all the people at Mad, but Mad had changed. It’s not like it used to be. It has some very good artists but their philosophy is not mine.” [The A.V. Club]

Creators | Larry Gonick talks about his long career creating nonfiction comics and his latest magnum opus The Cartoon Guide to Calculus. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Brilliant! Tragic!

Creators | Jamie McKelvie’s illustration for Art Brut’s album Brilliant! Tragic! is among Paste Magazine‘s 50 Best Album Covers of 2011. [Paste]

Creators | Health Care Reform artist Nathan Schreiber is profiled by his hometown newspaper. [The Milford Daily News]

Craft | Kevin Huizenga shares one of the templates he uses for drawing a comics page: “I draw most of my comics — the Ganges stories, especially — with 4 rows. When I’m starting a new story I usually print a few of these out on copy paper and sketch on them. Sometimes I figure out a page pretty much exactly right the first time, but often it takes a few tries. Or I’ll just sketch scenes and characters in the boxes and not worry about where each panel is going to go until later. For a few years now I’ve worked this way and it’s become second nature.” [New Construction]

DC Comics has unveiled Jim Lee’s T-shirt design for Free Comic Book Day 2012 featuring the current lineup of the Justice League. The image is an homage to a classic Justice League of America illustration by José Luis García-López, which you can see below.

The T-shirts will be available for order in January’s Previews catalog, with proceeds benefiting promotional efforts for FCBD.

Amethyst by Renae De Liz

With Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld apparently making her way to the television screen via Cartoon Network’s upcoming DC Nation cartoon block, it seems like the perfect time for a revival of the comic book. And if DC Comics needs a creator for it, they need look no further than Renae De Liz.

De Liz, artist of IDW’s Servants of the Bones and one of the folks behind the Womanthology project, has been sharing Amethyst artwork for awhile now on her blog. Robot 6 contributor Chris Arrant posted some of it on Project: Rooftop, which led to a discussion in CBR’s forums about it.

And it sounds like De Liz not only has the artistic talents to bring everyone’s favorite Gem-themed princess back to comics, but she also has a story. “Yes! PLEASE let me revamp Amethyst! I have a great story in mind!” she tweeted earlier today. You can see some of her sequential pages over on her blog.

The December issue of GQ magazine features “For God and Country,” a comic by Matt Fraction, Nathan Fox and Jeremy Cox described as “an illustrated account” of the May 2 raid by Navy SEALs on the compound of Osama bin Laden.

The magazine’s website includes annotations by Fraction and Fox, with the writer noting, “The original editorial directive was to tell the story from OBL’s perspective but, aside from not caring to get inside the man’s head, the more I researched that night, the more in awe I became of the DEVGRU/Seal operators who performed the raid — and the more I decided their story demanded telling, too.”